How to Use the Sales Navigator Message Sender

Before you start

• Sending InMails: This is the only PhantomBuster Phantom that supports sending InMail messages. It requires a Sales Navigator account with InMail credits available, and Sales Navigator profile URLs as input - standard LinkedIn profile URLs are not supported. To enable InMail sending, check the Send InMail messages option in Step 3.
• Awareness of safety limits:
  • We recommend keeping messaging activity moderate throughout the week.
    • Safe best-practice guidance for Sales Navigator messaging is up to 150 messages per week.
  • Very active accounts may support higher volumes, but increase gradually and always consider your other activity (manual messaging or other Phantoms).

Step 1: Choose which Sales Navigator profiles to message

You can provide your profiles in three ways:

1. My Lists:
   Choose a saved LinkedIn Leads list you’ve already created in PhantomBuster.
2. A URL:
   • Paste a single Sales Navigator profile URL.
   • Provide a Google Sheet with Sales Navigator profile URLs (make sure it’s shared with “Anyone with the link”).
     → If you’re using a spreadsheet, the Phantom 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.”
   • Upload a CSV file with profile URLs (CSV upload is only available on paid plans).
3. My Phantoms:
   Use results from another Phantom as input.

Step 2: Connect your Sales Navigator account

To let the Phantom act on your behalf:

1. Install the PhantomBuster browser extension and connect your Sales Navigator 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→ If your Chrome or Firefox version is outdated, your session cookie may expire much more quickly, and you’ll need to reconnect often.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: Write and customize your message

1. Send InMail messages (optional):

   • Check this box if you want the Phantom to use your InMail credits to reach profiles you’re not connected with.
   • Then you’ll need to provide an InMail subject line in addition to your message body.
   • Make sure you have enough InMail credits available in your Sales Navigator account before turning this on.

   InMail messages are private messages that let you contact any LinkedIn user without needing an introduction or their contact details. They’re designed to help you engage with potential leads and start sales conversations directly.

2. Enter your message:

   1. Write your message in the “Your message” field (up to 8,000 characters).
   2. Click on the tags listed below the message box to insert them automatically.
   3. Click the + icon to see all available tags.
   4. Custom placeholders: If you’ve added your own columns in your input file, you can still type those manually (e.g. #customIntro#).

   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.

3. Attach files (optional)

   You can attach supported document or image files to your message.

   • Maximum combined file size = 20 MB.
   • File types must comply with LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s attachment rules.
     • Audio files (such as MP3 voice recordings) are not supported:
   • Hyperlinks aren't supported (e.g. embedded anchor text) → It will appear as plain text.

4. Choose your condition for sending messages (optional):

   Select how the Phantom should behave if there’s an existing message thread:

   • Send to all - Send the message to all provided profiles.
   • Send only if the last message was from the recipient (Reply) - Send only if they messaged you last.
   • Send only if the last message was from me (Follow up) - Send only if you were the last to message them.
   • Send only if the last message was from the recipient or if there’s no message at all - Reply or start new threads.
   • Send only if the last message was from me or if there’s no message at all - Follow up or start new threads.
   • Send only if there’s no message at all - send only to contacts you’ve never messaged before.
   • Send only if there’s never been a message from the recipient - Send if they’ve never messaged you.

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.
  • These include both standard tags scraped from profiles (e.g. #firstName#, #company#) and any custom tags you’ve added in your input file.
  • Click on a tag to insert it, or use the + icon to see the full list.
• Custom placeholders:
  • If your input file contains custom columns (e.g. customIntro, such as a personalized note or detail you want to include), they’ll be automatically detected and appear below the message box or under the + icon.
  • Placeholders that don’t have a value (empty cell, missing profile detail) will appear blank in your message.
  • Do not use #message# as a placeholder tag. This conflicts with the Phantom’s own message output column and may cause your text to be replaced or duplicated.
  • Likewise, avoid naming a spreadsheet column message unless absolutely necessary.
• Formatting restrictions:
  • Emojis are not supported.
  • Hyperlinks are not supported: any pasted link will appear as plain text.

Step 4: Configure Phantom behavior

Control how much data the Phantom processes during each run:

• Set how many profiles to message per launch:
  • Enter the number of profiles in the “Profiles to message per launch” field.
  • Default = 10 per launch.
  • To protect your account, keep your weekly messaging volume moderate. We recommend up to 150 messages per week for Sales Navigator accounts.

Advanced behavior settings (dropdown in setup)

• Use your second Sales Navigator team (optional)
  • If you belong to more than one Sales Navigator team, check this box to pull data from your second team instead of the default one.

Step 5: Select launch frequency

Choose how often the Phantom should run:

1. Launch manually: Start the Phantom yourself whenever you need.
2. Launch once at a specific time: schedule a one-time run at a set date and time.
3. Launch repeatedly: schedule regular runs (e.g. once per day, several times during working hours).
4. Launch after another Phantom: chain automations together so this Phantom starts right after another finishes.
5. Advanced scheduling: customize the exact minutes, hours, days, or months when the Phantom should run.

→ For a complete walkthrough of scheduling options, see our guide to scheduling Phantoms automatically.

Step 6 (Optional): Advanced settings

Advanced settings are available if you want to fine-tune how your Phantom 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:

1. Click Launch to start your Phantom.
2. Once it finishes, open the Results tab in the Phantom console to see the data collected.
3. Download your results as a CSV or JSON file, or view them as a dynamic list on the LinkedIn Leads page.

→ To learn how to export your data to Google Sheets, integrate with other tools, or reuse it in more automations, check our Access and Export your Phantom Results guide.

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 Phantom, and everything you’ll receive once it completes.

What you give (Input)

What you get (Output)

Tips and troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• Using a private spreadsheet (make sure it’s set to “Anyone with the link”).
• Forgetting an InMail subject → Required if sending InMails.
• Messaging too many profiles in a short period → Spread messages across the week and stay within the best-practice guidance of up to 150 messages per week.
• Uploading an unsupported file type (e.g. MP3 audio) → Sales Navigator doesn't support audio files. This applies to manual sending, the Phantom, and the API. You can upload the file to an external platform and paste the full URL in your message instead.

If you run into errors or account issues

• Check how to troubleshoot your phantom using Logs.
• 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

After sending messages with this Phantom, you can:

• Extract new leads → Use the Sales Navigator Search Export Phantom or the Sales Navigator List Export Phantom.
• Enrich your leads → Use the Sales Navigator Profile Scraper Phantom to gather detailed profile information.
• Write better outreach messages → Use the AI LinkedIn Message Writer Phantom to generate and refine personalized messages.
• Warm up leads on LinkedIn → Interact with their content using the LinkedIn Auto Liker or LinkedIn Auto Commenter Phantoms.