đ Hey, Iâm George Chasiotis. Welcome to GrowthWaves, your weekly dose of B2B growth insightsâfeaturing powerful case studies, emerging trends, and unconventional strategies you wonât find anywhere else.
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Last week, LinkedIn cracked down on another sales tech tool.
And I say âone moreâ because Amplemarket isnât the first tool LinkedIn has decided to ban.
Most people think the ban has to do with LinkedInâs ToS, and that these tools look the other way when it comes to compliance.
I think the truth is a bit more nuanced.
Why do sales tools keep getting banned?
A few months ago, LinkedIn banned Apollo and Seamless AIâs company pages from its platform.
Tim Zheng, Founder and CEO at Apollo, shared an update five days after the ban:
The post focused on how the ban might affect Apolloâs data quality.
According to Tim, thereâs no such impact.
Still, it made sense to address itâthatâs what customers wanted to know.
Because the assumption is that tools like Apollo rely heavily on LinkedIn data.
And that in most cases, this data is acquired using scraping techniques that donât comply with LinkedInâs ToS.
So far, so good.
A few weeks ago, another LinkedIn tool went under.
This time, Aware (domain: useaware.co) had to say goodbye to its customer base and audience.
This wasnât a (simple) LinkedIn company page ban.
It was a âcomply or dieâ ultimatum that, per the CEO, led them to shut down.
But, of course, Apollo, Seamless AI, and more recently Aware arenât the only tools that lost the battle against the tech behemoth that is LinkedIn.
Taplio, another tool promising magic for LinkedIn users, also had its page taken down.
After all that, this happened:
Now, yet another sales toolâs LinkedIn page is gone.
I tried searching for the founderâs profile (Luis Batalha), but I canât find it.
Which means thereâs a high chance he was banned too.
Ouch.
Thatâs not a bootstrapped and proud company.
This is a company that raised a Series A in April 2022, which means it most likely has a board, with participationâbesides overpriced advisors who donât do or know shitâfrom its investors.
Which means:
Its board, and more specifically, its investors, should have been aware of the company's data-gathering practices.
Look, Iâm not saying that they got punished because theyâre doing something wrong.
After all, as of writing this note, there hasnât been an official announcement by the company.
But the pattern is clear.
Sales tools standing on LinkedInâs shoulders to provide B2B sales data to their customers and getting a slap on the wrist for it.
Iâm not judging, and I certainly donât know the inner workings of these tools.
I also donât imply that LinkedIn is right here. (In fact, theyâre wrong on many different levels.)
Right or wrong, it doesnât matter.
They have the leverage, and they do things their way.
Which brings me to the most important question:
Why?
Thatâs (possibly) why
Go check them comments in the posts I shared.
Most people assume that all these bans have to do with LinkedIn ToS.
While in some instances thatâs true (e.g., Awareâs former CEO mentioned the companyâs inability to comply with LinkedInâs ToS), that may not always be the case.
I mean, letâs be honest:
SaaS companies (especially VC-backed and under the gun to grow âsuper fastâ ones) are no saints.
They have to move fast, even if they break some things along the way.
This is why these companies are often looking for hacks.
And, sure, on their quest to acquire the â1x Exitâ badge for their LinkedIn headline, they may take some shortcuts.
But, if you think about it, that wouldnât be a problem for LinkedIn, since in the final analysis, these toolsâeven though piratesâtheyâre also customers.
They use the productâs API, pay for it, and, of course, may spend money on LinkedIn advertising, and generally re-enforce the creation of an ecosystem in which LinkedIn plays a prominent role.
So, why?
The answer may be simpler than most people think:
1) Content
LinkedIn has to deal with millions of AI-generated words, which explains why you see 3-week-old posts on your feed.
Cracking down on some of these tools (e.g., Taplio) is their way of fighting the issue at its root.
(Itâs not, because people will still use AI for writing content, but I wonât expand on that.)
Above all, LinkedIn wants authentic, human-written content on its platform.
2) Monetization
Itâs obvious that LinkedIn is becoming a pay-to-play platform.
My feed nowadays looks almost like the feed that pushed me away from Facebook back in the day.
Other users report having a similar experience.
The thing is, LinkedIn doesnât want there to be shortcuts (e.g., auto commenting) because that impacts their ability to monetize users who struggle with organic reach and have to pay for Thought Leader Ads, Sales Navigator, LinkedIn Premium, etc.
To put it simply (from LinkedInâs standpoint): âOur users will pay for our tools and not for yours.â
3) Data
LinkedIn has one of the best (if not the best) B2B databases worldwide.
Do you think theyâll let a tool that promises B2B sales awesomeness steal its MOAT, regardless of how much they pay for API credits?
Yeah, I donât think so.
I canât blame them regarding this one.
The problem is that in this âwar against companies that steal our precious data,â some companies that play by LinkedInâs own rules will also have to pick up the bill.
And, as an entrepreneur, thatâs not something I like.
Ultimately, I donât see any of these 3 reasons getting better for sales and automation tools.
Weâll see more âfrom 0 to $5M ARRâ tools disappearing overnight, as LinkedIn gets more and more protective over its MOAT and assertive as to how the game should be played.
Final thoughts
So, what does all this mean to you?
Well, platform risk, on a product or an audience level, is real.
On LinkedIn, things are getting tougher.
If you had thoughts about de-resking, now is a good time to do it.
Iâm doing the same, by the way.
Thatâs one reason I write these notes every Tuesday.
Thank you for reading todayâs note, and see you again next week.