Setting Timing, Waits and Daily Limits
What it does: sets the clock the campaign runs on, so it behaves like a person working rather than a script firing.
Run it when: during the build, before activation. Several of these cannot be changed once the campaign is live.
Time: 10 minutes.
Before you start
The sequence shape decided
Working hours already set on every sender account
The number of follow-ups agreed
The steps
1. Learn the four knobs.
Knob | Range | Default | What it controls |
|---|---|---|---|
Invite wait | 1 to 72 hours | 1 hour | Profile visit to connection request, or to InMail |
First message wait | 1 to 72 hours | 1 hour | Acceptance to Message 1 |
InMail fallback | 3 to 14 days | 3 days | Unaccepted request to fallback InMail |
Follow-up wait | 1 to 14 days | set per step | Silence to the next follow-up |
2. Leave the two short waits alone.
An hour from visit to request, an hour from acceptance to Message 1. The defaults are right, and changing them without a specific reason is fiddling. A message that lands an hour after someone accepted is natural; one that lands four seconds after is not.
3. Set follow-up spacing wide enough.
Three to four days for the first follow-up, five to seven for the second, seven or more for the third. Anything tighter than three days reads as pestering, and it is the most common cause of a campaign generating withdrawals instead of replies.
4. Respect the fallback minimum.
The unaccepted-request-to-InMail window cannot be shorter than three days, and the sending worker enforces it. Do not promise anyone a faster fallback.
5. Understand that waits are minimums, not appointments.
Every send respects the account's working-hours window. A one-hour wait that comes due at 11pm rolls to the next open slot in the morning. Tell people delays are floors, not schedules, before they ask why a message went out eleven hours late.
6. Run seven days a week.
Attention on LinkedIn does not stop on Saturday, and the extra two days compound volume at no extra risk. This holds regardless of the ICP.
7. Set the daily volume from the senders, not from ambition.
Each account carries 25 connection requests and 50 messages a day, shared across every campaign it sends from. Multiply by the number of senders on the campaign to get the real daily ceiling, then set the campaign's pace below it. New accounts run their ramp from SOP 03 and contribute far less than 25 until the ramp finishes.
8. Do the arithmetic before activation.
A 2,000-lead list at 25 requests a day from two senders takes 40 working days to get through. If that is unacceptable, the fix is more senders, decided now, not a faster cadence decided later.
Do this / Not this
Do this | Not this |
|---|---|
Keep the one-hour defaults | Set zero-minute waits for speed |
3 to 4 days, then 5 to 7, then 7+ | Daily follow-ups |
Send seven days a week | Weekdays only out of habit |
Calculate days-to-complete before launching | Discover the list takes four months |
Add senders when the maths does not work | Raise per-account limits, which is not possible |
Explain that waits are minimums | Promise exact send times |
Done when
All four timing knobs are deliberately set
Follow-up spacing is at least three days at every step
Working hours exist on every sender account
Daily ceiling calculated from sender count, and campaign pace sits under it
Days-to-complete calculated and acceptable
Ramping accounts accounted for in the maths
