What Is LinkedIn Outreach? Campaign Types and Sequences Explained
LinkedIn outreach is contacting people on LinkedIn in a planned sequence rather than one message at a time. There are four shapes it can take: connection requests to a cold list, message-only retargeting to people already connected, InMail to open profiles, and a comment-to-DM lead magnet. Route on who the audience is, not on the channel you prefer.
Run it when: every campaign, before you build. Picking wrong burns days of finite sending capacity chasing the wrong channel.
Time: 10 minutes.
Last reviewed September 2026.
Before you choose the campaign type
The list built, and you know whether these people are already connected to you
For an InMail campaign, the list split by open-profile status
The copy written
How to choose a LinkedIn campaign type and sequence
1. Route on who the audience is, not on what you feel like sending.
"I need to reach a lot of people" is not a request for connection requests. It is a request for this decision.
2. Already connected to you? Use retargeting.
A message-only drip to people on an existing list, with no connection request and no InMail. It spends no invite capacity at all, because nobody is being invited. It takes exactly one sender account.
3. Cold list, not connected? Use connection requests.
This is the default and the most tested channel in the product. Unless something below points elsewhere, this is the answer.
4. Open profiles, or no invite capacity left? Use InMail.
Free to open profiles, and no acceptance gate to wait behind. ==Filter the list to open profiles first==: that status is only learned by visiting or enriching a profile, never at scrape or search time, so a freshly scraped list does not carry it yet. Exhaust free open-profile InMail before paying for credits.
5. Building inbound from your own content? Use a lead magnet.
Not a list-based campaign at all: a keyword in a comment triggers a delivery DM. It needs an audience already watching your posts, and it is the slower compounding motion. SOP 20, LinkedIn Comment-to-DM Funnel covers it.
6. Pick the sequence shape.
The connect flow is: visit profile, wait, send request, and on acceptance wait then send Message 1, with follow-ups nested under each no-reply. The open-profile InMail flow is: visit, wait, InMail, done. The connect-or-InMail flow runs the connect flow and, if the request is not accepted inside the fallback window of at least three days, sends a cold InMail instead. A reply anywhere ends the sequence for that lead, which is why follow-up two only fires when follow-up one got silence.
7. Only go custom when no preset fits.
Extra warm-up steps, different ordering, A/B copy variants, follow-ups after an InMail: those need a custom sequence. Everything else is better served by a proven preset. Hand-assembling a sequence for no reason is how campaigns end up sending in an order nobody intended.
8. Know the combination play.
A lead-magnet funnel never sends a connection request, but it does auto-accept pending invitations from commenters, so it quietly builds a pool of warm first-degree connections at zero invite cost. Weeks later, that pool is exactly the audience for a retargeting campaign with a new offer. This is the highest-value pattern in the product and almost nobody finds it on their own.
Campaign types: do this, not this
Do this | Not this |
|---|---|
Route on the audience | Route on the channel you prefer |
Filter to open profiles before an InMail campaign | Send InMails to a raw scraped list |
Free open-profile InMail before paid | Turn on paid credits first |
Retargeting for people you already know | A connection request to a first-degree connection |
A preset unless there is a real reason not to | Hand-built sequences by default |
Lead magnet for compounding inbound | Lead magnet when you need meetings this week |
Want it right the first time? Choosing wrong here costs days of sending capacity before anyone notices. Book a call and we pick the shape and build it with you.
You approve the campaign copy before anything sends.
Our inbox managers reply by hand, and they check with you first.
We hold the daily caps. 25 invites per account, no exceptions.
Month to month. No lock-in.
Questions people ask
What is LinkedIn outreach?
Contacting people on LinkedIn in a planned sequence (a connection request, a first message once they accept, and one or two follow-ups if they go quiet) rather than sending messages one at a time by hand. A reply anywhere ends the sequence for that person.
What types of LinkedIn campaign are there?
Four. Connection requests for a cold list, which is the default. Message-only retargeting for people already connected, which spends no invite capacity. InMail for open profiles. And a comment-to-DM lead magnet, which is triggered by your own content rather than a list.
How long should a LinkedIn outreach sequence be?
A connection request, a first message on acceptance, then two follow-ups. Three follow-ups is the ceiling. Longer chains do not add replies, they add unsubscribes you never see.
Is LinkedIn outreach worth it in 2026?
Yes, when the targeting is tight and the message has a real reason to exist. What has stopped working is high-volume generic sending, which is now the fastest way to get an account restricted rather than a shortcut to more meetings.
You are done when
The campaign type is chosen and the reason is one sentence about the audience
The list matches the type, including open-profile filtering if relevant
The sequence shape is known step by step before the build starts
Any custom sequence is justified by something a preset genuinely cannot do
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