ICP Search: finding leads by ideal customer profile

ICP Search lets you describe your ideal customer in plain English and find LinkedIn profiles that match. It uses semantic search to understand what you mean, not just keyword matching.

How ICP Search works

Instead of selecting filters from dropdowns, you write a natural language description of who you want to find. LinkDeal's AI understands:

• Job functions and seniority levels
• Company characteristics (size, stage, industry)
• Technologies used
• Geographic locations
• Behavioural signals

The search returns profiles ranked by how well they match your description.

Writing a good ICP description

The more specific your description, the better your results. Include:

Job characteristics:

• "VP of Sales or Head of Revenue"
• "Marketing managers, not directors or executives"
• "Individual contributors in customer success"

Company characteristics:

• "At B2B SaaS companies with 50-200 employees"
• "At Series A or B startups"
• "In the fintech or insurtech space"

Technology signals:

• "Companies using Salesforce and HubSpot"
• "Teams that have adopted AI tools"

Location:

• "Based in the UK or Europe"
• "In the United States, preferably East Coast"

See How to write a great ICP description for detailed examples.

Search modes

ICP Search offers three modes:

Hybrid (default): Combines semantic understanding with keyword matching. Best for most use cases.

Semantic: Pure AI understanding of meaning. Good for conceptual descriptions like "people who care about sales efficiency".

Lexical: Traditional keyword matching. Use when you need exact phrase matches.

Stick with Hybrid unless you have a specific reason to change.

Match quality

Each result shows a match quality indicator:

• Excellent - strong alignment with your description
• Good - solid match with minor gaps
• Fair - partial match, may need manual review

Focus outreach on Excellent and Good matches first.

Results to return

You can choose how many results to return (10, 25, 50, or 100). Start with 25 to evaluate quality, then increase if results look good.

ICP Search costs 5 credits flat regardless of results returned.

ICP Search vs Post Engagement

ICP Search advantages:

• Finds people matching profile characteristics
• Does not require them to have engaged recently
• Good for exploring new segments

Post Engagement advantages:

• Shows active engagement signals
• Indicates current interest and timing
• Often warmer for immediate outreach

Many users combine both: use ICP Search to build a target list, then monitor those companies with Post Engagement.