A Smart Link allows you to easily package and share content from within your Sales Navigator workflow, track viewing behavior, and gain insights on what your prospects and customers are most interested in.
Review these frequently asked questions to learn more about Smart Links:
You must have a Sales Navigator Advanced or Advanced Plus account to access Smart Links. All Smart Links senders are LinkedIn members and Sales Navigator customers; therefore, they are required to abide by all policies outlined in the LinkedIn User Agreement.
Presentations can be viewed by anyone that accesses a Smart Links URL. This includes LinkedIn members and non-LinkedIn members. Non-LinkedIn members are asked to identify themselves with a name and optional email address prior to viewing a presentation.
To access Smart Links:
Sign in to Sales Navigator.
Click Smart Links at the top of your homepage.
The subsequent screen displays all the Smart Links that you have created. From this screen, you can create new Smart Links, and you can preview, modify, delete or view analytics for the Smart Links you have previously created.
No. Smart Links is a feature inside of Sales Navigator and requires the appropriate Sales Navigator license/seat for access.
Not at this time. Smart Links is available to all users on contracts that have enabled the feature.
Admin-only users do not have access to Smart Links.
All user Smart Links presentations and insights are associated with the unique Sales Navigator ‘seat’ and are only accessible by the user while they exist on the contract. If a seat is disabled, external viewers will no longer be able to view presentations.
If a user has multiple Sales Navigator contracts, he or she will be viewed as having multiple Smart Links users. Smart Links data will not be shared across the multiple contracts.
If you're an admin, you can enable or disable Smart Links for all users on the contract from your Admin Settings page. However, there's no option to restrict access to certain users.
Learn more
You are able to turn off Smart Links for your contract in the Admin Settings panel. This will disable access to Smart Links for all users on the contract as well as disable access to any presentation viewers.
All Smart Links are mobile friendly and can be viewed by buyers on their mobile device.
You can also view your previously created Smart Links, and their associated viewer activity, on the Sales Navigator mobile app. However, the ability to create Smart Links isn't currently supported on the Sales Navigator mobile app.
Smart Links created by users no longer on a Sales Navigator account won't be accessible by anyone on the contract, or viewable by anyone who had previously received the Smart Link.
If your seat is transferred to a new contract, the Smart Links associated with the seat are automatically transferred to the new contract.
Here are some details to keep in mind when an account is disabled:
If a user disables their Sales Navigator account, the shared links to their Smart Links content can't be accessed.
If a user then reactivates the account under the same contract, the Smart Links content will be made available.
If a user reactivates the account under a new contract, the Smart Links content from their old account can no longer be accessed.
If a license is revoked, any Smart Links created by the former license holder will no longer be accessible (whether it has already been shared or not). This is to prevent stale Smart Links from living on indefinitely.
As a Sales Navigator user, you can now:
Only if a Sales Navigator user has posted a Smart Links presentation link publicly on the internet. Smart Links URLs can only be shared by the presentation creator. LinkedIn prevents scraping and crawling of the Smart Links application, and Smart Links URLs, by public search engines.
You must have a Sales Navigator Advanced or Advanced Plus account type to access Smart Links.
In addition to content like PPTs and PDFs (each with a page limit of 300), you can now add URLs and YouTube videos (limit of 30 minutes) to your Smart Links presentations and share them. You can also track views on the Smart Links.
Anyone can receive Smart Links as they can be shared via Sales Navigator, InMail, or email.
When your buyer receives your email or InMail, they'll be able to click the unique link to access your Smart Link. If they're logged into LinkedIn, they'll be prompted with a welcome screen, where they'll click Agree and View to enter. If the viewer isn't logged into LinkedIn, they will be prompted to do so, or asked to provide their first name, last name, and email address.
The buyer's Smart Link view is what you see when you preview a link. All users have to self-identify before viewing the link, which means you will always know who your viewers are when you look at Smart Link analytics later.
To share a Smart Link:
Sign in to Sales Navigator.
From the Smart Links tab, locate the Smart Link you wish to share.
Move your mouse over the Smart Link and click Copy Link.
The link will automatically be added to your clipboard, or you can copy the URL from the box that appears.
Share the copied link via Sales Navigator, InMail, chat, or email.
Yes. Users can update the content in their Smart Link at any time.
To share a Smart Link:
Sign in to the Sales Navigator mobile app.
Click
Locate the Smart Link you’d like to share, and click
Select if you’d like to:
To create a Smart Link:
Sign in to Sales Navigator.
Click Smart Links at the top of your homepage.
Click
Enter your title and click
You can add as many files as you'd like to this Smart Link by clicking
To add videos to your Smart Links, click
To allow recipients to download the files, select the Enable recipient to download viewable files checkbox.
Click Create.
Yes. Users can update the content in their Smart Link at any time.
To create a Smart Link in an InMail:
Compose an InMail message from either your Sales Navigator Inbox, or a prospect’s profile.
At the bottom of the message, click
In the Create Smart Link panel:
When all files have been added, click Insert.
The Smart Link will automatically be added to your message and saved to the Smart Links tab.
Learn more
To update a Smart Link:
Sign in to Sales Navigator.
Click Smart Links at the top of your homepage.
Move your mouse over the Smart Link and click
From the dropdown that appears, click Modify.
From the Modify Smart Link page, you can:
When modifications are complete, click Modify.
You can add up to 15 files per Smart Link. Each file within the Smart Link can be up to 200 MB in size.
Viewable and trackable file types (these will show in the Smart Links viewer):
Microsoft Word
Microsoft PowerPoint
Images (PNG, JPEG, and GIF with a 250 frame limit)
Video
Download-only file types (these will be downloadable from the viewer, but not viewable):
TIFF Image file
Microsoft Excel
Apple Keynote
Apple Pages
Apple Numbers
Zip files
CSV
TXT
No. At this time, we do not provide the ability for users to password-protect their Smart Links presentations.
To preview a Smart Link:
Sign in to Sales Navigator.
From the Smart Links tab, locate the Smart Link you wish to preview.
Move your mouse over the Smart Link and click
From the dropdown that appears, click Preview.
No. At this time, we do not provide the ability to disable downloads.
No. At this time, we do not provide the ability to set expiry dates for Smart Links URLs.
No, not at this time. Smart Links can be shared in a variety of ways, including email messages. Although users cannot prevent their viewers from forwarding on an email message to another party, Smart Links will indicate the identity of any new viewer, so users can decide the best course of action.
No, not at this time. Each Smart Links presentation has a unique link that grants access to any viewer.
Smart Links adheres to LinkedIn’s member’s first policies and specifically supports the member blocking rules as defined in the LinkedIn member blocking policy. Smart Links does not, however, prevent a recipient from knowing who the sender/owner of a presentation is.
Related tasks
Smart Links analytics give you real-time information about how your recipients are engaging with your content.
Learn more
To locate analytics on your Smart Link:
Sign in to Sales Navigator.
Click Smart Links at the top of your homepage.
From the Smart Links tab, locate the Smart Link you wish to view analytics for.
Move your mouse over the Smart Link and click Analytics.
Usage Reports in Sales Navigator reflect the following Smart Links details:
Learn more
To enable CRM Sync:
Sign in to Sales Navigator.
Navigate to Admin Home, and click Admin Settings.
Click CRM Settings in the left rail.
From the CRM Settings section, click Show more.
Below Enable Sales Navigator data to sync back to your CRM?, check the box next to either:
Your selection will be automatically saved and Smart Links will sync back to your CRM.
To initiate CRM Writeback for Smart Links, you must first ensure that the admin has enabled CRM writeback for an account. Then, you can initiate CRM writeback when you create new contacts in your CRM directly within Sales Navigator, and automatically enable activity writeback in your CRM for Smart Links.
The CRM writeback event should be triggered at the same time as a Smart Link email notification or home page alert. That is, one per viewing session, unless the same viewer initiated a viewing session less than 60 minutes ago.
| Field Name | Information |
| Assigned To | The owner of the Smart Link's name in the CRM |
| Comments | Smart Link Analytics URL for the specific Smart Link |
| Created By | Admin user |
| Due Date | The date that the event occurred |
| Last Modified By | Admin user |
| Name | A link to the contact/lead record that the Smart Link viewer matched to |
| Priority | Normal |
| Status | "Completed" if matched to a CRM contact/lead, otherwise it should be "In Progress" so the salesperson can manually make the match |
| Subject | Smart Link View from Sales Navigator - [SMART LINK TITLE] |
| Task Record Type | Smart Links Viewed |
| Field Name | Information |
| Activity Record Type | Smart Link Viewed |
| Activity Status | Completed if matched to a CRM contact/lead, otherwise it should be In Progress so the salesperson can manually make the match |
| Actual Start | Date that the event occurred |
| Created By | The owner of the Smart Link's name in the CRM |
| Date Created | Date that the event occurred |
| Regarding | A link to the contact/lead record that the Smart Link viewer matched to |
| Subject | Smart Link View from Sales Navigator - [SMART LINK TITLE] |
| URL | Smart Link Analytics URL for the specific Smart Link |
Smart Links CRM matching works with the same guidelines as other Sales Navigator matching.
If a viewer is matched to a CRM record, the activity will be logged in association with the relevant contact/lead record.
If the viewer is not matched to a CRM record, the activity will be logged generally, and a manual match can be created later.
Yes, LinkedIn is the processor of this data and acts on behalf of the customer. LinkedIn honors requests from customers to delete SmartLinks data.
To add and view the privacy policy attached to Smart Links:
Sign in to Sales Navigator.
Click Admin and select Admin Settings.
In the left rail, click Smart Links.
In the Smart Links section, toggle the Turn on Smart Links option to On.
In the Company privacy policy section, enter the URL of your organization’s policy.
When a link is populated in this field, the privacy policy will appear as a hyperlink on the opt-in page for any Smart Link that’s shared by a user on their contract.