LinkedIn Outreach Glossary

Connection Request Limit

LinkedIn's weekly cap on outbound connection requests. Standard accounts are limited to approximately 100 per week. Sales Navigator accounts in good standing can send up to 200. Accounts with low acceptance rates or high spam reports have limits reduced further. Staying below the maximum and maintaining a strong acceptance rate is the safest approach to long-term account health.

Connection Request Note

An optional personalised message included with a connection request, limited to 300 characters. Requests with a relevant, personalised note consistently outperform blank requests in acceptance rate. Note length matters: shorter notes that reference something specific to the prospect outperform longer generic notes.

Acceptance Rate

The percentage of sent connection requests accepted by recipients. A strong acceptance rate for a well-targeted B2B campaign is 25 to 40 percent. Below 15 percent indicates a targeting or messaging problem. Low acceptance rate also signals to LinkedIn's algorithm that requests are unwanted, which can trigger account restrictions.

Message After Connection

The first direct message sent to a prospect after they accept a connection request. Sending a pitch immediately after acceptance is the most common mistake in LinkedIn outreach and drives the highest ignore and disconnect rates. Effective first messages acknowledge the connection and offer something relevant before making any ask.

InMail

A paid LinkedIn feature that allows messages to be sent to people you are not connected to, available through Sales Navigator and Premium subscriptions. InMail response rates run 10 to 25 percent across B2B, above cold email averages. Volume is limited by monthly credit allocation.

Open InMail

A free InMail type available for LinkedIn members who have set their profile to open to messages from anyone. Open InMails do not consume paid InMail credits, making them a useful tactic for outreach to senior leaders who have opted into broader accessibility.

Profile View Trigger

The action of viewing a prospect's LinkedIn profile before sending a connection request. Creates a degree of familiarity and social proof before the message arrives. Prospects who notice a profile view before receiving a request convert at meaningfully higher acceptance rates.

SSI Score (Social Selling Index)

LinkedIn's proprietary score from 0 to 100 measuring how effectively a user establishes their professional brand, finds the right people, engages with insights, and builds relationships. Higher SSI scores are associated with better organic reach and may correlate with more favourable connection limit treatment, though LinkedIn does not confirm this officially.

Sales Navigator

LinkedIn's paid sales intelligence tool that provides advanced search filters, lead and account saving, InMail credits, and intent signals. The standard tool for building targeted prospect lists for LinkedIn outreach campaigns. Updated in early 2026 with a conversational AI search assistant that significantly speeds up prospect list building.

Lead List (Sales Navigator)

A saved list of individual contacts in Sales Navigator, used to track outreach targets and monitor engagement signals such as job changes, post activity, and profile updates. Changes in a saved lead's status (new role, company change) can trigger timely and relevant outreach.

Account List (Sales Navigator)

A saved list of target companies in Sales Navigator. Account-level tracking shows when companies post jobs, have leadership changes, or publish content, providing intent signals that make outreach timing more relevant.

Company Intelligence API

A LinkedIn API launched in early 2026 that provides structured company data including headcount changes, department growth, and technology signals. Used by sales teams to build more precise account targeting and identify companies showing growth signals that indicate buying intent.

Boolean Search

A search method using operators such as AND, OR, and NOT to construct precise queries in Sales Navigator. Boolean search is the fastest way to narrow a prospect list to a specific combination of role, seniority, industry, and company size without retrieving large volumes of irrelevant results.

Second-Degree Connection

A LinkedIn user connected to someone in your network but not directly connected to you. Second-degree connection requests have higher acceptance rates than third-degree because the shared connection creates implicit social proof. Filtering by second-degree connections in Sales Navigator is a targeting tactic that improves campaign acceptance rates.

LinkedIn Sequence

A structured series of LinkedIn touches delivered over a defined number of days: typically a profile view, a connection request with or without a note, a first message after acceptance, and one or two follow-up messages. LinkedIn sequences run at lower volume and slower pace than email sequences to stay within platform limits.

Multichannel Sequence

An outreach sequence that combines LinkedIn touches with email and optionally phone calls, coordinated across channels to reach the same prospect through multiple points of contact. LinkedIn connection and engagement can be used to warm a prospect before a cold email arrives, improving open and reply rates on the email step.

Follow-Up Message

A message sent to a prospect who has accepted a connection but not replied to the first message. Effective follow-ups add a new piece of value or a different angle rather than repeating the original message. Maximum two to three follow-ups before marking the contact as non-responsive.

Automation Safe Limit

The maximum volume of automated LinkedIn actions considered safe from an account restriction perspective. In 2026, LinkedIn's enforcement of automation terms has increased. Safe limits are estimated at 50 to 80 connection requests per day and 80 to 100 messages per day, well below technical maximums, to avoid triggering account flags.

Profile Optimisation

The process of aligning a LinkedIn profile with outreach goals before campaigns begin. Prospects who receive a connection request will check the sender's profile before accepting. A profile that clearly communicates the sender's role, company, and relevant expertise significantly improves acceptance rates compared to a sparse or generic profile.

Engagement Signal

Activity on LinkedIn that indicates a prospect's interest level: post likes, comments, profile views, article reads, or event attendance. Engagement signals from a saved lead in Sales Navigator can be used to time outreach when the prospect is actively on the platform and has recently interacted with relevant content.

Creator Mode

A LinkedIn profile setting that increases content distribution for regular publishers and displays follower count rather than connection count on the profile. Used by sales professionals who combine content publishing with outreach, using posts to warm audiences before reaching out directly.

Connection Acceptance Rate

Percentage of sent connection requests accepted. The first conversion metric in a LinkedIn sequence. Indicates whether the ICP targeting and profile credibility are strong enough to get through the first gate before any message is sent.

Reply Rate (LinkedIn)

The percentage of messages sent to accepted connections that receive a reply. LinkedIn reply rates across B2B campaigns run 10 to 25 percent for InMail and 5 to 15 percent for direct messages to connections, well above cold email averages on equivalent targeting.

Meeting Conversion Rate

The percentage of LinkedIn conversations that convert to a booked meeting. Lower than reply rate because not all replies indicate buying intent. Tracking meeting conversion rate separately from reply rate distinguishes between a messaging problem (low replies) and a qualification or follow-through problem (replies without meetings).