How many follow-up messages should you send on LinkedIn?
More than feels polite.
Upscale Outreach ·
Don’t stop before the fifth message. In real campaigns, 26% of replies came to message three, four or five, and they were as often worth answering as replies to the first. About one follow-up in 2,000 drew an annoyed reply.
Outscale benchmarks, from 112,149 prospects reached in real campaigns.
A quarter of the replies come late
Message one earned a reply from 8.2% of the people it reached. The first follow-up: 6.6%, nearly as many. From message three on, each message earned about 3%.
- Message 18.2%
- Message 26.6%
- Messages 3 to 5, each3%
Smaller numbers. But they add up: 26% of all replies came to message three, four or five. Stop at two and you never hear from them.
And the late replies were just as good. 43% were worth answering, against 44% of replies to the very first message.
The awkwardness is on your side of the screen
By message three, most senders feel like a pest. You remember every message you sent, so you picture them remembering too.
They mostly don’t. A LinkedIn inbox is busy, and silence usually means “haven’t got to it”. People who mean no tend to say so: 31% to 54% of the replies to each message were a plain no.
Annoyed replies? About one in every 2,000 follow-ups. Your nerves cost more replies than their irritation ever will.
What to do today
- Write five messages. Two feels like plenty when you’re the one sending. The replies say otherwise.
- Give every follow-up something new. A question, a result, a different reason to talk. “Just bumping this” gives them nothing to answer.
- Stop the moment they answer. Yes or no, a reply ends the sequence. From there it’s a conversation.
- Let the numbers cut the tail. If message five earns nothing in your own campaigns, drop it. That’s a call for the data to make.