How to Use the HubSpot Contact LinkedIn Outreach

*For a workflow targeting 10–20 LinkedIn leads, the full process typically takes around 5–15 minutes total, including sending connection requests, scraping inbox messages, and sending follow-up messages, plus a few extra seconds for the workflow to process.

Step 1: Connect your HubSpot account

1. Click Connect and authorize PhantomBuster to access your HubSpot account.
   • You only need to do this once, your HubSpot account will remain linked for future automations.
2. Contact update only (Optional):
   • Enable if you want to update existing HubSpot records without creating new ones.
   • Before you can use this checkbox, you must first activate it in your Workspace Settings:
     1. Click your profile menu in the top right corner.
     2. If you have more than one workspace, make sure the correct one is selected from the dropdown. Look for the ✔️ symbol next to the active workspace name.
     3. Under your Workspace section, click Settings. 
        
     4. Check the box Contact update only.
        
     5. Once enabled, the checkbox will automatically be checked in all HubSpot Phantoms.
3. Select your HubSpot contact segment:
   • Use the dropdown to select the segment you want to engage with on LinkedIn.
   • Make sure every contact in your HubSpot list already has a LinkedIn Profile URL to enable the Phantom to send invitations and messages.
     → If URLs are missing, use the LinkedIn Profile URL Finder first.
   • This automation supports dynamic HubSpot lists, meaning it automatically retrieves the most recent contacts each time it runs:
     • You can keep updating your segment in HubSpot, and the automation will always use the latest version.
     • Each input list can include up to 5,000 contacts: if your segment exceeds that, only the first 5,000 entries will be processed.
     • While this automation supports segments up to 5 000, we recommend keeping them closer to 3 000 for faster runs and better reply rates (When using a spreadsheet as input, this counts as 3 regular LinkedIn search URLs).
4. Expand Spreadsheet settings if you’re using an external file instead of a HubSpot segment (Optional):
   • Select the name of the column containing LinkedIn Profile URLs.
   • The column name should match the header in your file’s first row (not “A” or “B”).
   • If left blank, the Workflow will automatically take URLs from the first column.

Step 2: Connect your LinkedIn account

To let the automation act on your behalf:

1. Install the PhantomBuster browser extension and connect your LinkedIn session in one click.
2. If you’re not using Chrome or Firefox, you can retrieve your session cookie manually (see our cookie guide).

Check your browser user agent
Make sure your browser is up to date before connecting your account. 
→ If your Chrome or Firefox version is outdated, your session cookie may expire much more quickly, and you’ll need to reconnect often.

Step 3: Customize your connection request message

If you skip this step, invites will be sent without a message.

To add a personal message to your invite:

1. Tick Customize your LinkedIn connection request message to open the message field.
2. Enter your message:
   • Regular plan allows 200 characters, and 5 personalized invites per month.
   • Premium accounts allow the full 300 characters with unlimited personalized invites.

Watch the character counter in the bottom-right corner of the message box to track your usage. This helps you stay within limits and avoid your message being cut off. Keep in mind that placeholder tags also count toward the limit, so leave room for both the tag itself and the replaced text.

• Placeholder tags:
  • All available tags appear at the bottom of the message box.
  • Click on a tag to insert it, or use the + icon to see the full list.
• Formatting restrictions:
  • Emojis are not supported.
  • Hyperlinks are not supported: any pasted link will appear as plain text.

Step 4: Write and schedule follow-up messages

After a connection request is accepted, you can automatically send up to 3 follow-up messages on LinkedIn.

To send follow-up messages after your connection requests are accepted:

1. Tick Schedule a first follow-up message to access the scheduling options and open the message field.
2. Define when to send it:
   • Choose the delay, between 0 and 15 days (e.g. “Send 1st follow-up after at least 2 days”).
   • Messages are only sent if the person accepts your connection and hasn’t replied.
3. Enter your message:
   • Write your message in the “Your message” field (up to 8,000 characters).
   • Click on the tags listed below the message box to insert them automatically.
   • Click the + icon to see all available tags.

   • Watch the character counter in the bottom-right corner of the message box to track your usage. This helps you stay within limits and avoid your message being cut off. Keep in mind that placeholder tags also count toward the limit, so leave room for both the tag itself and the replaced text.

4. Attach files (optional):

   Add documents or images to your message:

   • Maximum combined file size = 20 MB.
   • Hyperlinks are not supported → if you paste a link, it will appear as plain text.
5. Add up to two more follow-ups, each with its own delay and message content.
   • These will only send if the contact hasn’t replied to any earlier message.

Step 5: Set your daily outreach limits and launch schedule

You can adjust how many invitations to send and when to send them.

• Daily invitation limit (Optional):
  • Default = 20.
  • LinkedIn allows up to 100 invites per week but we recommend 20 invites per weekday to stay within safe limits.
    → Learn more in our LinkedIn rate limits guide.

The HubSpot Contact LinkedIn Outreach automatically processes your input list in batches each day.
While it can handle up to 100 leads per day internally, it only sends the number of connection requests you’ve configured (for example, 20 per day).
Once started, it continues automatically until all profiles in your input list have been processed, no need to relaunch manually.

• Select when to send invitations and messages (Optional):
  • Weekdays during working hours → Sends steadily Monday–Friday in standard office hours.
  • Randomly throughout the day and week → Spreads invites unpredictably.

This Workflow does not include customizable Launch settings. You can’t change the frequency beyond these two options or set a different launch schedule.

Step 6 (Optional): Advanced settings

Advanced settings are available if you want to fine-tune how your Workflow runs, but by default they’re already optimized for most use cases.

We recommend leaving them as they are unless a guide specifically instructs you to change something.

→ For a detailed overview of all advanced options (like execution limits, retries, email notifications, proxies, webhooks, and file management), see our Advanced settings guide.

Launch and results

When you’re ready:

• Toggle the ON/OFF switch to start your Workflow.

Once it finishes:

• Invitations aren’t sent right away. The automation first gathers your leads from the search URLs you provided, then begins sending invites according to your daily limit.
• You can track progress in the Workflow's dashboard:
  • Leads tab → Shows the status of each lead being processed by the automation (e.g., Not invited yet, Invited, Accepted, Follow-up sent, Replied, or Could not invite). From here you can search, filter, and also download your results as a CSV.

  • Report tab → Displays performance metrics of your Outreach campaign, including:

    - Time saved
    - Profiles collected, invites sent, requests accepted
    - Performance progress over time (visual graph of collected vs. invited vs. accepted)
    - Message sequence performance (how your follow-ups are performing).

• The next worker agent (or Phantom) to launch is always visible in the Workflow Dashboard. 
  → Look for the line starting with “Next:” to know what’s coming up in the sequence.

Activity logging in HubSpot

Every LinkedIn activity handled by this Workflow, including connection requests, follow-ups, and replies, is automatically logged in HubSpot:

• These interactions are stored in the Activity tab of each contact, not as contact properties.
• This ensures all communication history stays traceable within your CRM without cluttering contact fields.

Export and input limits on the Free plan
If you’re on the Free plan or Free trial, some features are limited:
- CSV exports include only the first 10 rows of results.
- CSV download links (for dynamic viewing in Google Sheets or integrations) are not available.
- JSON exports are not available.
- CSV upload as an input method is not supported.
To unlock all features, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

What you give (Input) and What you get (Output)

This section gives you a detailed breakdown of everything you need to provide to run this Workflow, and everything you’ll receive once it completes.

What you give (Input)

What you get (Output)

Tips and troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• Message length → Premium accounts allow the full 300 characters with unlimited personalized invites.
• No custom scheduling → This Workflow doesn’t have Launch settings. You can only choose between the two available options (Weekdays during working hours or Randomly throughout the day and week). It isn’t possible to set other times or frequencies.
• If the Workflow stops working:
  • Errors may not always appear in the Dashboard.
  • To check hidden errors and execution details, open the Logs section from the console page of your Workflow. For step-by-step instructions, see How to Troubleshoot Errors in Workflows.

If you run into issues

• Browse the Fix Issues & Troubleshoot Errors section for solutions to common problems.
• Review our Automation Rate Limits by Platform guide.
• Check our Best Practices for Social Media Automation guide.

Suggested automations

• HubSpot Contact LinkedIn URL Finder → Find missing LinkedIn profile URLs before outreach.
• HubSpot Contact Data Enricher → Update contact details after new connections are made.
• AI LinkedIn Message Writer → Automatically generate personalized message templates for your outreach campaigns.