Table of contents
If you’re spending your day on LinkedIn for prospecting, there are automation tools that can be your new best friend! A well-vetted and properly used software for LinkedIn automation can benefit you and your team, especially over time.
There are many tools for LinkedIn that can help you determine who, when, how, and where to reach out to the people you truly want to speak with.
But what are LinkedIn automation tools? Why do you absolutely need to use them? And what are the best LinkedIn automation tools out there?
Save yourself time and energy with one of these LinkedIn automation software platforms. You’ll find the pros, cons, and each software’s ratings based on our system found below.
What are LinkedIn automation tools?
Automation software for LinkedIn is a set of tools designed to help professionals and companies to streamline the process of reaching out to potential contacts, prospects, partners, and clients.
You can basically do everything you set your mind to on LinkedIn thanks to sales and growth automation tools: from finding the right people to be in touch with, to scheduling personalized messages and follow-ups.
To make the most of your LinkedIn automation, it’s important to adopt a well-defined strategy for targeting first, such as a LinkedIn account-based marketing strategy, make sure to check out our post about the topic!
Think of the tool as your own personal assistant that automates mundane tasks and helps you with the research. Plus, it takes care of the tedious part of networking on LinkedIn:
- Remembering follow-up details
- Sending messages to prospects
- Analyzing data
- and more…
Why should you use LinkedIn automation tools in 2022?
When it comes to working in sales (and especially as a sales manager), there are plenty of things you’re now expected to do. It’s not just making some calls throughout the day and building relationships. It’s recording all of your notes on every prospect, following up with those who are interested, reaching out to those you’d like to contact, and more.
If your or your team’s day is filled with interactions, wouldn’t your life be made easier by having some things automatically done for you? That’s the beauty of using automation tools for LinkedIn.
They simply help you:
- Supercharge your productivity: Save time and increase efficiency by automating repetitive tasks.
- Amplify your reach: Scale your outreach efforts by sending personalized messages to a large audience without sacrificing quality.
- Engage with your connections: Stay top of mind with your audience by sending personalized messages, commenting on posts, and sending birthday wishes.
- Stay organized: Easily track your conversations, set reminders, and manage your pipeline in one place.
- Boost your ROI: Achieve your sales and marketing goals faster by streamlining your processes and delivering measurable results.
Example 🔍
Say you’re a sales manager and you want to reach out to people from your lead list, but you don’t have the time (or energy) to do it manually because there are thousands of them.
With an automation tool like LaGrowthMachine, you can easily set up your data with lead enrichment, which will allow you to send out personalized messages to each of them. You’re not only saving time, but you’re also delivering a higher quality of outreach, at scale!
The best part? You can set the tool up to run automatically so that you can focus on other tasks while the tool runs in the background.
They all work differently, of course, so you’ll want to choose what works best for you and your team. We’ve put together a comparison – with ratings – on what tools are your best options for LinkedIn automation.
Get 3.5X more leads!
Do you want to improve the efficiency of your sales department? With La Growth Machine you can generate on average 3.5x more leads while saving an incredible amount of time on all your processes.
By signing up today, you’ll get a free 14-day trial to test our tool!
A review of the best LinkedIn Automation Tools for 2023
When evaluating tools you want to use to boost your LinkedIn presence, you’ll want to first determine exactly what it is you want to achieve. This will aid your decision on which is best for you and your team. You’ll want to decide what is most important and what the goals are before committing to setting one of them up.
When it comes to features and functions, there is A LOT to consider. We’ve created this schema to help determine which is best overall for your LinkedIn needs!
For each of the software tools below, we’ll be giving the features ratings as points. Each feature they have based upon the above schema, they get a point.
We hope you find this evaluation and comparison useful in your LinkedIn automation tool search!
LaGrowthMachine
If you’re looking to develop a multitude of ways to reach new contacts, LaGrowthMachine is your best option! Our tool allows you to customize and automate your outreach process with a single platform.
We will provide you with ready-to-use templates, as well as the ability to create and tweak them to fit your needs.
Each step in your workflow is a fully customizable action to visit profiles, add contacts, send personalized messages, emails, Twitter DMs, you name it!
LaGrowthMachine also allows you to track your conversations and set reminders for follow-ups, and better yet, all this is available in one single view: LaGrowthMachine Inbox!
In this example, I created a sequence that automatically follows up with my lead if they don’t respond to my LinkedIn connection request:
Don’t feel like using a template and want to go from scratch? No problem!
Our clear and easy drag-and-drop system will allow you to build multichannel outreach sequences that will build your prospect relations quickly via email, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Pros:
- Set up multi-channel sequences (LinkedIn, Email, & Twitter)
- Automatic lead enrichment
- 24 lead variables for maximum personalization
- Great for sales managers with the ability to manage teams and have different identities in one account
- Reporting & analytics interfaces that detail metrics per each action or for the whole campaign
Cons:
- Pretty complex for automation novices
Overall Score = 21/23
Quick Tip💡
People tend to think of having to download our widget as a drawback, but it’s actually a great way to avoid being spotted by LinkedIn as someone who’s doing automation and having your account banned.
If you didn’t know, per their Terms & Conditions, LinkedIn forbids the use of automation tools.
With LaGrowthMachine, you can be sure your account has a much lower risk of getting flagged compared to when you use other tools that operate on Chrome extensions!
Waalaxy
If you’re looking to set up LinkedIn automations that are simple like following a list of your defined contacts or viewing profiles, ProspectIn will be great for you. Especially if you’re looking for something simple that can be used just as a plugin for Chrome.
Even though it only has less than 20 reviews so far on the Chrome Web Store, it gets a 4.7/5. Its automation capabilities, to sync with your CRM, connection request, and bulk messaging give people the control over the data they need to reach out effectively.
Pros:
- API connection to different tools and CRMs
- Followup automation via a simple Chrome plugin
- Export of LinkedIn profiles
Cons:
- Only for LinkedIn – no emails, Twitter, etc.
- High risk of being banned or suspended by LinkedIn
Overall Score = 15/23
Captain Data
This cloud-based software’s capacity for lead scoring in its automation would be very useful to sales teams. Captain Data has some integrations as well that should help it work together with your other systems.
This tool’s main use is to extract and enrich your CRM’s data with information found on multiple channels like LinkedIn and other websites. If you currently have a system that already does email outreach and social media engagement, this might be a great tool for you.
Pros:
- Integrates with Lemlist and Salesforce
- Perfect for scraping numerous websites for your searches
Cons:
- Doesn’t do any engagement like posting or messaging
- High cost for a few features
- Compatibility with other tools if you are a bit techy
Overall Score = 10/23
PhantomBuster
PhantomBuster is a software built with individual tasks you can add to your platform called “Phantoms” which create your workflow. If you’ve ever used or are familiar with Zapier, it feels similar to their Zaps.
You can set up automations to help you enrich your data, extract posts, auto-follow, and much more. There are some base templates you can also use to get you started with your phantom setup.
- It has integrations for phantoms on a lot of the top platforms including Slack, Reddit, and the ‘big 4’ (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram).
- Lots of features with multiple scenarios and sequences to set up
Cons:
- If you miss a phantom in your workflow, it may make the whole thing nonsense
- Not easily scalable
Overall Score = 19/23
Lemlist (Version 3)
Newest on this list to the tech world, Lemlist has made a splash already. While it does not have a focus on engagement, it can be a very handy lead generation tool. They also help with cold email templates for you to email when you do reach out.
This system is built as a great email cold outreach tool. It also integrates with a lot of other tools to help with building up your database. While it uses LinkedIn search automation to create your list, its focus is lead generation via email.
Even though Lemlist can let you contact people on multiple channels, you cannot create “multi-channel” campaigns per se: if you have a workflow that starts on Linkedin for example by sending a contact request and your prospect doesn’t accept you, your sequence will stop and you will not send them an email.
Pros:
- Reasonably easy to set up and use
- A/B testing and great personalization for emails
- Ability to set up your own web page
Cons:
- Not really useful for multi-channel campaigns as it doesn’t support conditions (ex. if not accepted, send an email)
- More of an email management system than customizable LinkedIn outreach
Overall Score = 15/23
Zopto
Zopto’s cloud-based tool is made for LinkedIn to help you reach out to your prospects. There are some helpful integration capabilities with this software as well as actionable insights they provide from your data.
Use their email templates to send automated messages to your prospects and the A/B testing to determine what works best. These helpful lead generation and nurturing features should definitely help you build your network faster.
Pros:
- Internal CRM to manage your contacts
- Lead nurturing using auto messaging with workflows
- Overall stable and comprehensive
Cons:
- No enrichment feature to fill in your contact’s information
- High cost
Overall Score = 15/23
Octopus CRM
This Chrome extension is available for LinkedIn automation to request connections, mass messaging, visit profiles, and auto endorse. Octopus is easy to set up and use for your LinkedIn account as well.
Building your sales funnel will work on this tool by creating workflows that can also integrate with Zapier. Conscious of the daily LinkedIn limits, it will automate some tasks via your search criteria to save you lots of time.
Pros:
- Easy to use tool that can get you a lot of traction very quickly
- Great for a quick burst of interactions for the short term
Cons:
- Dangerous for your account; risks suspension with continued use
- Features are fairly basic
Overall Score = 12/23
Meet Alfred (previously Leonard)
An installed tool on your desktop, Meet Alfred was designed for multi-channel access. Its main feature is a combined sequence setup for LinkedIn, emails, and Twitter for you to engage prospects. It also includes a LinkedIn search tool.
The focus of this tool is to personalize your messages which is vital to engagement. They’ll also provide you with data insights to help you see what’s working best.
Pros:
- Free trial and free version for one campaign
- Works with LinkedIn Groups
Cons:
- Fairly high potential risk of LinkedIn account suspension or banning
- Only a few basic features
Overall Score = 15/23
Dux-soup
Also a chrome extension plugin, you can use Dux-soup to set up basic LinkedIn automations. Similar to Octopus, the setup is reasonably simple and has some helpful integrations in the highest tier.
There is a handy tag management system you can use in this tool as well. It will help you sort and manage your outreach on LinkedIn more simply and clearly. There is also a team functionality to share notes and tags.
- Easy setup and free version
- Search and CSV download of emails using credits
- Ultra complete functionalities with purchased tiers
Cons:
- Very risky to use on your LinkedIn account per their Terms of Service and has been blocked before
Overall Score = 13/23
Linked Helper “2”
Another Chrome Extension comparable to Dux-soup, Linked Helper 2 is an option for you to launch simple actions from your LinkedIn account. This tool will help you build a workflow for message chains with an autoresponder. It will detect when someone replied to your message and respond according to your setup.
It also integrates well with a few other systems like Hunter.io and CRMs. You can use these aspects to find and build your social network and lead generation. Create strategies for LinkedIn with their built-in actions and targeted list outreach.
Pros:
- One of the most complete tools for LinkedIn Automations
- Freshly updated coding and features
Cons:
- Very risky to your LinkedIn account and has also been blocked by LinkedIn before
Overall Score = 15/23
Our final thoughts
Ultimately, it fully depends upon what it is you’re looking to accomplish with your tool. Determine that upfront and you’ll be able to choose which will have what you need.
Be sure to evaluate them against things like the risk and security factors as well as if they will work with the systems you currently use. Make your lead generation life easier with the right tool and have fun prospecting again!
Written by
Comments