LinkedIn Outreach Benchmarks for Machinery (2026)

Key Takeaways

In machinery, the average LinkedIn connection acceptance rate is 26.8%. Replies to the connection note average 2.3%, and replies to a message after the connection is accepted average 9.0%. Those numbers come from 52,233 connection requests sent by 56 machinery accounts between May 2025 and April 2026. All three sit below the cross-industry averages of 28.5%, 3.0% and 10.4%.

Machinery vs. the platform average

Metric	Machinery	All industries	Difference	Rank
Connection acceptance	26.8%	28.5%	-1.7 pts	27th of 38
Connection-note reply	2.3%	3.0%	-0.7 pts	30th of 38
Message reply after acceptance	9.0%	10.4%	-1.4 pts	30th of 38

Across the 38 industries with at least 50 sending accounts, acceptance runs from 21.8% (telecommunications) to 36.5% (staffing & recruiting). Note replies run from 1.8% to 6.6%, and message replies from 7.2% to 18.9%.

What the numbers say about machinery outreach

Machinery is below the platform at every step without being far below it at any. Acceptance sits 1.7 points under the cross-industry figure, note replies 0.7 under and message replies 1.4 under, and no rank is worse than 30th of 38. Multiplied through, those small gaps leave about 2.4 replies per 100 recipients against 3.0 platform-wide, 31st of 38 and roughly a fifth fewer than average.

The useful contrast is with a neighbouring sector. Mechanical and industrial engineering, on 87 accounts, has the same 2.3% note reply rate as machinery but accepts at 29.5%, gets message replies of 10.9% and converts about 3.2 per 100 end to end. Two industrial categories that perform identically on the note end up far apart overall, and the whole difference sits in acceptance and the follow-up.

On the numbers machinery sits closest to medical devices, outsourcing and offshoring, and insurance, three sectors that are also a little below the platform on every measure. Its figures come from 56 accounts and 52,233 requests, the small end of what is reported here. A 31st place on that base describes a sector that is consistently slightly below average, rather than one where LinkedIn outreach does not work.

If your numbers sit below these

The dataset says where an account sits, not why. From what we see in campaigns, three gaps come up most often in this sector, and they point at different problems.

Message replies under 9.0%. At 30th of 38 this is, in proportion, the larger of the two gaps that feed the end-to-end figure, so it is the one with the most to give back. A number below the sector line usually means the first message reads like a product sheet, with specifications and capacities before any reference to the recipient’s own operation.

Acceptance under 26.8%. The sector sits 27th of 38 here, 1.7 points under the platform. Below the sector line the list is usually the problem rather than the note: requests sent across every engineering and operations title at a company instead of to the people who specify or buy equipment.

Note replies under 2.3%. Already 30th of 38, and the same rate as mechanical and industrial engineering, which converts well ahead of machinery without a strong note. Effort spent here moves the end-to-end result least.

Further reading:

• Improving your LinkedIn Sales Navigator targeting
• How many LinkedIn invites can you send a week?
• Personalising a LinkedIn message request without tripping limits
• The LinkedIn message follow-up formula
• Tips for building a LinkedIn content strategy for B2B sales
• The best AI lead generation software to add to your stack

Frequently asked questions

What is a good LinkedIn acceptance rate in machinery?

26.8% is the sector average, 1.7 points below the 28.5% cross-industry figure and 27th of 38 reported industries. Anything above 28.5% is ahead of both the sector and the platform.

Which step costs machinery outreach the most?

The follow-up message. Machinery’s message replies of 9.0% sit further below the 10.4% platform figure, in proportion, than its acceptance of 26.8% sits below 28.5%. Closing the message gap would recover more of the end-to-end shortfall, about 2.4 replies per 100 recipients against 3.0, than closing the acceptance gap.

How does machinery compare with other industries?

Acceptance ranks 27th of 38, note replies 30th and message replies 30th. End to end about 2.4 in 100 recipients reply to a follow-up, 31st of 38, against roughly 3.0 across all industries.

How this data was collected

Machinery is reported from 56 accounts and 52,233 connection requests sent between May 2025 and April 2026, drawn from the LinkedIn Outreach Benchmarks 2026 dataset of 13.2 million requests across 13,302 accounts. That report carries the full methodology, along with the breakdowns by sender seniority, company size and month that are not repeated here.

Two things to hold in mind while reading any of these figures. The industry is the sender’s, taken from their company profile, not the recipient’s. And only industries with at least 50 sending accounts are reported at all: below that, a single unusual account moves the average by several points, which is why some of the most extreme numbers in the full appendix are not published here.

Related industry benchmarks

• Outsourcing / Offshoring, 26.1% acceptance and 9.2% message replies
• Insurance, 28.1% acceptance and 8.8% message replies
• Computer Software, 27.5% acceptance and 8.8% message replies
• All industry benchmarks

Grade your own outreach against these numbers

Enter your own acceptance and reply rates and grade your outreach against the machinery benchmark, plus see where you sit among all 38 reported industries. No signup.

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Data updated 19 August 2026. Refreshed quarterly against the source report.