LinkedIn Outreach With SimpleSend

SimpleSend runs LinkedIn campaigns from your own account: connection requests or InMails, timed follow-ups, soft touches while an invite is pending, and every reply in one inbox. Each message is a template with variables or drafted per person, and every action is paced to stay well inside LinkedIn's limits.

What the add-on includes

Sending on LinkedIn is the LinkedIn Outreach add-on: $80 a month on Individual or Pro, removable any time. On Teams it's a LinkedIn seat at $80 a month: an admin adds LinkedIn seats in Billing, then gives one to each teammate who sends, on the Team page.

• Campaigns that send from your own LinkedIn account, with paced invites and follow-ups.
• 9,000 LinkedIn actions a month per seat, for everything the campaign does on LinkedIn.
• Sales Navigator search import into a lead list.
• The LinkedIn inbox for replies to your campaigns.

Without the add-on, you can still draft LinkedIn messages from the Dashboard and export them as a CSV, on any plan.

A campaign, step by step

1. 1Add LinkedIn OutreachOn the LinkedIn page, add the LinkedIn Outreach add-on ($80/mo). On Teams, ask an admin for a LinkedIn seat.
2. 2Connect your accountEnter your LinkedIn email and password, plus your authenticator secret key if you use one, and click Connect LinkedIn. Enter a verification code if LinkedIn asks.
3. 3Add leadsClick New campaign, then upload a CSV with a linkedin_url column, reuse a past campaign's list or pick a saved lead list. Up to 500 leads per campaign.
4. 4Build the sequenceOpen with a connection request or an InMail, add follow-ups for people who accept, and soft touches for people who haven't.
5. 5Draft the personalized stepsIf any step is drafted per person, fill in the brief, approve a sample and let SimpleSend draft the rest.
6. 6Set timing and safetyChoose invites and InMails per day, the acceptance window, the overnight pause and any warm-up touches.
7. 7Review and launchCheck the estimate of LinkedIn actions and drafting credits, then launch.

Connect your LinkedIn account

On the LinkedIn page, Connect your LinkedIn account asks for your LinkedIn email, LinkedIn password and, optionally, an Authenticator secret key. Your sign-in goes to our LinkedIn automation partner (listed in our Privacy Policy) over an encrypted connection, and SimpleSend never stores your password.

Connecting usually takes under a minute and the page updates by itself. Along the way, the status reads Connecting…, Verification needed (enter the code LinkedIn sent you) and finally Connected. If it stalls, Stuck? Start over resets it.

Once connected, the card shows your profile, New campaign, Check connection and Disconnect, plus an Activity panel with today's actions and this month's use against your seat's allowance. Disconnecting ends the session, forgets your credentials, pauses any sends in progress and clears the LinkedIn inbox.

Templates, drafts or both

There's one campaign wizard, and every message in it is one of two kinds. Each step has a toggle between Template and Draft with AI, and you can mix them freely.

A good mix: a drafted connection note or opener that shows you did your homework, then short template follow-ups.

Leads

Who are you reaching out to? Upload a CSV, reuse a past campaign's list, or pick a saved lead list such as a Sales Navigator import. Each lead needs a LinkedIn profile URL; names, companies and any extra columns become variables for your templates. Duplicate profile URLs are dropped, and a campaign takes up to 500 leads. For a CSV, you confirm the field mapping next.

The sequence

Build the sequence has three parts: how you open, what happens after they accept, and what happens while the invite is pending.

The opener

• Connection request: free to send, with an optional note of up to 300 characters. A bare invite often converts as well as one with a note.
• InMail: a subject and a longer body (up to 1,900 characters, subject included) that lands without a connection. It needs an Open Profile on their side or a Premium seat with InMail credits on yours. Anyone who can't receive it gets a plain connection request instead, then the same follow-ups.

After they accept

Add up to 8 steps, each reading "Wait N days, then" one of: Send a message, Like a recent post or Visit their profile. Waits run up to 30 days. A new campaign starts with one message, a day after they accept: Thanks for connecting, {{first_name|there}}! Each step you add waits three days by default.

While the invite is pending

LinkedIn doesn't allow messages to people who haven't accepted, but soft touches keep you visible: Like a recent post after a few days and Visit their profile after a few days, both off by default. Withdraw the request after the acceptance window (14 days by default) is on by default and recommended: piles of stale invites hurt your account's standing.

When a variable is missing

Choose what a template step does for a lead without a value: Skip the step for that lead (the default, so nothing blank is ever sent), Send with the fallbacks, or Block the launch until every lead has a value.

Drafting the personalized steps

When at least one step is drafted, the wizard adds three screens: Brief & research, Sample and Generate. The brief is the same one you use for email: what you sell, who it's for, value props, research targets and voice samples. Approve a sample, then SimpleSend drafts the rest of the list.

The brief screen also offers Research with your LinkedIn seat, off by default. It reads each lead's full profile (headline, about, roles, skills) through your connected seat before drafting, as facts the drafter can cite. It spends LinkedIn actions rather than credits, and the read is reused when the campaign sends.

Timing and safety

The defaults suit an account that's still warming up. Loosen them only once your account has a steady history.

Built-in protections run on every campaign:

• Stops on reply. The moment someone replies, their remaining steps are cancelled.
• Human pacing. Actions run one at a time with random gaps, well under LinkedIn's hourly and daily limits.
• Skips invites to existing connections. People you're already connected to go straight to your follow-up steps.
• No double-touch. Each lead appears once per campaign.
• Halts if restricted. Any restriction signal from LinkedIn pauses the whole campaign.

Review, launch and follow

Review & launch sums up the campaign: name, leads, the sequence, schedule and safety, the drafting credits for any drafted steps, and an estimate of the LinkedIn actions it will use. The estimate is a range. The low end covers a profile lookup and the opener for every lead (plus warm-up touches); the high end adds acceptance checks, every follow-up, nudges and withdrawals. Most campaigns land in between, and the screen shows the likely figure if 30% accept.

• Launch, or Save without launching to come back later. Export CSV downloads the leads with their messages.
• A seat can have up to three sends running or paused at once. A launch whose minimum can't fit in what's left of the month's allowance is refused with the numbers.
• Launched sends show under Recent activity on the LinkedIn page with live per-person progress. Pause, resume or stop them there; a stopped send can't be resumed.
• When the seat reaches its allowance, sending pauses and resumes on its own the next day or the next month.

Import a Sales Navigator search

Import a search into a lead list, on the LinkedIn page, turns a search into a saved list through your connected seat. Paste the URL of a Sales Navigator people search, saved search or lead list (a plain LinkedIn people search works too), name the list, choose how many Profiles to pull (up to 250, 500 or 1,000) and click Import. Profiles land in the list as pages arrive.

• Imports bring names, titles and companies only, never contact details.
• They use LinkedIn actions from your seat, not credits. The form estimates the cost before you start, and an import never uses more than half the seat's daily allowance, so your sends aren't starved.
• Use the list in a LinkedIn campaign, export it as CSV, or enrich it in Find Leads to get work emails for an email sequence (10 credits per email found).

The LinkedIn inbox

The LinkedIn page's Inbox tab holds replies to your LinkedIn campaigns, filtered by Replies, Unread, Needs a reply, All or Archived, and by campaign. Spotting a new reply is free; loading a conversation's latest messages from LinkedIn uses a few LinkedIn actions, so it happens only when there's something new. Reply right in the app, which also uses a few actions. AI reply drafts are an email Inbox feature; on LinkedIn you write replies yourself.

What it costs

For writing messages people answer, see Getting the Most Out of SimpleSend. For credits in general, see Credits and Campaign Costs.