How to Automate LinkedIn Lead Gen

TL;DR:

• Automating LinkedIn lead gen involves identifying, connecting with, and nurturing potential customers on the platform.
• LinkedIn automation tools can send connection requests, automate follow-ups, engage at scale, and track results.
• Top tools for LinkedIn auto lead gen include Letterdrop, Expandi, Meet Alfred, Dux-Soup, Octopus CRM, and LaGrowthMachine.
• Pair automated lead gen with social selling for best results, supplementing automation with meaningful human connection.

Lead gen on LinkedIn is identifying, connecting with, and nurturing potential customers on the platform. When done right, it drives consistent pipeline growth by tapping into LinkedIn’s professional ecosystem.

The benefits of putting your LinkedIn lead-gen on autopilot are somewhat obvious:

• Save time by automating repetitive actions like connection requests and profile views.
• Scale outreach to hundreds of prospects daily.
• Increase overall effectiveness — automation tools can boost lead gen by up to 60%.

How Automatic LinkedIn Lead Gen Works

Automation tools capable of taking care of your lead gen efforts do so through APIs or Chrome Extensions. They might allow you to:

1. Send Connection Requests: Personalize and automate requests to reach more prospects faster.
2. Follow Up Automatically: Pre-schedule follow-up messages for higher response rates.
3. Engage at Scale: Automate profile visits, endorsements, likes, and even comments.
4. Track Results: Many tools include analytics dashboards to track connection rates, responses, and engagement metrics.

It has to be said, though — LinkedIn officially discourages automation, and if you're not careful, your account can get suspended.

Here's how to avoid this:

• Don't Overload Prospects: Sending too many messages or generic requests can damage your brand.
• Don't Become a Bot: Automating everything without doing the necessary human checks makes you come across as a bot, which doesn't sit well with prospects at all, and certainly won't get you meetings.

Top 6 Tools for LinkedIn Auto Lead Gen

1. Letterdrop

Shameless plug aside, we really do automate everything to do with LinkedIn lead gen — and safely, with SOC-2 compliance.

What Makes It Best in Class?

• Automated Connection Requests: Effortlessly send personalized connection requests at scale, saving hours of manual work.
• Withdraw Stale Requests: Letterdrop ensures your LinkedIn account stays clean by automatically withdrawing unaccepted connection requests, helping you avoid spam.

• Scrape Posts for Engaged Accounts: Identify warm leads from first-party posts (from your team) and third-party posts (from prospects, competitors, and influencers). This ensures you’re focusing on accounts already engaging with your ecosystem.
• Automatically Act on Signals: You can set up an engagement sequence (liking, commenting, sending templatized DMs, adding to Apollo sequence, etc) from anyone in your team to nurture prospects.

• Historical Account Engagement Tracking: Monitor who interacts with your posts, comments, and shares over time, making it easy to prioritize follow-ups.
• Tie LinkedIn Activity to Pipeline: You can see granular pipeline impact of LinkedIn activity in $.

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2. Expandi

Expandi is a reliable, cloud-based LinkedIn automation tool designed to help users scale their outreach.

Key Features:

• Cloud-Based Automation: Provides easy access and consistent performance.
• Smart Sequencing: Automates follow-ups based on recipient behavior.
• Detailed Analytics: Offers insights into connection and response rates for campaign refinement.

3. Meet Alfred

Meet Alfred is a multi-channel tool for automating LinkedIn outreach alongside email and Twitter. Its built-in CRM and message sequencing features streamline communication but are better suited for teams prioritizing volume over insight-driven engagement.

Primary Features:

• Built-In CRM: Organizes contacts with tags and segmentation.
• Profile Visit and Endorsement Automation: Enhances visibility with prospects.
• Message Sequencing: Keeps leads engaged with pre-scheduled follow-ups.

4 & 5. Dux-Soup and Octopus CRM

Dux-Soup and Octopus CRM automate simple LinkedIn tasks like profile visits and endorsements. These are entry-level tools for basic LinkedIn automation.

Primary Features:

• Automated profile visits for increased visibility.
• Endorsement automation to engage potential leads.
• Basic messaging automation for connection requests and follow-ups.

6. LaGrowthMachine

LaGrowthMachine focuses on multi-channel lead gen, offering automation across LinkedIn and email. It works best for users who want to combine outreach on multiple platforms but doesn’t provide deep insights into engagement or pipeline metrics.

Primary Features:

• Multi-channel messaging with LinkedIn and email.
• Automated sequences for seamless follow-ups.
• Campaign tracking to monitor interactions.

For a more extensive list of LinkedIn automation tools, check out this blog post.

Pair Automated Lead Gen with Social Selling for Best Results

Automating repetitive tasks is one thing — you need to make sure you're supplementing it with meaningful human connection.

You can see upwards of 15% improvement to your reply rates and more with social selling — read more on our LinkedIn outbound guide.

By having your team post regularly and become advisors, you generate demand and create credibility to go with your lead gen efforts.

Consider looking into it.

Automate Your LinkedIn Lead Gen — Safely

So, with the help of this guide and some choice tools, you'll be able to automate your lead gen on LinkedIn.

If you want to get started, or just want to talk social selling, reach out to us.