D&B Hoovers vs. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
D&B Hoovers
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
D&B Hoovers delivers sales intelligence data for millions of companies globally.N/A
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is a recently (2015) expanded marketing platform for reaching audiences through the popular Linkedin work-oriented social network that includes modules like the Lead Accelerator (supporting segmentation features to improve conversion), Sponsored Updates, LinkedIn Onsite Display, LinkedIn Network Display, and Sponsored InMail. While still at its core a social marketing engine, Linkedin Marketing Solutions now presents a more comprehensive B2B advertising platform. The…N/A
Pricing
D&B HooversLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
D&B HooversLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
D&B HooversLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Features
D&B HooversLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Prospecting
Comparison of Prospecting features of Product A and Product B
D&B Hoovers
8.2
72 Ratings
8% above category average
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
-
Ratings
Advanced search8.468 Ratings00 Ratings
Identification of new leads8.064 Ratings00 Ratings
List quality7.769 Ratings00 Ratings
List upload/download8.864 Ratings00 Ratings
Ideal customer targeting7.860 Ratings00 Ratings
Load time/data access8.368 Ratings00 Ratings
Sales Intelligence Data Standards
Comparison of Sales Intelligence Data Standards features of Product A and Product B
D&B Hoovers
8.0
72 Ratings
6% above category average
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
-
Ratings
Contact information6.864 Ratings00 Ratings
Company information8.971 Ratings00 Ratings
Industry information8.270 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Augmentation & Lead Qualification
Comparison of Data Augmentation & Lead Qualification features of Product A and Product B
D&B Hoovers
8.0
69 Ratings
8% above category average
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
-
Ratings
Lead qualification process7.044 Ratings00 Ratings
Smart lists and recommendations7.353 Ratings00 Ratings
Salesforce integration8.737 Ratings00 Ratings
Company/business profiles9.065 Ratings00 Ratings
Alerts and reminders8.047 Ratings00 Ratings
Data hygiene7.854 Ratings00 Ratings
Automatic data refresh7.748 Ratings00 Ratings
Tags8.039 Ratings00 Ratings
Filters and segmentation8.252 Ratings00 Ratings
Sales Intelligence Email Features
Comparison of Sales Intelligence Email Features features of Product A and Product B
D&B Hoovers
8.8
30 Ratings
15% above category average
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
-
Ratings
Sales email templates10.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Append emails to records7.630 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
D&B HooversLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Small Businesses
Lead411
Lead411
Score 9.1 out of 10
WordStream Advisor
WordStream Advisor
Score 7.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Lead411
Lead411
Score 9.1 out of 10
WordStream Advisor
WordStream Advisor
Score 7.0 out of 10
Enterprises
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Score 8.5 out of 10
Sprinklr Marketing
Sprinklr Marketing
Score 7.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
D&B HooversLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(77 ratings)
8.1
(46 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.5
(8 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.6
(5 ratings)
8.6
(6 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
D&B HooversLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Likelihood to Recommend
Dun & Bradstreet
If you are looking for a data provider with pretty good company profiles Hoovers is a great choice. They are NOT a leader in contact data. If you are looking for the best data provider for contact data, maybe not your best choice, but if you want to be able to be able to analyze all past clients or prospects to develop a "best fit" prospect profile, Hoover could be a useful tool If you are looking for a data provider to get direct phones, direct emails and every employee at a locations this is not the best option
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LinkedIn
Although it offered great features, we didn't really see a lot of traffic or results from the ads we placed. Working in hospitality, we had to strategically time and place our ads around holiday seasons and it can be difficult to predict a marketing campaign. Depending on your market, LinkedIn may not be the best avenue to advertise with.
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Pros
Dun & Bradstreet
  • allows you to search within broad industry categories or very detailed subcategories using a variety of methods (NAICS, SIC, D&B's internal coding system, keywords, etc.)
  • Has a variety of personnel that you can view and sort by level, name, or email availability.
  • Oftentimes emails for C-level personnel cannot be located on the company website or easily found elsewhere online.
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LinkedIn
  • Targeting - they have done a great job of allowing you speak to ideal audiences
  • Support - dedicated customer service and account advising is always accessible and very responsive
  • Curation of professional audiences - one of the biggest advantages to the platform is that its users are for the most part are professional
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Cons
Dun & Bradstreet
  • We should be able to "exclude" words from titles or company names
  • Able to access titles and email addresses more easily - not look at list first, select find matching contacts button, then go back to sort to add titles contain and email addresses, etc. This is a two-step process to get what I need.
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LinkedIn
  • The Campaign Manager is not good. It seems like the Campaign Manager (where you create and manage your self-serve ad campaigns) is buggy and doesn't have a good flow. Contrast with FB Ad Manager of the Google Adwords/Ads interface, which has a much more simple process to create and edits campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords, audiences, budgets, etc. LinkedIn Campaign Manager seems to actively work against you trying to make changes to your campaigns.
  • LinkedIn Campaign Manager offers three options: sponsored content, InMail, and text ads. LinkedIn used to offer other ad services that you couldn't access unless you had a "managed ad account" run by LinkedIn Staff with a dedicated monthly ad spend. It seems most of those "hidden" features have disappeared, though you still have to contract with LinkedIn to offer dynamic ads. It would be better if LinkedIn empowered marketers to create the ads they want. (Perhaps with a dedicated acct. manager like how Google Ads works.)
  • This is silly, but it isn't easy to navigate to Campaign Manager. I have a bookmark for Campaign Manager because if you want to click there through LinkedIn, it takes 2 or 3 different screens to get to Campaign Manager. In my opinion, when you click the "Work" dropdown from the LinkedIn header (by your profile picture) you should have a link to Campaign Manager.
  • LinkedIn, in recent months, has made substantial changes to the Ads platform and Campaign Manager. Though these changes work to address some of the above issues, LinkedIn still has quite a ways to go before their platform is on par with their competition.
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Likelihood to Renew
Dun & Bradstreet
Hoover's just isn't compelling for the types of information they provide and the pricing model. But again, this is from the very limited perspective of a below entry level analyst who is just finishing their studies. It is probable that for some segments of industry, Hoover's has vast wealth of pertinent information. For example, when looking into agricultural industries for a consulting firm, I did not save any time with their service because information on factory locations and assets was scant. Using Google earth to view the square footage of the facilities to estimate assets was often more helpful.
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LinkedIn
No answers on this topic
Usability
Dun & Bradstreet
Because it's easy to use
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LinkedIn
in terms of promoted content reporting and usability, the platform is not as flexible or easy to use compared to more established social platforms like Facebook. However, it does offer plug-ins to Google Data Studio which makes pulling and manipulating data easier. My main usability gripe comes when looking at organic performance of a company page. There isn't an easy way to export organic performance data.
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Reliability and Availability
Dun & Bradstreet
Always available on desktop or mobile.
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LinkedIn
No answers on this topic
Performance
Dun & Bradstreet
Meets our needs
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LinkedIn
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Dun & Bradstreet
They are terrific at giving instruction/webinars. I am able to call, directly, to an individual and talk to that person. I'm not talking to a robot. They give personal service which is really special.
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LinkedIn
So, everything what I just said previously adds up to the value of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. Definitely recommending it to a friend. It has its things to improve but its nothing major or nothing to worry about. So I give a 9 because it still has that, some user interface glitches that can be improved but do not damage the experience that you have with it.
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Implementation Rating
Dun & Bradstreet
I was not part of the implementation as that stayed with Dev team.
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LinkedIn
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Dun & Bradstreet
The company information provided by D & B hoovers is extremely in-depth and in detail, the accuracy of the information provided gives a very good idea about the prospective company and helps in making cohorts and evaluation fit. As compared to other companies D & B hoovers is not as efficient in detecting buyer intent which other tools like Slintel are very good at. D & B Hoovers gives amazing company info however it can improve on sharing information about buyer intent. Sales Navigator by far provides extremely accurate information with is almost 100% accurate. However, Navigator does not provide buyer intent information.
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LinkedIn
If you want more precision in B2B targeting, then LinkedIn is without question the better alternative. However, as I established before, I've rarely seen LinkedIn campaigns be successful for anything other than brand awareness/thought leadership. And that's almost 100% what Twitter is for. Twitter campaigns almost always have a cheaper CPC AND CPM than LinkedIn and accomplish the same thing, so I would say go with Twitter. At times LinkedIn campaigns are just so you can tell someone at a higher level that you did precise targeting to the exact audience they wanted and check that box, because it's easier for them to understand how you'd do well on LinkedIn, and more difficult to tell that story on Twitter. But I honestly prefer Twitter and its platform for B2B awareness campaigns. Heretic, I know, but it's how I feel after several years of experience with both. Facebook is bottom of the barrel for B2B in my mind, so I'm not really going to discuss it. I would take LinkedIn over Facebook for many reasons, but Facebook is an option too, but more for SMB and just covering all bases, not as a primary choice for B2B marketing.
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Scalability
Dun & Bradstreet
We're a small company with few users, so scalability has not been an issue.
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LinkedIn
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Dun & Bradstreet
  • Honestly cannot say we really drove any new sales using D&B Hoovers to prospect new companies and leads. We obtained higher data quality with other tools like ZoomInfo and Skrapp.
  • A year long contract that isn't honored on their side due to lack of customer service and poor data quality definitely does not equal ROI.
  • Spent significant time sanitizing and cleansing inaccurate data provided by their service. Since time is money in business, that was a loss in that aspect.
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LinkedIn
  • We have seen a marked increase in inbound agent calls since we began LinkedIn marketing.
  • LinkedIn marketing is an excellent way to put your content in front of people that are actually going to read it, this has led to a major increase in our content being consumed and acted on.
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ScreenShots

D&B Hoovers Screenshots

Screenshot of D&B Hoovers dashboardScreenshot of D&B Hoovers company profileScreenshot of D&B Hoovers contact resultsScreenshot of D&B Hoovers Visitor Intelligence