4 ways to bypass the LinkedIn connection limit in 2024

LinkedIn connections have been a hot topic among the platform’s active users ever since the major LinkedIn connection limit to 100 invites per week back in 2021.

The fall from over 1000 LinkedIn connections per week to merely 100 struck many users’ businesses, especially those who almost solely rely on the platform for prospecting and LinkedIn lead generation.

LinkedIn didn’t make any public statements regarding the introduction of the LinkedIn connection limit.

However, many users believe they’ve been introduced to provide a satisfying user experience and maintain the quality of the connections made through the platform. 

Despite everyone appreciating LinkedIn’s effort to remain a strictly professional, prime platform, they all want to know how to work around the LinkedIn connection limit. For this reason, in this blog, we’re going to show you 4 ways to bypass the LinkedIn connection limit. 

4 ways to bypass the LinkedIn connection limit 

Import via email 

Import via email is not to be confused with Invite via email.

Invite via email used to allow you to type in or import your leads’ emails through a CSV file to invite them to connect directly in the platform.

As mentioned above, LinkedIn discontinued this feature in the summer of 2022 and left its users with a similar feature - Import via email. 

Import via email, on the other hand, allows you to import saved contacts and other contacts from your email or any other email you have access to. 

Saved contacts are the email addresses you manually saved or imported through a CSV or Vcard file to your email. 

Other contacts are the email addresses of all people you engaged with via email, but you haven’t saved them as a contact in your email. 

How to use Import via email

So, to use Import via email, go to your LinkedIn home page, and click Show less. 

Then, choose More options. 

LinkedIn will then offer you to type in an email address you wish to import contacts from. Then click Continue. 

Once you click Continue, you will be offered to choose the account you wish to import contacts from. This implies that you can actually import contacts from any email address you have access to.

LinkedIn will let you know what contacts it will take into consideration and will ask for permission. 

Once LinkedIn imports contacts, you can check the box in the right corner of each contact you wish to Invite to connect and then click the button Add connection. 

If the emails you have, match the ones your lead's used to create their LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn will send them an invite to connect over the email and directly in the platform as well. 

These connection requests don’t count toward your limits, so, in theory, there is a way to use the Import via email to bypass LinkedIn restrictions. 

You could upload a CSV file with your leads’ email addresses to your email and then use the import via email feature to invite them to connect on LinkedIn.

However, this way of bypassing LinkedIn limits is a bit of a hassle.

Here’s how. 

First you need to find someone’s email address. In other words, need to find a way to get a hold of all those emails – scrape them from somewhere or purchase them from a database.

Then, you will need to add them to a CSV file manually, upload the CSV file to the contact list on your email account, and hope that the leads you’re trying to reach used those emails in particular to make their LinkedIn profiles. 

Only then will Import via email actually work. 

LinkedIn InMails 

InMails are free or paid direct messages on LinkedIn that you can send to members not part of your network, contrary to a regular LinkedIn message.

By sending InMails, you can actually avoid using your LinkedIn Connection Requests. 

LinkedIn InMails are, for many platform members, a mystery, therefore underused and often wasted.

That’s quite a shame, taking into account that, according to the official LinkedIn learning courses, InMails have an average response rate of between 18 to 25% compared to cold emails’ 3% average response rate. 

Every member on LinkedIn can receive a paid InMail, but only paid LinkedIn subscribers can send them.

LinkedIn’s way to encourage meaningful LinkedIn connections is by giving the paid InMails credits back to the sender each time they get a reply.

Additionally, every paid LinkedIn subscriber gets 800 free InMail credits (but for LinkedIn Recruiter) that only users with open profiles can receive.

If you are unfamiliar with InMail as a LinkedIn feature, check out our guide on how to send LinkedIn InMail.

Since, as mentioned above, InMails can be sent to users not part of your network, they can be more effective than LinkedIn Connection Requests themselves.

When should I use LinkedIn InMail?  

InMails can be your last resource to get to the desired lead. Or they can be a wise hack to outreach busy decision-makers who get numerous new LinkedIn connections every day.

Let’s say you tried to connect with a specific lead on LinkedIn. You’ve sent several emails, and called them, and you never got an answer. In these cases, sending an InMail turned out to be a practice that brings results for many Skylead users. InMails can also be part of your Smart Sequence. 

An InMail, among other things, has all the characteristics of a regular email (subject line, body, and higher character limit). If well-written, is a secure way to stand out in your lead’s Inbox and stay remembered in the long run.

By sending a LinkedIn InMail to a complete stranger on LinkedIn and composing an engaging InMail copy by following these LinkedIn InMail examples with a 25% reply rate formula, you are also diminishing the possibility of your lead clicking I don’t know this person once you send a regular LinkedIn connection invite. 

Skylead allows you to include both free and paid InMails in your outreach.

By moving the toggle button to the right, you are allowing the platform to check if your lead has set their profile to Open profile status, and decide for you whether to reach them out via free or paid InMail. 

Emails

Since we mentioned LinkedIn’s version of emails, we cannot avoid highlighting all the advantages of regular cold emailing too! 

Yes, LinkedIn has over 800 million active users. But that doesn’t mean that the platform is the preferred means of communication for all of them. This is also one of the reasons, as mentioned above, why Smart Sequences come in “handy”.

By combining Email Outreach with LinkedIn Outreach, your sequence will show which channels work best for target leads. This information can be useful for your future sales and marketing strategies overall.

Here is how you can make the most out of emails.

The role of an email in a multi-channel approach

Send the same message as on LinkedIn and see where you get the answer faster. If you don’t get a reply whatsoever, here are some hacks on how to write a follow-up email after no response;

Use email to complement your Connection Message

Elaborate on the LinkedIn Connection Message you’ve already sent on LinkedIn, as email gives you more freedom in terms of character limits;

Subject line: Sara <> John

Hi Sara,

I recently tried connecting with you on LinkedIn.

I  saw that you’re VP of Sales at PowerData. 

I was curious if you are using cold outreach to get new clients. 

If the answer is yes, I would love to show you a multichannel solution that can help you scale your sales with minimal effort.

Would you be interested in learning more about our solution?

Best, 
 
John

Ask for a Connection Request via email.

Ask someone to send a LinkedIn connection to you by inserting a link to your profile in the email, if you reached the LinkedIn connection limit for the week. 

Subject line: Loved your post on cold outreach… 

Hey John,

Love the post you recently made on LinkedIn about Cold Outreach and totally agree with you on "how SDRs should be more creative".

I am a content creator, and I post majorly about prospecting, cold outreach, LinkedIn and email outreach hacks, and lead generation. 

I figured my content could benefit you and your team, so I wanted to connect with you on LinkedIn. 

Here’s a link to my profile - linkedin.com/in/jelenacerovic

Also, I saw that you’re Head of Sales at Leadgen.io and was curious if you are using any solutions to make your sales more efficient.

Best, 

Jelena

The Find & verify business emails via LinkedIn and Find & verify business emails by your source (if you are using a CSV file or API) are two of Skylead's native features. They make sure your email arrives at its correct destination. 

The most important segment of these two features is the “verification” part, which safeguards your domain from being blacklisted. That said, Smart Sequences will only send emails to double-verified emails. Moreover, they will make sure emails get delivered to the intended recipient. 

Smart sequences

Smart Sequences are AI-inspired algorithms that track your leads’ behavior and act accordingly. Yours is to create different paths to your leads (via email, LinkedIn messages, InMail), combine them with if/else conditions, and then click Start Campaign. Skylead will find the fastest and most effective way to your lead. 

This Skylead’s all-star feature allows you to combine all platform solutions in one campaign. That way, you can take advantage of all possible touch-points with your leads. 

As you may see from the above example, Smart Sequences are perfect for bypassing LinkedIn connection limits.

With Skylead’s 

• LinkedIn Outreach (LinkedIn Connections Requests, InMails, LinkedIn Messages) 
• Email Outreach
• Find & Verify business emails via LinkedIn or via CSV/API (whichever works for you and what brings the best result)
• Image & GIF hyper-personalization (Skylead’s native feature and available to all users)

you will, for sure, find a way to get in touch with your lead. Also, you will discover what your lead’s preferred channel of communication is, and, therefore, increase your response and engagement rates. 

FAQ about LinkedIn connections

Let’s go through several most commonly asked questions regarding LinkedIn connections and the LinkedIn connection limit.

How many LinkedIn connections can you have? 

LinkedIn limits the number of 1st-degree connections to up to 30 000. After you reach this number, you won't be able to send or receive Connection Requests until you resize your network under its limit. 

On the other hand, LinkedIn allows you to follow and be followed by an unlimited number of members. 

LinkedIn Follow VS Connect

When someone is your 1st-degree connection, you can see each other’s content and any update on your feeds. Also, you are allowed to exchange regular LinkedIn messages. You always follow your 1st-degree connections by default, but you can also unfollow them. 

If you turn on the Creator Mode, you can continue growing your network without necessarily adding new connections. 

What is the LinkedIn connection limit? 

The LinkedIn connection limit is the restriction introduced by the platform at the beginning of 2021. It implied that each member could send up to 100 Connection Requests per week. 

In the meanwhile, as of December 2021, LinkedIn raised the connection limit to approximately 200 invites per week. 

We say approximately because the truth is the LinkedIn connections limit depends on many factors.

These factors could be how old your profile is, the number of connections you have, how active you’ve been lately, your acceptance rate, etc. No one knows how many LinkedIn connections exactly you can send per week. Undoubtedly, it is far less than it used to be before the restriction. 

When does the LinkedIn connection limit reset? 

Your LinkedIn connection limit resets at the beginning of each week - over the weekend or Monday, depending on the user. 

Basically, if you use all your LinkedIn connections for the week on Friday, you won’t wait long to have your connection limit reset. 

However, despite respecting the LinkedIn connection limit, you must be careful to whom you send invitations. LinkedIn members who get turned off many times, left pending, or marked as I don’t know this person are more often subject to additional screening. Consequently, they are more likely to end up in LinkedIn jail or with restrictions. 

Summary

As you may see, there’s no reason to panic about the LinkedIn connection limit.

There are legitimate and secure ways to bypass them.

Furthermore, aside from sending LinkedIn connections, messages, InMails, and emails, Skylead also performs all time-consuming sales tasks for you. This way, it allows you to focus on finding qualified leads and closing the deal faster.

If you are not part of the Skylead team, register and test out Skylead for 7 days for FREE. Our support team is at your disposal from the start. They will be more than happy to help and answer all your questions. 

Let's scale up your business!