How to Use the 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 follow-ups, plus a few extra seconds for the workflow to process.

Step 1: Choose which profiles to invite

You can provide your profiles in four ways:

1. My Lists:
   Choose a saved LinkedIn Leads list you’ve already created in PhantomBuster.

2. A URL:

   • Paste a single LinkedIn or Sales Navigator profile URL.
   • Provide a Google Sheet with LinkedIn or Sales Navigator profile URLs (make sure it’s shared with “Anyone with the link”).
   • Upload a CSV file with LinkedIn or Sales Navigator profile URLs (make sure it’s publicly accessible, and note that CSV upload is only available on paid plans).

   → If you’re using a spreadsheet, the Workflow defaults to the first column (A). To use a different column, enter the column’s header name in the field “Name of column containing profile URLs.”

3. My Phantoms:
   Use results from another Phantom as input (e.g. LinkedIn Search Export or LinkedIn Profile URL Finder results).
4. HubSpot:
   Connect your HubSpot account and pull profiles directly from a contact list. 
   → Make sure each contact has a LinkedIn Profile URL. If not, use the LinkedIn Profile URL Finder Phantom first.

If you provide a Sales Navigator profile URL, connection requests and follow-up messages will still be sent through your regular LinkedIn account.

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→ If your Chrome or Firefox version is outdated, your session cookie may expire much more quickly, and you’ll need to reconnect often.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

To add a personal message to your invite:

1. Check the box: Customize your LinkedIn connection request message.
   → If you skip this, invites will be sent without a message.

2. Enter your message:

   • Write your message. 
     – Free LinkedIn accounts are limited to 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.

3. (Optional) Use a custom message from your spreadsheet:
   → If you’re using a spreadsheet as input, you can personalize messages per lead:
   • Add a column to your spreadsheet containing the custom text (for example: customMessage).
   • Insert {{customMessage}} in your message where the custom text should appear.
   • The column name:
     • Must match exactly (case-sensitive)
     • Must not contain spaces
   • Once detected, your column name will appear at the bottom of the message editor along with the other available placeholder tags.

Want to use AI-generated messages? Run the AI LinkedIn Message Writer first, then feed its result file as input here and insert #ai_message# in your message. Full guide.

Message customization rules and limits:

When writing your LinkedIn connection or follow-up messages, keep in mind:

• 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

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

1. Check the box: Schedule a first follow-up message. 
   → If you skip this, invites will be sent without any follow-up.

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 more follow-ups:
   → You can schedule up to 3 follow-ups in total.
   → Each one is sent only if the previous message didn’t get a reply.

Step 5: Set daily invitation limits and schedule invitations

1. Choose how many invitations to send per day: 
   LinkedIn lets you send up to 100 invites a week, but that depends on your account activity. We recommend that you start slow, especially if using an email discovery service.
   • Default = 20.
   • If you’re just starting, reduce to 10–15 per day to warm up your account.
2. Select when to send invitations:
   • 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 have Launch settings or custom scheduling options. The two choices above are the only ways to control timing.

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 your Workflow is running:

• You can track progress in the Workflow's dashboard:
  • Leads tab → Shows the status of each lead being processed by the Workflow, such as Not invited yet, Invited, Accepted, Follow-up sent, Replied, or Could not invite. You can also search, filter, and export 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.

Check replies and reply rate:

• To see how many replies you received, scroll down to the Message sequence performance section.
• This section shows:
  • Accepted
  • Answered
  • Answer rate
• Only replies to the initial outreach message are tracked. Replies to follow-up messages aren't included.
• Note about the “Replied” column: Replies don’t always appear instantly in the “Replied” column. This field is only updated after both the worker and master steps have run. If you’ve just received a reply, give the Workflow time to finish its cycle, the column will update automatically once the master step completes.
  → You don’t need to rerun the Workflow to refresh this field.

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

• Using a private Google Sheet → make sure it’s shared with “Anyone with the link.”
• Don't overload your account → Your weekly invite limit is dynamic and depends on your account activity. Stick to 10–20 invites/day and start slow.
• Profiles already in your network → LinkedIn Outreach automatically skips anyone you're already connected with, no connection request or follow-up will be sent. To message existing 1st-degree connections (including those you connected with manually), use the LinkedIn Message Sender instead. For a bulk list of your existing connections, run LinkedIn Connections Export first to get their profile URLs.
• Updating your input: This Workflow has an Update button (inside the three-dot menu). If you add more leads to your Google Sheet or LinkedIn Leads list, click it. The Workflow will pick up the new leads in the next run.
• Using Sales Navigator lists as input: Sales Navigator Lists don’t sync directly. If you want Outreach to continuously include new leads, here’s the recommended setup:
  1. Run Sales Navigator Search Export with Watcher mode enabled and Scraping default LinkedIn profile URL turned on.
  2. Chain it directly to LinkedIn Outreach. The Outreach Phantom will pick up new leads from Sales Navigator automatically.
• 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.
• “Replied” column looks empty → In the LinkedIn Outreach, replies are not displayed immediately. The “Replied” field updates only after the worker finishes processing and the master step refreshes the results. If you see a delay, wait until the next run completes, the data will appear without needing extra action.
• 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 Phantom. 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

Once you’ve run LinkedIn Outreach and started building connections, you can continue expanding your engagement with these automations:

• Engage with people who liked or commented on your content or competitors’ posts using the LinkedIn Post Commenter and Liker Scraper. Great for finding warm leads who are already active.
• Monitor your network’s activity with the LinkedIn Activity Extractor to see when your leads are posting or engaging, perfect for timely outreach.
• Expand into company-level research by using the LinkedIn Company Scraper. This lets you gather details about the companies your leads work at and enrich your targeting.