💡LinkedIn Message Automation – The Why, Whats & Hows

LinkedIn automation is everywhere. You’ve probably heard of it. And all about how valuable it can be for outreach and generating leads.

It can save you hours, if not days, of messaging people and really skyrocket your social selling.

Imagine not having to message your leads one by one and being able to automate sending a connection request to all the CEOs in your area who work in tech and marketing.

Not bad, right?

Now, you’re probably thinking – I don’t know, the whole thing sounds confusing to set up. Will I need many other sketchy LinkedIn apps to take over my account? What exactly will I be automating? Is it even safe?

Well, don’t worry. You’ve just found the most comprehensive guide on the topic and I’m going to show you all the ins and outs of LinkedIn message automation.

Here’s what we’re going to cover:

• LinkedIn Automation – What You Need to Know
• Why Automate LinkedIn
• LinkedIn Message Automation How-to and Best Practices

Are you ready?

Here’s a quick crash course on the best LinkedIn automation tools and tips for 2023.

What Is Automated LinkedIn Messaging, Exactly?

First things first, what is automated LinkedIn messaging, exactly, and where does one begin?

In a nutshell, LinkedIn messaging automation means sending messages (connection requests, follow-ups, InMails, etc.) through certain marketing software (more on this below).

And the reason we’re doing all this is to save time and money.

Look at it practically, if you wanted to connect with 100 marketing agency owners in your area, would you manually start sending the LinkedIn requests one by one? 

Or would you rather everything be done automatically in the background while you work on something else?

The answer is obvious.

Now, you might be asking: But how would I go about personalizing those automated LinkedIn messaging?

Essentially, this part is based on personalization tags (first names, company names, and so on) that make your LinkedIn messaging seem more authentic. 

We’ll cover that in detail below as well. So, first, let’s take a look at what parts of your outreach and LinkedIn messaging can be automated.

What does automating LinkedIn messages include?

Using tools like Expandi, you can essentially automate most of your outreach. Not just LinkedIn but email as well.

But when looking at automated LinkedIn messaging, here’s a list of actions you can put on autopilot:

• Visiting someone’s LinkedIn profile.
• Following a profile.
• Following a LinkedIn company page.
• Endorsing someone’s skills on LinkedIn.
• Sending a connection request.
• Sending a mobile connection request.
• Sending a follow-up message once you’re connected.
• Sending an Open InMail.
• Liking their post.

How does this work?

Essentially, the above tasks and automated LinkedIn messaging is based on the following conditions:

• Custom conditions.
• If you’re connected.
• If someone followed you.
• If someone visited your profile.
• If your email was opened.
• If your email bounced.
• If your email was clicked.
• If someone’s email exists (based on their LinkedIn profile).
• If it’s possible to send someone an Open InMail.

As you might have guessed by now, there are some strong sequences of LinkedIn messaging you can set up this way.

And by the end of this guide, you’ll have an idea of proven outrecah sequence of LinkedIn messaging you can use today. We’ll even give you the exact LinkedIn message templates you can use that worked for us.

But first, let’s analyze LinkedIn automation in detail. This part is important to get right before you get started with automating LinkedIn messages.

Automating LinkedIn Messaging – What You Need to Know

LinkedIn is one of the best (if not the best) channels to distribute content and generate leads if you’re in the B2B world like me.

You can find just about anyone there and the whole platform is really just a bottomless well of sales opportunities.

It’s a lot easier to get in touch with any decision-maker than any other platform, and you’re just one search away from a filtered list of your audience – down to their locations and job industry.

But with that said, many people think automated LinkedIn messaging is spammy and ineffective.

After all, it’s automation, so it must be spammy, right?

Well, not quite.

Many people think automated personalization simply means using the client’s first name or company name and calling it a day.

Which couldn’t be further from the truth.

It’s easier than ever to use to automate LinkedIn messages nowadays. 

This does invite a lot of spammy and low-quality outreach campaigns.

But that’s because they don’t put in any effort in their outreach.

The key to good automated LinkedIn messaging is being genuine and honest.

People think automation and they assume you must be sending 100+ LinkedIn messages per day – causing havoc in the inbox of your leads.

Now, here’s the thing:

There ARE people who do this on LinkedIn. People who spam you vigorously with the same, boring copy-and-paste templates and force a reply from their leads. And I’ve personally gotten a lot of these kinds of automated messages on LinkedIn too…

You can tell it’s automated because it only mentions my first name and the general industry I’m in (online & network marketing). While in reality, I run Expandi (which is a growth-hacking SaaS).

Don’t worry, by the time you finish reading this guide, you’ll know the exact outreach LinkedIn connection message templates to use to connect with just about anyone.

We’ll cover it all. But until then, here’s what you need to know.

Automating LinkedIn messages is ideal for saving time on not doing manual, repetitive outreach tasks, such as:

• Sending a connection request message to your leads.
• Hyper-personalizing your messages based on your target audience’s profile information.
• Creating a social selling campaign with follow-ups.
• Choosing your custom target audience for your outreach.
• And then – getting key insights from your campaign insights with specific metrics.

You can have your LinkedIn message automation campaign running in the background while you work on other tasks of your business.

Then, you log in, take a look at your dashboard, and get all the results and insights in a second. You can tell which campaigns to pause and which ones to continue at a glance.

Now that’s efficient!

But before we cover all the ins and outs of LinkedIn message automation, there’s one other thing you need to know first:

Safety.

This is an important topic to cover.

LinkedIn doesn’t like spam. Officially, MOST go against their Terms of Service.

Why?

Because they’re spammy, low-quality, and often send out an inhumane amount of messages per day.

In other words: If you’re messaging 100 people in 5 minutes, LinkedIn will be quick to notice and flag your account.

Meanwhile, if you’re messaging around 3 different people every 20 minutes – your account will go under their radar.

Plus, let’s not forget that sending spammy messages can get you flagged by Linkedin users. While sending personalized messages from your Linkedin account cannot do you any harm.

Similarly, the type of LinkedIn automation tool you use will also impact the safety of your LinkedIn account.

There are 2 types of LinkedIn automation tools you need to know about.

Chrome-extensions

Chrome extensions are basically LinkedIn plugins you download from the Chrome app store and they integrate into your browser.

But they’re not very efficient. Nor safe for that matter.

Let’s take an example: Dux-Soup:

It’s one of the most popular LinkedIn tools on the market. I’ve actually used it before when I used to offer LinkedIn-done-for-you as a service. The tool offers some basic automation (nothing advanced) but it lives in your browser. So, if you close your laptop, the extension shuts down as well.

So, essentially – it’s easier for LinkedIn to detect it (because it’s front-end, in your browser), it doesn’t offer extra advanced benefits, and really isn’t as convenient as you’d think for a LinkedIn automation tool.

And then, there’s the other type of LinkedIn automation tools that’s better and safer.

Cloud-based solutions

As an example, Expandi is a LinkedIn automation tool that lives in the cloud.

What makes a cloud-based tool so different from other tools on the market?

Well, for one, we take safety seriously.

Cloud-based tools live on the web, and not in your browser.

Meaning, they run 24/7 and they’re much safer because they don’t integrate into your account from your browser. LinkedIn can’t detect Expandi mimicking your account to send out automated messages, because it’ll think it’s you who’s doing all those actions.

Expandi also has some extra built-in features that make it impossible for LinkedIn to find out you’re using an automated tool. Such as:

• Dedicated IP address – You get a dedicated, personal IP. So that every time you log in, your location and IP are the same. With Chrome-based tools, it often shows you’re logging in from different countries each time (a huge red flag for LinkedIn safety).
• Mimics human behavior – Expandi mimics human behavior. Most Chrome extensions don’t take this into account. That’s why LinkedIn is quick to notice accounts sending 1,000+ duplicate messages at 3 A.M. It’s simply not human!
• Action limits – You can set specific action limits on your tasks and have your LinkedIn campaigns running in the background as if a human is manually completing all those tasks.
• And more.

So, when we talk about how to automate LinkedIn messages, it is important that you won’t be noticed spamming around your LinkedIn sales navigator.

To recap so far: A lot depends on HOW you use LinkedIn automation tools (which we’ll cover below too).

Do it right and you can have LinkedIn campaigns running in the background, with an almost ~49% acceptance rate, while you continue to work on other tasks.

Sounds great, right?

Here are some other awesome benefits you can get with cloud-based LinkedIn automation.

Why Automate LinkedIn? Benefits Of Automated LinkedIn Messaging

Wondering why people choose to automate LinkedIn in the first place?

It’s simple really.

Let’s say you want to start generating leads via LinkedIn.

You already know who your target audience is and you’re ready to start messaging them.

There are two ways you can do this.

You can manually run a search for your target audience on LinkedIn and start writing personalized messages one by one. You’d visit their profiles, click on the ‘Connect‘ button, and type up your request message within connection requests.

But the next thing you know – you’ve wasted up to an hour, and you still have a long way to go.

As an example, my target audience is people working in marketing & advertising and information technology & services industries. If I wanted to connect with people working in those industries inside the Netherlands – LinkedIn would give me a list of 1,400 results.

And there is NO way I’m writing 1,400 separate connection request messages and follow-ups.

We’re not talking only about LinkedIn connections, we are talking about LinkedIn outreach – I’d need to craft an original copy and then send follow-up messages afterward.

Besides, I’d have to re-use the same information from all of their profiles – their first names, their industry or job name, location, and so on…

Can you imagine writing all of that in your LinkedIn connection requests each time?

Well, luckily, you don’t have to do that.

There is a better way to approach your lead generation. And yes, you guessed it, the solution is LinkedIn automation tools.

Here are a few other reasons why you should strongly consider using automated LinkedIn messages.

Saves time

This is one of the main benefits.

At this point, it’s not about being lazy, it’s about being efficient.

LinkedIn automation tools can help you save hours, if not days or months, of writing the same outreach cold messages and finding your target audience.

Let’s face it: There are a lot of mindless and boring lead-generation tasks we have to endure through as marketers and sales teams.

There are some things that should be automated and some things that shouldn’t.

As a rule of thumb, you automate repetitive, manual tasks with LinkedIn automation tools.

At its core, social selling is about building a relationship and engaging a prospect. So, you shouldn’t automate conversations between you and your leads. Too many people already do this and that’s why LinkedIn automation gets a bad rep.

Instead, you should be automating things like:

• Visiting profiles.
• Sending connection requests.
• Following up with your prospects.
• The first LinkedIn cold message to your prospect (sometimes).

Better reach

Let’s say you already know where your target audience hangs out.

As an example, this can be a LinkedIn group, Facebook group, or even a comments section of a popular influencer in your niche.

You could copy-and-paste their names into the LinkedIn search and manually send a connection request one by one…

Or, you guessed it, you can automate this entirely.

As an example, I once used LinkedIn message automation to target people from a Facebook group and gained a 72% acceptance rate, 49% reply to follow-ups, and most importantly – 42 booked demos.

Pretty high LinkedIn lead generation rate, don’t you think?

Simply because I had my ideal customer profiles written out in detail and knew all about their pain points and desires.

In this case, it was the members of the Dux-Soup Facebook group.

And instead of messaging them one by one, saying:

“Hey, 

Looked at your profile and saw we were in the same Dux-Soup Facebook group.

Would love to connect with you.

Best,

Stefan”

I scraped the entire Facebook group and automated my outreach.

The best part?

This took less than 25 minutes.

1. I used the Phantombuster Facebook group extractor to gain the list of members in the group.
2. I then used the LinkedIn profile URL finder
3. Finally, I uploaded that list to Expandi and sent them crafted LinkedIn messages – a relevant connection request template (something like the following):

“Hey {first_name}, 

Saw you are also a member of the Facebook Group “Dux Soup users”. 

Would be awesome to connect with someone like minded to see if there is any merit for collaboration. 

Best, Stefan”

Simple, but effective.

Here are the results of that campaign if you’re curious and here’s the full case study:

Sales navigator, advanced features, and integrations

Want to level up your LinkedIn automation skills?

Until now, we’ve been covering surface-level of LinkedIn marketing automation – connecting with your audience, replying, follow-ups, and more.

With some advanced features, you can throw LinkedIn Sales Navigator into the mix, combine LinkedIn with email marketing, integrate with your CRM, go omnichannel, and more.

There are so many other growth hacks to consider that listing them here would take forever.

But for the most part, you’ll be using Zapier to integrate your favorite LinkedIn automation tool (Expandi?) with other apps to really boost your marketing efforts.

Through Zapier, you can connect Expandi to:

• Your favorite CRM
• An email outreach and marketing tool to target your leads in a true omnichannel way
• Facebook ads to retarget your warm leads on Facebook through a custom audience

And more.

The point is: There are a lot of different ways you can automate LinkedIn with a set of compatible marketing tools.

From a simple LinkedIn search result outreach to using LinkedIn Sales Navigator for advanced filtering, LinkedIn is not a game of numbers anymore.

It’s all about finding new ways to personalize your outreach if you want to succeed with LinkedIn lead generation in 2023.

And speaking of, here’s how to do just that.

How To Automate LinkedIn Messages And Use Personalization Tags To Get The Most Out Of Outreach

Finally, the ‘How‘ of the guide.

As mentioned above – personalization is key.

If you want to stand out and actually start generating leads through connection requests, you need to start personalizing your LinkedIn messages.

Most people skip this step and that’s where they go wrong.

For what it’s worth, just about everyone can personalize LinkedIn messages with the first name last name mentions.

It’s cliche at this point.

You need to do better than that.

Here’s how.

Personalization tags

Let’s take a look at the different personalization tags you can use that will grab information from your prospect’s LinkedIn profile:

• {first_name}
• {last_name}
• {job_title}
• {company_name}
• Dynamic Placeholder

Now, all of them are self-explanatory. Except for the Dynamic Placeholder tag, right?

Essentially, it’s a custom tag, unique to Expandi, that’s determined when you launch your outreach campaign. It is then adapted to the individual you’re trying to reach.

This way, you can personalize your campaign based on your targeting and it will come out different each time – depending on who the campaign is addressed to.

I used it for one campaign when I wanted to target bloggers who had written about LinkedIn automation tool alternatives and let them know about Expandi.

I didn’t want to sound cliche and say I had read their article in my outreach, so, I used dynamic personalization to mention specific info from their articles in each LinkedIn message (e.g. their mentioned solution).

Campaign results:

• Connection request accepted – 69% 
• Responded on follow-ups – 83%

This is an example of how LinkedIn messages go beyond a simple outreach to expand your LinkedIn network and increase sales prospecting.

Even with the best LinkedIn automation tools, to create meaningful messages on LinkedIn that will result in a response, you need a human touch and genuine interest.

Using ChatGPT To Boost Your LinkedIn Messaging And Outreach

Ever since it was launched, there is a big buzz around the development of Chat GPT. Many experts are trying to predict how this AI can revolutionize the world of marketing and sales.

When it comes to lead generation via automated LinkedIn messages, there is more than one way to use Chat GPT.

This software is excellent for creating good content – very fast. I love it because it gives you exactly what you ask for, and you can implement it straight away.

We’ve tested different ways you can step up the game to not only automate LinkedIn messages but also benefit more from many LinkedIn functions without having to rely on other tools.

Here are my main reasons why Chat GBT can be considered one of the best LinkedIn automation tools.

While many people mainly use ChatGPT for writing, it can also be of huge help when it comes to your automated LinkedIn messaging, outreach, and general lead generation.

Below, we’ll cover how to use GPT to:

• Optimize your LinkedIn profile so that more people connect with you.
• Find relevant leads on LinkedIn with AI.
• Personalize your LinkedIn messaging and outreach text.
• Prepare for LinkedIn outreach, and more.

Improve your LinkedIn profile with Chat GPT

Chat GPT helps you rewrite your entire profile in just a few seconds and optimize your headline, summary, bio, and posts.

It can do the same with a LinkedIn page related to your business.

But, as is the case with social media platforms, what will strengthen your online presence is interaction with potential leads and other profiles that will boost your visibility.

Chat GPT can help you with:

• Optimizing every piece of content on your profile
• Writing engaging posts for your feed
• Rewriting top posts from the best creators
• Automate other LinkedIn activities such as commenting on hot topics

Find your leads with AI

Isn’t Chat GPT just a content-writing AI?

It is far more than that.

Chat GPT is getting smarter by the day, and it can also help you with

• detecting hot leads
• managing leads
• updating your database in Google Sheets
• preparing the final contacts for you to send bulk messages in seconds.

Think of it as another asset to your sales team.

You can use Chat GPT for lead generation for unlimited campaigns – inbound and outbound, outreach via social media platforms, and especially for automated LinkedIn messages.

This AI doesn’t have the ability to interact with your Google Sheets directly, so you’d need to use third-party tools like Talarian to create and edit the database.

Moreover, Chat GBT can generate text based on the data in your database, that you can use to automate LinkedIn messages.

Create personalized LinkedIn messages using GPT and AI

There are different ways you can boost your linkedin outreach efforts using Chat GPT and personalized LinkedIn messages:

• Personalise LinkedIn outreach directly in Google Sheets
• Personalise based on LinkedIn profile
• Personalise based on Tweets
• Personalise based on Psychological AI
• Personalise based on the post engagement

We have already established that in order to send automated messages that don’t come across as spam, you need to add a personal touch.

Here’s how I use Chat GPT to create icebreakers in split second.

First, I collect all the data from my leads

then, I use the GPT extension for Google Sheets and I get my output

Et, voila!

My database is ready for me to automate LinkedIn messages with Expandi and reach out to new leads with a personalized icebreaker.

If you are interested in learning how you can use Chat GPT for LinkedIn outreach, check out our comprehensive step-by-step guide that explains how to create the content and send automated LinkedIn messages easily with Expandi.

5+ Best Practices Before You Automate LinkedIn Messages For Outreach

I’m going to let you in on a little secret:

LinkedIn campaigns begin before you start sending automated messages.

In fact, there’s a lot you can do to prepare before launching an automated LinkedIn outreach campaign.

Here’s how to make sure your campaigns are getting the acceptance rate responses they deserve.

#1 Optimize your LinkedIn profile

The very first thing people will do when they receive your message is to check your profile. Make sure your profile, tagline, summary, and content align with your brand.

#2 Create a stunning LinkedIn content plan

One of the ways to strengthen your personal brand is to increase your LinkedIn activities. This is something that Chat GPT can help you with. Write engaging posts, mimic the best influencer practices, and actively interact with relevant brand representatives in the industry.

Be sure to read out LinkedIn content strategy guide if you need more help with this.

#3 Define your audience

Having the right target audience can make or break your efforts to automate LinkedIn messages. People are tired of being retargeted with the same outreach methods that sound spammy and try to sell with the first message. Make sure you have a clear persona and know what their pain points are.

#4 Campaign templates and messages

People often start selling themselves in the very first connection request. People on LinkedIn detect spam a mile away. Efficient LinkedIn messages are the ones that prioritize your leads and then include a partnership proposal.

#5 Connect Zapier 

As mentioned above, Zapier can be an incredibly powerful way to boost your LinkedIn automation. You can connect it to your CRM to track results or your favorite email outreach tool to target your leads on other channels. If someone sees your message on LinkedIn and then gets an email from you the next day – they’re almost guaranteed to reply.

#6 Campaign results and analytics 

Finally, the best way to analyze your LinkedIn automated messages is to analyze your results and analytics. With Expandi, you just press the ‘Stats’ section and get all the campaign results (how many people accepted, replied, etc.) at a glance. With this info, you can then tweak your connection request messages and experiment to find the winning templates.

Getting Started With Automating LinkedIn Messages For Outreach (3 Proven Campaigns To Use)

Still feel limited by the personalization tags above?

Don’t be!

Most marketers don’t want to admit this, but a lot of how your LinkedIn automation campaigns will perform also depends highly on your outreach strategy.

Your LinkedIn automated messages will only be effective if you’re targeting the right people.

Here are a few of my favorite campaigns that are incredibly simple yet still get proven results.

Content retargeting growth hack

Find a viral post from a popular influencer your target audience looks up to, copy the link to the post, paste it into Expandi, and automatically reach out to everyone who liked or commented. I gained a 72% acceptance rate and a 40% response to the follow-ups with this strategy.

Website Visitors growth hack

Do you want to fill your pipeline with sales prospects using the website visitor tracking tool? It’s easy, just install Leadinfo on your website. Identify and filter companies that fit your ICP, then you can find these companies’ employees with job titles that fit your buyer persona using TexAu. Create and Start your Expandi campaign. More than 60% accepted my invitation request here and 50% responded to follow-ups.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator growth hack

Use the Sales Navigator account to filter your audience using advanced targeting, copy the URL address, import to Expandi, and get ready for outreach.

Why Expandi?

LinkedIn automation doesn’t have to be hard.

With Expandi, setting up a campaign takes less than 10 minutes and you don’t even have to write your outreach templates. You can just plug-and-play proven cold outreach messages from our blog.

And we’re always giving away our insights and case studies – based on what worked.

Ready to start generating leads on LinkedIn? On autopilot? In your sleep or while you’re working on other business tasks?

Add me on Facebook and let me know you’re ready to start 10xing your leads with the world’s safest LinkedIn automation tool.

I’ll grant you a free 7-day trial and you can start running outreach campaigns the same day. 

Not sure where to begin?

Here are a few other proven LinkedIn social selling tactics you can look into:

• The Top 3 LinkedIn Outreach Strategies
• Steal Your Competitor’s Audience: LinkedIn + Twitter Growth Hack
• LinkedIn Outreach Guide for Beginners – 7 Essential Rules to Keep in Mind