You probably know or have already heard of marketing automation and in particular of email marketing automationSimilarly, the LinkedIn. Automation is the practice of using tools to automate tasks that you would otherwise have to perform manually in your Lead Generation and outreach on LinkedIn, such as sending connection requests, InMail, or messages, in parallel with or as an alternative to LinkedIn Ads.
Benefits of automation on LinkedIn
LinkedIn Automation Tools are software designed to mimic human behavior while performing tasks for you on LinkedIn. In addition to saving you time, LinkedIn Automation Tools also have the benefits of:
- help you manage automated workflows very similar to the drip email marketing automation campaigns;
- Collect data on prospects, such as company email address and sometimes allow contact through email, in a multi-channel outreach perspective;
- Optimize time in automated tasks such as requesting a connection, sending the first message, and scaling the tasks in this way, allowing you to contact potentially dozens or hundreds of potential customers per day, automatically;
- while being automated, allow dynamic customization of the message with the inclusion of custom tags and variables such as name, company role, company or even GIFs and images;
- test different styles and approach strategies through the A/B testing integrated into some, allowing you to increase open and and response rates.
Weaknesses of automation tools for LinkedIn
Despite these benefits, LinkedIn places restrictions on the number of invitations sent and overall connections, so it frowns on automation as it commonly promotes bulk connections and other activities.
To protect the overall member experience, the platform does not allow you to send too many invitation requests in a short period or keep too many invitations pending. Otherwise, your LinkedIn account may be temporarily restricted or banned from the platform.
Now you can only send about 100 invitations per week, which is about 20-25 connection requests per day, and you can't afford to have more than 70% of invitations outstanding.
The history of your web operations is stored in the browser's cache, which makes these tools easier to detect.
Working within a sales team assumes you'll be using different IPs every time you log in.
One solution to using automation safely is to set your LinkedIn Range (LR) and not exceed it. The perfect LR makes 3-5% of your total connections. So, if you only have 1,000 contacts, your maximum connection requests should not exceed 20.
Continue in this manner for about 2 weeks and monitor your account. After that, you can slowly increase your daily invitations. However, if your acceptance rate is less than 60%, you should not send more than 50 connections per day.
The number of connection requests also depends on the type of account you have. For a free account with about 1,500 connections and an average acceptance rate of 60%, Expandi recommends sending no more than 30 invitations per day, while for a Premium account (using LinkedIn Sales Navigator), it could be about 50-70 invitations per day.
Regarding automated messaging:
30 messages a day: the safest and slowest approach.
50-70 messages per day - for heated profiles only; spread the sending out over the day.
70-100 messages per day - premium account ONLY and if you know for sure it's right.
LinkedIn monthly search limits:
30 searches - whether your profile is new or cold.
Maximum 300 searches - if your profile is heated and free.
Unlimited - for profiles and premium accounts with Sales Navigator.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the perfect tool for those who are already using LinkedIn and are looking for more advanced features. Unfortunately, LinkedIn only has a manual policy. However, you can integrate it with other LinkedIn automation tools that we'll look at below.
The best LinkedIn Automation Tools
LinkedHelper 2.0
LinkedIn Helper ( www.linkedinhelper.com ) is an application for Windows / MacOS usable also in web format that connecting to your LinkedIn profile allows you to choose among a variety of campaign templates to automate different activities on LinkedIn or create a marketing automation drip campaign.
You can choose between activities towards LinkedIn profiles such as LinkedIn message and email invitations (extracted from LinkedIn Helper through the partnership with Snov.io), inviting to follow a Company page, visiting and extracting information from a profile, sending InMails, following profiles and assigning endorsements.
The price is among the lowest on the market, but the app, not running in the cloud like others, may not have the same security, although it does allow you to change IPs.
From 15 euros per month, 14-day trial: www.linkedinhelper.com
Octopus CRM
It works through a browser extension that allows you to pull profiles on a very user friendly CRM.
You can import a variety of profiles from LinkedIn search and LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which are fed into a CRM.
From there you can send bulk requests for connection, messaging, visit profile or endorse.
From 25 euros per month, with 7-day trial: www.octopuscrm.io
Dux Soup
Like Octopus CRM, it works with a browser extension that works with Google Chrome. It connects with Pipedrive e Hubspot, natively. Horizontally arranged automation workflows.
Starts at 36 euros per month with a 14-day trial: www.dux-soup.com
Meetalfred
It allows you to do multichannel outreach and contact memebers of groups you belong to, converse with people who have commented or interacted with a post on Linkedin to send a connection request, message, email but also direct message on Twitter, calls and whatsapp automation (inbound), all of which can be combined. It also allows you to create templates and provides a template library.
The cost starts at 49 euros per month with a 14-day trial: www.meetalfred.com
Dripify
Very similar graphically to marketing automation platforms. Allows search only by url profile pasting and internal LinkedIn search. You can add custom variables to messages including name, location, company.
Dripify starts at €59 per month with a 14-day trial: www.dripify.com
SkyLead
Skylead is a cloud-based tool that allows you to create sophisticated automations even with the use of modal logic (IF/AND).
It allows you to import prospects from LinkedIn search, LinkedIn Sales Navigator or CSV and send private messages, InMail, emails to the prospect's business address.
The price range places it at the high end of these tools like Expandi: Skylead starts at €100 per month with a 7-day trial: www.skylead.io
WeConnect
We Connect allows, starting from a prospect search through LinkedIn or LinkedIn Sales Navigator, to set up an automated sequence of profile visit, post like, invitation to connect or follow, always with the possibility to customize the message with the help of dynamic tags.
We Connect starts at 49 euros per month with a 14-day trial: www.we-connect.io
Expandi
One of the most popular of the automation tools on LinkedIn, it allows you, starting with a list of prospects or a search, to initiate automated sequences, with a focus on account security thanks to features that randomize requests to make them similar to manual mode, a warm-up phase, and the deletion of connection requests that have been waiting for many days. Expandi costs $100 per month and has a 7-day trial: www.expandi.io
Castanet
Castanet allows you to automate initiatives to request connections, add skills and send messages on LinkedIn with custom messages (where you can add dynamic variables such as name, job title), email address extraction and automated workflows. Castanet has various plans starting at $159 per month with a 7-day trial and opportunity to take advantage of a demo on: www.gocastanet.com
Want to automate your lead generation, prospecting and outreach activities with LinkedIn Automation Tools? Contact me for a Lead Generation Consulting With LinkedIn.
