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Hi, Community members!

 

As you all know, Smart Links is one of our latest Q1 features and today I want to share some additional details and tips on how you can leverage this new product implementation.

 

Users will be able to easily package and share content via link created in Sales Navigator which will track viewing behavior, and gain insights on what your prospects and customers are most interested in.

 

Here's how users can further benefit from leveraging Smart Links:

 

 

 

Latest Smart Links Updates:

 

  • Understand how buyers are engaging with your content

Get real-time insights on how recipients are engaging with your content, that can be used to determine interest, personalize follow-ups, and identify other stakeholders in the decision-making process. Stay up-to-date with Alerts when someone views your Smart Links. Additionally, you can change titles associated with content in your Smart Links presentations and access recently added signaling reporting flow to the Smart Links viewer.

 

analytics2-2column-dsk.png.original 

  • Sales Navigator Admins are now able to manage teamwide buyer engagement with new Usage Reporting metrics

Help teams scale buyer engagement by watching trends on two new Smart Links-driven metrics: the number of Smart Links each user has created, and the number of total views for Smart Links created by each user.

Smart Links analytics give you real-time information about how your recipients are engaging with your content. Learn more about Smart Links analytics.

 

 

  • Advanced Plus plans can now writeback Smart Links activity to their CRM

Admins can enable writeback of Smart Links data, bringing key Smart Links interactions into their CRM and making it easier than ever to get an integrated view into how their team is using the Smart Links feature and how that ties to deal outcomes (CRM Sync required). *

*CRM Sync only available to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and Salesforce CRM for Sales

To enable CRM Sync:

  1. Navigate to Admin Home, and click Admin Settings.
  2. Click CRM Settings in the left rail.
  3. From the CRM Settings section, click Show more.
  4. Below Enable Sales Navigator data to sync back to your CRM?, check the box next to either:
  • Sync back all data items
    • Smart Links

 

Important details:

1. Smart Links recipients

Anyone can receive Smart Links as they can be shared via Sales Navigator, InMail, or email. You can now prevent Smart Links recipients from downloading content from your Smart Link.

 

2. Limit on the number of files Smart Links support

You can add up to 15 files per Smart Link. Each file within the Smart Link can be up to 200 MB in size. Occasionally, due to variations in operating systems, files smaller than 200 MB may fail during upload.

 

3. Create a Smart Link in an InMail

To create a Smart Link in an InMail:

  1. Compose an InMail message from either your Sales Navigator Inbox, or a prospect’s profile.
  2. At the bottom of the message, click  Link.
  3. In the Create Smart Link panel:
  • Enter a Title
    • Add files
  1. 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.

 

4. File types supported in Smart Links

Viewable file types (these will show in the Smart Links viewer):

  • mNew] In addition to content like PPTs and PDFs, you can now add URLs and YouTube videos to your Smart Links presentations and share them. You can also track views on the Smart Links.
  • PDF
  • Microsoft Word
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Images (PNG, JPEG, GIF)

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
  • Video
    • MP4
    • MOV
    • WMV
    • AVI
  • Zip files
  • CSV
  • TXT

 

5. Types of analytics you'll be able to see for your presentations

The analytics page will display bundle titles, bundle creation date, viewer name, all view events, and all download events. Viewer activity will be shown in reverse chronological order and display all the files the viewer looked at and which pages within those files were looked at, and for how long (for supported file types). Time of view and download activities will also be shown.

 

6. Access your Smart Links through your mobile

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 is not currently supported on the Sales Navigator mobile app.

 

Useful Resouces

1. This is an on-demand recording of the latest Smart Links webinar where our product experts are introducing this new solution and sharing some best practices.

 

2. Learn how to use Smart Links to understand how your prospects are engaging with your content here (important note: this is a complete Sales Navigator Quick Start Guide so, once you open the page, please scroll down to number 6 to watch this educational video)

 

3. Find out how you can leverage Smart Links to track buyer behavior here (important note: this is an Advanced Sales Navigator Tactics Learning Path, so please go to Understand Prospect Behaviour to access this content)

 

4. Read this Help Center article that includes a Smart Links overview and FAQ that will help you use this new product implementation.

 

Please share with us what you think of Smart Links and, as always, if you have additional ideas for any product improvement, please submit them via the Community's Ideas page, which you can find on the Community's top navigation bar. 

 

Thank you,

Nádia

Hi @Nadia Vieira​ , as discussed, videos is a huge hole with this!

the other big omission is not being able to link to websites

Hello, @Liam Q​.

As we launch the first version of Smart Links, we will be listening to customer feedback and using it as an input to prioritize future enhancements.

Adding additional asset types like video and URLs is something we are definitely considering.

In the meantime, you can include URLs in any document you upload to Smart Links, for example, PowerPoint, Word and PDF.

Hope this is helpful and let me know in case you have any other recommendations or questions.

Thanks,

Nádia

@Nadia Vieira​ I agree that not being able to add links and videos is a big miss. When embedding those assets into Power Point or PDF, you might lose the viewership. ​

I think this will be a huge addition to my sales process. I also wish that I would be able to send a 1-2 minute personalized video the way I can do in linkedin with my 1st connections.

I just tested it and I would prefer if it would provide the name of the file instead of the actual link to the file with a little preview of the document. That said, not sure if that would make people unsure if they should click because it's associated with LinkedIn.

 

Essentially I like all the features on my personal LinkedIn messaging and they should be accessible on Linkedin Sales Navigator. Tracking who viewed the link/document is fantastic but I care about how my message looks to the other person on the receiving end. This is why I would love to have the video option more than anything.

 

Is there a reason why there is no preview of the file within the message?

Hi, @Ksenia K​ and @Žarko C​.

Thank you so much for sharing your feedback.

First, and because I understand your both of your suggestions, I would invite you to vote the following idea in our Ideas page: ''Allow use of URLs in Smart Links.''

Some of our members are also sharing the need to be able to add URLs and, by voting for this idea, you're showing that this is also important for you and anyone within your company with a Sales Navigator license.

@Žarko C​, regarding your preference to rename Smart Links' URL and have a preview of the content, I would also invite you to share that as a product recommendation. Our product team will look into that and will share if that's something they might consider adding to their product roadmap.

Additionally, as I mentioned in my comment above, as we launch the first version of Smart Links, we will be listening to customer feedback and using it as an input to prioritize future enhancements. The more feedback you'll give us, the best, since this will help our product team prioritize the future enhancements for Smart Links.

Hope this is helpful and let me know in case you have any questions.

Thank you,

Nádia

Hello @Nadia Vieira​ I created my 1st Smart Link. I really don't understand why LK decide to delete the ability to add some link ( ex: You Tube video) as we can use it on Point Drive. We also lose the way to custom the interface with some logo or pics. This 2 main features was really appreciated by my prospect and give me an attractive presentation. I lose a main differentiator versus for exemple Uberflip. Do you think that Smart Links will evolve with this 2 features?

@Nadia Vieira​ sorry to be a downer on this, but another big omission is not being able to have text/description alongside the links like we can have on pointdrives.

We're going to move to a different solution completely for prospects, unless the additional functionality is restored before the pointdrives are removed.

 

I really don't see smartlinks as being fit for purpose currently and once people start using something else, it will be very difficult to get them to change back again.

Thanks for the feedback, @Pierre K​ and @Liam Q​.

I completely understand what both of you are saying.

@Pierre K​, I don't think we have any ideas on the custom interface of Smart links, so I would invite you to add that as a new idea in our Ideas page. Our product team is getting all customer feedback and using that to plan Smart Links v2. Additionally, I would also ask you to add your question regarding the future of Smart Links to our Q1 Product Ask Me Anything session here. Our product team will be reading and answering the comments in that same thread during March 5th.

@Liam Q​, I've seen that you added your questions to our Ask Me Anything session, so can't wait to see what the product team will share. 😊

Let me know in case you have any additional questions or feedback!

Thank you,

Nádia

This is a step back from using Point Drive with YouTube video's. http://bc2shopify.scapta.com= example how we use it. the mail from point Drive directly goes to a Team Channel, ...there marketing start following the real interested viewers... It's very useful I can select those who follow our video with more than 2-3 seconds...

I'm not seeing Smart Links on my Sales Navigator Dashboard -- please advise

 

Hi, @Alex V​. Thank you so much for your feedback.

For this initial version of Smart Links, you can include videos, and people can download them. But, they will not be able to watch the video in the Smart Links viewer. The ability to add URLs and video play through the Smart Links viewer is definitely being considered to be added within future versions.

The plan for Smart Links was to never rebuild all of PointDrive in its entirety, so you should not expect every pieces of its functionality will be included within Smart Links. However, we are constantly listening to feedback to help us create the future roadmap for Smart Links.

Hope this is helpful and let me know in case you have any questions or recommendations.

Thank you,

Nádia 

 

Hi, @Mark T​.

The full release ramp timeline of Smart Links is March 18th.

Can you please confirm if other members of your team have access to it? If so, can you please clean your cache and cookies and try access SN again?

Please let me know how that goes.

Thank you,

Nádia

hello @Nadia Vieira​ Smart Links is a great new feature. We are wondering if there is a way to build a common repository linked to members of the same account/company so that everyone in the sales team can view the tracking statistics rather than just the individual? Is anything planned for this?

Hi, @Nadia Hilger​. Welcome to the Sales Navigator Community.

Thank you for you feedback! 😊

At the moment, Smart Links doesn't offer that option and only Smart Links authors are provided insights about viewer interactions with their Smart Links.

Additionally, for Admins, we report on some Sales Navigator user activity in Smart Links, including how many presentations a user has created and how many total viewers that user has historically. We do not report on when Sales Navigator users create presentations, what content they’re including, whom they send the presentations to, or when they modify or delete existing content.

Nevertheless, I would recommend you to add that suggestion to our Ideas page. Our product team will analyze what you're recommending and will share if that's something they might consider including in their product roadmap.

Hope this is helpful and let me know in case you have any additional questions.

Thank you,

Nádia

Hi all,

 

If you want to add a presentation cover to your Smart Link presentations, you can use the one I've created.

 

Any comment is welcome so I can improve it :)

 

Julie

Love love all these incredible tips and ready-to-use Smart Links templates from @Julie Cotovio​ and @Julia Sulonen​!

@Nadia Vieira​ wondering if anyone has smart links example they could share and welcome feedback on how deployment of the smart link is hitting the mark etc - @Alejandro C​  thank you, Chris.

Love this request, @Chris B​.

Adding some other members to see if they have an example and some feedback to share, @Paul L, @Lionel L​, @Tamika B​, @Connie T​, @Rebecca P​, @Alexander M​.

Additionally, @Julia Sulonen​, I know you're big Smart Links advocate, do you have any insights and/or examples to share with us? 😊

Thank you, everyone!

Hello, I was trying to share a Smartlink on LinkedIn via a post but I always get the same image rather than a preview of my Smartlink.

 

Hello, @Alex M​.

The image you're getting is the thumbnail image that's predefined to show up in the preview when you share a Smart Links through LinkedIn.

At the moment, there's no option to change that image. However, if this is something you'd like to be able to change in the future, I'd recommend you to visit our ideas page within the Community and suggest that. Our product team will analyze your idea and will follow up accordingly.

Hope this is helpful and feel free to reach out in case you have any further questions.

Thank you,

Nádia

Thanks @Nadia Vieira​  I will!

Looking forward to seeing your idea, @Alex M​! 😊

Hi @Chris B​,

 

I want to circle back and let you know that @Tamika B​ recently shared that Smart Links is her current favorite tool in Sales Navigator! Please take a look at her answers on this post. 😊 I believe this would be helpful for those training and videos you spoke about before.

 

Hope this helps and hope you're doing well!

Eva C.

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