Updated on: September 15th, 2026

CRM software and tools are definitely here to stay. There is no doubt that, with the global CRM market growth projection of $128.97 billion worth in 2028, the substantial popularity of the best CRM software is yet to come. 

And with the reason. Firstly, CRM offers a wide range of benefits, including centralized data and automation of tedious sales processes. Above all, a well-implemented CRM software can reach ROI up to $45 for each $1 spent. 

We all wish to jump on this train. And some of us already did. But in the sea of CRM software, how would you know which one is the best for you? Whether you are starting out or considering changing your CRM software, we’ve got your back.

Therefore, in this article we will cover some of the best CRM software, why they are the best, and how to integrate them with other tools.

Furthermore, we will cover what CRM software is, if you need it and if you should buy it. Let’s get to it!

What is CRM?

Customer Relation Management, aka CRM software, is a tool that helps companies collect, organize and manage data and streamline processes related to customers’ lifecycle. 

In other words, sales terms, CRM software helps teams visualize their pipeline and organize or perform tasks related to the buyer journey. Furthermore, it pinpoints the location of specific prospects in the sales funnel, their status, the next activity the sales team needs to perform, and potential value. 

CRM software substitutes various spreadsheets and documents companies use to keep up with prospects’ or customers’ data. It stores all information in one place - such as messages, meetings, pain points, buyer persona type, and, in some cases, calls with customers - everything you need to know about specific leads to help you build a relationship and close deals. Lastly, CRM software shows how effective your sales strategy is and if something in your process needs improvement.

Customer-wise, CRM software provides information about each customer, their history, and any pending tasks related to nurturing and upselling. 

Why is CRM one of the most valuable assets a company can acquire?

Why CRM? To clarify, let’s check out a couple of statistics first: 

59% of companies tested say that CRM helped them improve Customer Retention and Satisfaction Rate by 47% and reduce lead costs by 27%. (FounderJar)

According to Salesforce, 81% of sales representatives emphasize the importance of having a view of data across the complete customer journey.

97% of sales professionals tested think that technology and CRM software are either essential or crucial for business. (LinkedIn)

Looking at the previous statistics and many more across the internet, CRM software is an essential tool for sales teams, and for good reason. To clarify, they are not just any tool on the market - they make building the relationship and social selling easier tasks and help the sales team be more customer-oriented - which is the core point of today’s sales. 

Best CRM software can…

1. Centralize and label your data

CRM keeps track of all leads’ data. In other words, CRM’s centralized storage offers salespeople all the information on every individual prospect or customer at hand so they can build relationships and close deals faster. 

In addition, since the prospect base can be distinct, the best CRM software also labels and sections your customer data. To clarify, you as a salesperson must know at any given time where your prospects are in the pipeline, on what note you ended the conversation, are they warmed up, or what is the next step towards closing the deal. CRM software does this for you by analyzing and labeling existing data in the system with various parameters you set. Therefore, you can be more customer-oriented by creating different messages depending on the buyer lifecycle and more personalized outreach.

2. Automate the process

With almost every piece of data being actionable, the best CRM software can automate some tedious parts of the process for salespeople, so they can focus on nurturing prospects through the pipeline. For example, appointment scheduling, assigning leads to different sales reps, or updating and importing the prospects’ data. 

3. Offer analytics to close more deals and increase customer satisfaction

We can’t stress enough how important it is to conduct data analysis. Luckily, creators of the best CRM software out there share our opinion. Hence, every CRM has an analytics or reports page to help sales teams make data-driven decisions. 

In other words, CRM can help you see how many deals you won or lost, what tactic you used, deal value, and much more. Thanks to this, salespeople can adjust their approach, close more deals, and improve customer satisfaction and retention.

4. Remind salespeople of pending tasks 

Sometimes we as people, amongst other work, forget to write a follow-up email or two, or simply a meeting slips out of our mind. It happens. However, forgetting such tasks can cause a lost prospect or a customer. However, CRM software offers a solution to this problem, and it is an option to alert you of actions needed for every customer in the pipeline to make sure these mistakes never happen. 

To buy CRM software or to create a spreadsheet? That is the question.

Our experience says to buy. CRM software offers many useful features that you can use to streamline and automate processes and save you much more time than the spreadsheet.

However, if you are just starting out, perhaps you don’t have the necessary budget or have a small company, you might want to consider creating a CRM in a spreadsheet for yourself. It can help you understand how CRMs work and how your business can benefit from them. 

Additional tip: If you want to level up but are not ready to pay for the CRM itself, try out some CRM software with free plans, such as Bitrix24, Really Simple Systems, or EngageBay.

Nevertheless, if you or the company scales up, do not dwell on these spreadsheets or free plans (unless you want to), as you might miss out on the amazing features that some of the best CRM software have.

In case you wish to buy CRM software, here are the ten best CRM software currently on the market (people’s choice).

10 best CRM software for sales

CRM software is an essential tool for every sales team. However, as prospects differ, so do the salespeople. In other words, not every CRM suits every business's needs. So, how would you know which one is the best for your business needs?

Thus we present you with the top 10 list of highest-rated, best CRM software for the sales team from various listing websites. For this article, we are going to calculate the current average rating from the most popular review sites:

• G2 
• Capterra
• Software Advice
• GetApp
• Software Suggest

Furthermore, we will list who they are most suited for, advantages, disadvantages, pricing, and additional information to help you find the best CRM software for you. Let’s get started.

Salesmate - Best CRM software for cold calling

This CRM software is great for small and medium businesses who are cold calling. In addition, Salesmate has a relatively easy-to-use interface and quick access to the features you require.

Salesmate can be integrated with Gmail or Outlook. Furthermore, each sales member can centralize prospect data, including email messages, and share them with other team parties. 

Salesmate also offers reports that enable business owners and managers to track sales reps’ productivity and achievements. Team leads can also listen to calls by using the call recording option.

Advantages:

Salesmate has an option to generate tasks for you automatically. If, for example, someone fills a form on your website, that lead can directly go into Salesmate, and it automatically creates the task to follow up with that lead. 

Secondly, there are calling and texting features so the sales reps can contact leads. Thus, it eliminates the need for adding other tools and saves budget, in a way. 

Disadvantages:

A couple of reviewers reported a periodical system lagging. Furthermore, since every text message and call minutes have an additional price, the amount billed each month increases by that sum. This can be a problem for some users, as the amount can escalate if not properly and regularly managed. 

Price: 

• Starter: $15 per user / month or $144 billed annually
• Growth: $30 per user / month or $288 billed annually
• Boost: $50 per user / month or $480 billed annually

Listings rating: ⭐ 4.64

HubSpot CRM - Best CRM software for teams that are developing

There is no doubt that HubSpot surprised everyone with free access to the CRM software. However, the free version does come with its limitations. 

In a free account, you get:

• Contact management
• Deal pipeline
• Quotes
• Meeting scheduling
• Live chat
• Reporting dashboard

If you wish for anything else, you need to upgrade to a paid version. 

HubSpot CRM is perfect for individuals or companies that are just getting started with CRM software. Furthermore, it is useful for other medium-sized businesses that outgrew that phase.

Advantages:

HubSpot overall offers various nifty features, including sales playbooks, sequences, workflow automation, and reporting. In addition, this CRM can process up to 1,000,000 contacts and users for free and offers unlimited storage. Their Starters pricing plan is pretty fair and is somewhat beginners friendly, as opposed to other CRMs on the market. 

Disadvantages:

If you wish for additional features, pricing for professional and enterprise packages is pretty steep. Furthermore, it does not directly support Dynamics 365, and pipeline and managing deals are not that intuitive. 

Pricing: 

• Starter: $50 per 2 users / month or $540 yearly
• Professional: $500 per 5 users / month or $5400 yearly
• Enterprise: $1200 per 10 users / month, billed yearly

Listings rating: ⭐4.504

Salesforce Sales Cloud - Best CRM software for sales experts 

This is a complex and useful CRM that allows sales professionals to manage and build relationships with their prospects and customers. Salesforce Sales Cloud helps you optimize your workload, maximize your budget, and offers real-time data all in your favor so you can close more deals. 

This CRM is not for beginners. In other words, they offer features galore that can be useful to sales experts already using CRMs for a couple of years, but if you are a beginner, you might want to test out and use other systems for a while before jumping to Salesforce. 

Advantages:

Salesforce’s various and unique features are actually its advantage. Furthermore, they offer mobile app for Android and iOS to let you do the work on the go. 

Salesforce also possesses the visual workflow drag-and-drop feature and lets you create, do and change tasks fast. In addition, Salesforce Sales cloud integrated with Slack so you can engage with prospects and customers in real time. 

Disadvantages:

Salesforce is not beginner friendly and it is billed annually.

Pricing:

• Essential: $25 per user / month, billed annually
• Professional:: $75 per user / month, billed annually
• Enterprise: $150 user/month, billed annually
• Unlimited: $300 per user / month, billed annually

Listings rating: ⭐4.5

Zoho CRM - Best CRM software companies interested in contact and pipeline management only

The core functionality of Zoho’s CRM is contact management, pipeline management, and purchase control. Its dashboard is customizable, and it allows users to brand it according to their business brand. 

Advantages: 

One of Zoho's biggest advantages is that it allows you to reach people who use Twitter and Facebook. Furthermore, Zoho CRM tracks their actions and categorizes them as contacts so you can connect with them. 

Disadvantages:

Zoho is a kind of CRM with mixed feelings - its interface is a bit outdated, it doesn't work well with extensive outreach, features are sometimes not communicating between each other, and billing annually are perhaps the reasons why Zoho is so low on the list. 

Pricing: 

• Free Edition: Free up to 3 Users.
• Standard Edition: 20€ per user / month or 14€ per user / month but paid annually  
• Professional Edition: 35€ per user / month or 23€ per user / month but paid annually
• Enterprise Edition: 50€ per user / month or 40€ per user / month but paid annually
• Ultimate Edition: 65€ per user / month or 52€ per user / month but paid annually

Listings rating: ⭐4.292

Monday Sales CRM - Best CRM software for workflow

Before, Monday was a project management software, but now with its product development, it is much more. Now-developed Monday Sale is CRM software that centralizes your entire workflow and customer data. It allows tracking every aspect of the sales cycle, from lead generation to after-sale customer nurturing.

This CRM is best for small and medium-size businesses, and it is completely customizable.

Advantages: 

Monday offers various templates that you can use for your workflow. In addition, the Monday.com dashboard is clean and straight-to-the-point, so you can easily spot any issues in your sales cycle.

Disadvantages:

Their pricing plan is confusing since they require a minimum of 3 seats, and you cannot use it as an individual (you can, but you need to pay for 3 seats). Furthermore, Monday Sell has issues with tablet and mobile device apps, and workflow automation needs additional manual work.

Pricing:

• Individual: $0 free forever (up to 2 seats), billed annually 
• Basic: $8 / seat / month (3 seats minimum), billed annually 
• Standard: $10 seat / month (3 seats minimum), billed annually 
• Pro: $16 seat / month (3 seats minimum), billed annually 
• Enterprise: Contact Monday.com for a custom quote

Listings rating: ⭐ 4.675

Zendesk Sell - Best CRM software on a budget

Formerly Base, Zendesk Sell is a CRM software perfect for small and medium-sized businesses. It provides access to all channels the sales team uses for communication including SMS, voice calls, and emails. 

With Zendesk Sell, it is pretty easy to gain a full insight into the specific lead, thanks to features such as funnel tracking, customizable lists, templates, and conversion rate tracking. 

Advantages:

One of the best features Zendesk Sell has is a calendar-reminder system. In addition, Zendesk Sell can be linked with Microsoft Office and possesses one tool that automatically detects duplicate leads and task sequencing.

Disadvantages:

Zendesk users reported problems such as slow loading time, mistakes in automated data entry, and issues with customer support. In addition, subscriptions are billed annually, and users need to pay more for certain features.

Pricing:

• Starter: $19 per user / month, billed annually 
• Professional: $49 per user / month, billed annually 
• Enterprise: $99 per user / month, billed annually 

Listings rating: ⭐4.216

Copper - Best CRM software if you use Google Workspace

This is a CRM software with the main emphasis on Google Workspace. It has a well-designed UX/UI. What’s interesting about this CRM is that it contains in-app voice transcription, allowing you to take bullet points from the call right away.

Like other CRMs, Copper offers detailed reports and suggests improvements in workflow, while alerts keep you focused on the most important tasks. Furthermore, Copper is a nice CRM if you are a beginner or if you wish to change your current CRM.

Advantages:

The main advantage is that Copper integrates completely with Google Workspace - Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Sheets. In addition, the onboarding process is seamless and the system itself is simple to use.

Disadvantages:

Firstly, you are not able to attach files to emails you send in Copper. Secondly, workflow automation is a bit confusing since Copper uses rule-based workflow automation, and it may be time-consuming at first. Furthermore, another thing you might need to spend time with is filtering and extracting data.

Lastly, there is a lack of flexibility outside Google Workspace. To clarify, companies that use different email providers will not be able to integrate them with Copper. 

Pricing:

• Basic: $29 per user / month or $300 annually
• Professional: $69 per user / month $708 annually
• Business: $129 per user / month (with annual commitment) $1.428 annually

Listings rating: ⭐4.53

Pipedrive - Best CRM software for multiple pipelines and customization

CRM software, Pipedrive, handles all the essential sales CRM features. It is intuitive, and you can easily separate priority deals and create different strategies for each lead. 

Advantages:

Firstly, Pipedrive lets you build multiple sales pipelines and customize stages which are great for sales reps or team leads who manage various pipelines at once. 

Secondly, Pipedrive’s star feature is that you can create web forms and LeadBooster chatbot, a custom chatbot to pop up next to a webform. Pipedrive then automates the process and puts lead directly into your pipeline. 

In addition, Pipedrive’s powerful AI understands leads’ behavioral patterns and can give you hints on how to close deals with them. 

Disadvantages: 

Pipedrive can’t send a follow-up message or birthday greetings based on a date at this moment in time. In addition, users noticed some lagging issues and poor mobile app experience. Lastly, customizable reports are not available.

Pricing:

• Essential: $15 per user/month or $12.50 per user / monthly billed annually
• Advanced: $29 per user/month or $ 24.90 per user / monthly billed annually
• Professional: $59 per user/month or $49.90 per user / monthly billed annually
• Enterprise: $119 per user/month or $99 per user / monthly billed annually

Listings rating: ⭐4.446

Salesflare - Best CRM software (people’s choice)

The best CRM software on our list is Salesflare. It is a CRM software primarily for startups and small businesses, but many agencies and enterprises use it. Salesflare is intuitive and easy to use and can be integrated with more than 400 other productivity tools like Trello, thanks to Zapier.

Salesflare offers automation features, such as an automated address book, timelines, file repository, and sending emails based on triggers. It can also provide task suggestions automatically. 

Advantages:

The good thing about Salesflare is that they provide dedicated support no matter the plan you choose. In addition, for all technical advice, you can even talk to developers. 

Furthermore, they have a mobile app, various team access levels, and a great data gathering system. Lastly, Salesflare will automatically log phone calls or meetings, and gather contact information from email signatures, and even social media profiles.

Disadvantages:

Fortunately, there aren't many disadvantages when we talk about Salesflare - the users seem pretty content. There are, however, a couple of suggestions from them: it would be nice to have email drip functionality, and email reporting needs improvement.

Pricing:

• Growth: $29 per user / month (billed annually) or $35 billed monthly
• Pro: $49 per user / month (billed annually) or $55 billed monthly
• Enterprise: $99 per user / month (billed annually) or contact their support for custom plan

Listings rating: ⭐ 4.73

EngageBay - Best CRM software for enticing your sales team

Cloud-based CRM, EngageBay is a software that integrates sales, marketing, and finances on a single platform. The core function of this software is complete automation. Furthermore, it offers contact management tools specially designed to be simple to use. In addition, it can track web activity, email response, and analytics. 

EngageBay easily Integrates with Gmail, Office 365, or any other service, with integration capabilities through Zapier or other similar integrations to further streamline your sales efforts.

Advantages:

The possibility to make a call from this CRM is a big plus, as well as an option for transcripts. In addition, what separates EngageBay from other systems is the possibility to gamify sales processes and thus keep your sales reps motivated. 

Disadvantages:

A couple of lesser disadvantages came up with EngageBay. There is less troubleshooting documentation, email templates are limited, and the Chrome plugin doesn’t trigger an event, so automation needs to be done manually.

Pricing:

• A free plan is available, limited to 1,000 contacts emails 
• Basic: $12.99 per user / month, $11.69 per user / month annually 
• Growth: $24.99 per user / per month, $22.49  per user / month annually
• Pro: $49.99 per user / month, $44.99 per user / month annually

Listings rating: ⭐ 4.636

How to use CRM software with other tools? 

We all know that only one tool won’t do if you wish to optimize your sales workflow as much as you can unless that one tool has everything you need, which is pretty rare. 

So, in addition to CRM, you might be using an outreach tool or meeting scheduling tools. So the question arises - is it possible to integrate them all? Short answer - yes.  

Long answer? Let us show you how you can do it.

For example, let’s take our LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software, Skylead. This tool helps you outreach leads and take action depending on their behavior. As you fill your pipeline with it, it leaves you more room to concentrate on important matters such as building relationships and closing more deals. 

In addition, you can integrate Skylead with your CRM of choice by using webhooks. A webhook helps you transfer data to other applications immediately, when certain action happens. For example, as soon as the lead responds in a Skylead campaign, a webhook is triggered, and will automatically send lead’s data to your CRM. 

Moreover, webhooks are the most common way to integrate tools directly into your CRM and push data about the leads in one place. You can create them by using tools such as Zapier. 

Apart from using webhooks, you can also push your prospects’ information to your CRM by using Skylead’s global BCC option. To use it, simply insert the email address you get from your CRM in Skylead’s Global BCC option. This option is available only if your CRM of choice doesn’t offer direct sync with your email but through BCC.

The best CRM software in conclusion

With so many CRMs on the market, it can be daunting to go through every single one of them. But if we take software listing websites into the account you can more or less see the situation on the market. 

So, let our list be your guide to narrow your choices, or figure out what other solutions are out there. Thus, here is the short overview of the best CRM software currently on the market.

Wish to use an advanced LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software in combination with your CRM software and close even more deals? Then, try out Skylead for free - an outreach that thinks for you!

Updated on: September 15th, 2026

Disclaimer: Skylead is not affiliated, endorsed by, or connected with LinkedIn in any way.

If you're in sales, chances are you've given social selling on LinkedIn a try. You may also be all too familiar with the following scenario: you spend hours sending invites to connect, crafting messages, and follow-ups only to realize the results are…nowhere to be found. Conversations die out before they've truly begun, engagement is flat, and you're left wondering if all this effort is even worth it. But LinkedIn isn’t the problem. It's how you're using it. LinkedIn is a powerful sales engine, but only with the proper LinkedIn sales strategy.

So, how do you create one? And, more importantly, how do you put it to work?

Since our sales guru, Andrea, is an expert on sales (and LinkedIn), we thought we'd pick their brains to answer these. And now, we'll be using their knowledge and firsthand experience to break down:

• How to create and execute a LinkedIn sales strategy that gets results;
• How to track and analyze its performance;
• And what mistakes you need to avoid to minimize wasted efforts.

So, if you are ready to turn things around on LinkedIn sales-wise, it's time to dig in!

How effective is LinkedIn for sales?

Why bother using LinkedIn for sales engagement to begin with?

Because it’s home to over 1 billion professionals spread across 200 territories. Out of these, a whopping 63 million are decision-makers and another 10 million C-level executives. This means your audience is definitely there. You just need to get to them.

Basic users are slightly limited when it comes to LinkedIn prospecting and LinkedIn lead generation. And while you can use any LinkedIn Premium subscription to get to sales leads, Sales Navigator remains your solid bet.

That’s because it’s aimed precisely at sales professionals and equipped with over 50 lead and account LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters that simplify prospecting. Not to mention, it comes with advanced features that aren’t available to other Premium subscribers (e.g., Buyer Intent and Persona features).

We could spend hours talking about the LinkedIn Sales Navigator vs Premium differences. But instead, let’s focus on the stats that prove just how effective LinkedIn, or Sales Navigator, is for sales professionals.

Namely, its users manage to:

• Close 31% more deals
• Connect to 4x more decision-makers
• Save 65+ hours annually due to reduced tool switching

Moreover, Forrester Consulting conducted a study on Sales Navigator in 2023, where they revealed that this subscription yields an impressive 312% ROI over the course of 3 years. It also pays itself off in less than 6 months.

So, if you’re in sales and LinkedIn, especially its Sales Navigator, isn’t part of your strategy, it’s likely you’re losing out on some serious opportunities.

What is a LinkedIn sales strategy & why do you need one?

A LinkedIn sales strategy is a structured plan for using LinkedIn to find prospects, generate leads, and drive sales. It focuses on tapping into LinkedIn’s networking opportunities, sharing valuable content, and using sales tools to connect with potential customers, build relationships, and nurture them into clients.

In fact, with a LinkedIn strategy in place, you can:

• Target the right individuals who fit your Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Persona.
• Build credibility and trust through thought leadership posts, insightful comments, and meaningful conversations.
• Increase efficiency by focusing on high-value activities like nurturing warm leads and minimizing time spent on low-potential prospects.
• Drive measurable results by converting these leads into paying customers.

On the other hand, without a clear and actionable LinkedIn sales strategy, the results are often wasted effort, time, and, ultimately, money.

What should you do before creating a LinkedIn sales strategy?

So, having a social selling strategy for LinkedIn is a must. That much we established.

But now, let’s show you what you should do before you create one, according to our sales team at Skylead.

Identify your sales objectives & goals

Every successful LinkedIn sales strategy starts with clear objectives. That’s because defining them upfront helps you measure success later on.

To establish them, think about what you are trying to achieve.

Are you looking to:

• Generate leads, 
• Increase product demos, 
• Or drive sales directly?

Objectives are meant to guide your strategy and point you in the right direction.

But a strong LinkedIn sales strategy also needs goals to keep you focused and on track.

Unlike objectives, goals are specific, measurable, and highly influenced by key performance indicators (KPIs).

For example, your goals could be to:

• Bring 250 warm leads from LinkedIn in Q1.
• Increase product demos by 30%.
• Bring $20K of sales directly from LinkedIn.

To track these goals effectively, you’ll need to define relevant KPIs.

Based on the examples above, your sub-KPIs could be to:

• Increase connection requests by 50%
• Reach a 30% response rate

When clearly defined, KPIs become measurable, allowing you to plan activities, allocate resources, and monitor progress efficiently. As you move closer to your goals—and, ultimately, your objectives—you can refine and optimize these metrics to improve your results over time.

Define your ICP and Buyer Persona

After you identify your objectives and goals, it's time to figure out who to target. In other words, you should define your Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Persona.

Your ICP represents the type of companies that benefit the most from your product or service. 

In the meantime, your Buyer Persona is a more detailed representation of decision-makers within those companies.

To paint a better picture, say you’re selling a CRM for small businesses. In that case, your ICP may include SaaS companies with 10-50 employees. As for your Buyer Persona, it could be a VP of Sales who struggles with pipeline visibility and wants to simplify the sales process.

With these two defined, you can focus on the right people and improve your odds of driving sales.

Optimize your LinkedIn profile

What’s the first thing your prospects will see after you’ve invited them to connect?

Your LinkedIn profile!

Thus, it needs to make a strong first impression. Otherwise, your entire efforts could be for nothing.

So, before creating and implementing a LinkedIn sales strategy, you need to optimize it for impact.

Firstly, begin with your profile photo. Use a high-quality, professional image where you look approachable and confident. Avoid selfies or overly casual pictures, as they don’t inspire trust.

You should also make your LinkedIn cover photo count. Use it to highlight your expertise, showcase your company’s branding, or feature an eye-catching tagline that tells prospects how you can help them.

Then, focus on your LinkedIn headline. Emphasize the value you bring or the problem you solve instead of simply typing out your title. For example, try ''Helping SaaS companies streamline their sales process and close more deals.’’

Your headline should be complemented by a strong LinkedIn summary. Focus on who you help and how, and the results you’ve achieved. Keep it conversational but professional, and don’t forget to include keywords your audience might search for through Boolean search.

Finally, opt for a custom URL (e.g., linkedin.com/in/yourname). It makes your profile easier to share and looks way more professional in emails and on business cards.

Prepare supporting resources

Outbound outreach is one of the LinkedIn sales strategies. But truth be told, the chances of your closing a deal after the 1st message are slim, to say the least. Your prospects will likely have questions before they're ready to convert. Some of them may also object to what you're offering.

But, as our wonderful Head of Sales, Andrea, says:

''Hearing things like 'I’m not interested' or 'I don’t have time' doesn’t mean you’ve lost your prospect. It just means you need to handle their objection.''

Some objections you can handle on the spot. But it's better to be safe than sorry. In other words, you should prepare supporting resources.

For instance, Andrea commonly uses case studies that our marketing team has prepared to handle objections involving uncertainty about profitability. They demonstrate measurable results in terms of the ROI that our sales engagement platform, Skylead, has delivered to other businesses.

Some other resources you could create yourself or have your content team do to aid objection handling include:

• Blog posts that explore your prospects' pain points in detail and provide solutions to them
• Videos, such as product demos and how-to guides
• Case studies that explain how you solved others’ problems
• eBooks or whitepapers that establish your expertise

A good practice is to also anticipate the most common questions or concerns your prospects may have and prepare materials/scripts to support your answer.

For example, if they say:

• ‘’This seems too expensive,” have a value breakdown or an ROI report ready to provide.
• ‘’I’m not sure this will work for my industry,” share industry-specific case studies or testimonials.
• ‘’I don’t have time to implement this,” explain how your solution saves time in the long run.

Having these resources ready in advance allows you to respond quickly and confidently. Thus, they minimize the chances of potential deals going to waste.

How to create a LinkedIn sales strategy

By now, you should know exactly who your target audience is. But you still need to think about the best way to reach them.

That said, you can use one or combine several prospecting strategies into a broader LinkedIn sales strategy.

To get you started, here are 4 prospecting strategies. Need more? Check out our LinkedIn prospecting blog, where we’ve covered a total of 18!

Different prospecting strategies to include in your LinkedIn sales strategy

1. Using Sales Navigator filters to zero in on ICP and Buyer Persona

Sales Navigator filters help you translate your ICP and Buyer Persona into actionable search criteria.

That said, one of Andrea’s LinkedIn sales strategies is to rely on account and lead filters to filter out ICPs and promising individuals inside them.

Then, they build Lead lists that they later use to create outreach campaigns in Skylead.

But Skylead doesn’t only support campaign creation from Sales Navigator Lead lists—it also allows campaign creation directly from its search results. This is a faster approach, though not as detailed as the first. 

What's more, you can create company lists first through the Sales Navigator URL, and let Skylead help you zero in on people who work in those companies. In other words, once you add your companies, Skylead can help you find and match contacts within those selected companies so your pipeline stays aligned to your ICP. This way, you can really zero in on your target companies that are most likely to convert, are your true partners, and have greater lifetime value.

Apart from  account-based prospecting, we introduced a game-changing feature - AI data enrichment, which you can use to:

1. Enrich contact & company data
2. Prompt AI to get specified info or generate personalized icebreakers for each contact
3. Use all gathered info directly inside your sequences as variables.

It’s Clay-like in what it can uncover, but it’s connected to your outreach workflow, so you avoid constant tool switching and data importing.

2. Fishing for leads through LinkedIn groups

Speaking of search filters, did you know that Sales Navigator, unlike standard LinkedIn, has a dedicated "Groups" filter? This one is especially useful since it allows you to isolate members of specific LinkedIn groups, which you can later reach out to.

Before jumping into sales outreach, though, you’ll need to take a few preparatory steps:

• Identify groups your audience is likely a part of.
• Compile information about these groups into a single place for easy reference (e.g., CSV file).
• Consider joining these groups yourself to engage with members (if they are active).

That said, most LinkedIn groups are inactive these days. Nonetheless, the right groups can still be valuable sources of leads. You just need to be strategic about how you use them.

3. Setting up lead alerts to determine the right moment to reach out

Sales Navigator has a handy feature that helps you stay updated on your leads’ activity— Sales Navigator alerts.

You can use these alerts, as our sales team does, to track when:

• Leads post or engage with content.
• They’re mentioned in the news.
• They switch roles or companies. 

This can help you identify whom exactly to reach out to and when with relevant, personalized messages. 

So, if you want to increase the likelihood of starting meaningful conversations, incorporate these alerts into your LinkedIn sales strategy.

4. Attracting prospects through thought leadership content

Thought leadership isn’t a direct prospecting strategy. Nonetheless, it plays a big role in warming up leads, increasing brand visibility, and making your direct outreach more effective.

At its very core is content. That’s because quality content grabs attention, starts conversations, and builds trust.

That said, your content should speak directly to your target audience's pain points, challenges, and goals. So, before you go about creating it, think about what your ICP and Buyer Persona would find valuable. Then, make a list of topics you could cover that aim to educate rather than only sell.

You'll also need to plan for different content formats, such as:

• Text-only posts
• Images
• Videos
• Carousels
• LinkedIn Pulse articles
• LinkedIn polls

From our experience and that of our sales team, videos and carousels drive the most engagement and have the highest reach on LinkedIn. Still, you want to balance them with other post types to keep your content appealing to those with different consumption preferences.

Moreover, LinkedIn's algorithm loves consistency. This means that to remain on people's radars, you need to post at least 2-3 times a week. Thus, it's important to create a posting calendar. And stick to it!

Of course, posting is only part of the equation. You’ll need to reply to comments you receive, keep conversations going by asking follow-up questions (this will increase your reach, too!), and comment on others' posts. That's how you’ll establish credibility and authority on LinkedIn and build thought leadership that sells for you.

How to prepare a LinkedIn sales strategy message according to the prospecting strategy

Your messaging is just as important as the strategy and sales tactics you’re using.

Since each strategy calls for a slightly different tone and structure to really connect with your audience, we’ve got you covered with some practical tips to simplify message creation.

And to make it even easier, we’ve included message examples for each strategy—personally approved (and used) by Andrea!

1. Sales Navigator filters

Focus on personalization and contextual relevance when reaching out to prospects found through filters.

• Reference a detail from their profile or company to make your outreach feel extra personal.
• Keep your message concise, focusing on how you can address a specific challenge they face or offer value.

Template example:

‘’Hi {{FirstName}}, I came across your post about {{PainPoint}} and couldn’t help but think about the challenges that come with it. 

When I worked with {{SimilarCompanies/Professionals}}, we tackled this by {{Solution}}, leading to {{TangibleBenefit}}. 

I’d love to share a few insights or ideas that might help you achieve something similar if you're open to it.''

2. LinkedIn Groups

When targeting leads from LinkedIn Groups, establish a connection by referencing your shared interest in the group or ongoing conversations.

• Mention the group explicitly to build rapport.
• Position yourself as helpful and not overly promotional.

Template example:

“Hi {{FirstName}}, I saw we’re members of the same group, {{GroupName}} and wanted to reach out. 

I specialize in {{Expertise}} and thought it’d be great to connect and exchange ideas!”

3. Sales Navigator alerts

Timing is everything when using Sales Navigator alerts. Thus, craft your message around the alert to show you’re paying attention and reaching out with purpose.

• Acknowledge their recent activity, like a promotion or a post they shared.
• Use the alert as a conversation starter in the sales engagement process.

Template example:

“Hi {{Name}}, congratulations on your new role at {{Company Name}}! 

Transitioning into {{Role}} must be exciting. But having worked with others like you, I know how tough it can be trying to handle {{SpecificChallenge}} while navigating new responsibilities.

One approach that’s proven effective for others in your field is {{Solution}}, which helped them achieve {{Result}}.

I’d be happy to share more details. Let me know if you’re open to a quick chat!”

4. Thought Leadership content

When reaching out after sharing thought leadership content, reference your post or their comment to bond immediately.

• Highlight shared values or goals to build credibility.
• Use the message to guide them toward exploring your expertise further.

Template example:

“Hi {{Name}}, I noticed you liked my recent post about {{Topic}}. It’s great to see others in {{Industry}} contributing to the discussion! 

I’d love to hear your thoughts—what’s been your biggest challenge with {{Issue}}?”

How to execute a LinkedIn sales strategy

After choosing one or more prospecting strategies we talked about, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and execute. This is where strategy meets action.

No matter which approach you take—leveraging Sales Navigator filters, finding prospects through LinkedIn groups, setting up lead alerts, or sharing thought leadership content—the next step boils down to one activity: outreach.

Here are some tips to help you effectively execute your LinkedIn sales strategy in your outreach messages.

1. Choose the right tool for execution

Attracting sales leads naturally is the dream.

But you don’t want to rely on generating inbound leads only. And cold outreach is how you’ll get outbound leads.

You could do everything manually, for sure. But know that tools can simplify and speed up the process drastically.

When it comes to LinkedIn-specific tools, Sales Navigator is the gold standard, especially for prospecting, as we’ve explained earlier.

Then, you also need to decide on a tool to use for the actual outreach part. 

You have a number of LinkedIn automation tools to choose from. However, our advice is to go for Skylead. Not because it’s ours, but because it’s truly the most complete tool on the market.

To paint a picture, our Skylead is your one-stop-shop LinkedIn automation and cold email software for agencies and sales teams to:

• Prospect by company and matching leads thanks to Account-based prospecting.
• Automate lead generation at scale.
• Combine LinkedIn outreach with unlimited email outreach to maximize touchpoints with leads.
• Find and verify emails of leads to reduce bounces.
• Increase response rates to 76% and more with AI data enrichment and hyper-personalized images & GIFs.
• Warm-up infinite emails thanks to our partnership with one of the best email warm-up tools, Mailivery, to keep emails away from spam.

In essence, Skylead lets you make the most of your LinkedIn sales strategy and complements it by introducing multichannel outreach into the mix. This is possible thanks to our Smart sequences. We were the first tool on the market to introduce this feature, which lets you combine LinkedIn and email steps with if/else conditions. As a result, you get coherent outreach flows that react according to your leads' behavior to reach them in the fastest way possible.

And did we mention you get all this at a single price?

On top of a reliable outreach solution like Skylead, you also need to choose a CRM. If you don’t use one already, that is. 

A CRM helps you connect all your leads’ details, track their progress through the sales funnel, and monitor conversions. Some of the best CRM software for sales include HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, and Monday.

If you want, you can also use content scheduling tools for LinkedIn, such as Hootsuite or Buffer. However, LinkedIn has its own post-scheduling feature. So, if other social media platforms aren’t part of your sales strategy, these may be redundant.

The point is to choose tools that fit your workflow and the ones that you’ll actually use.

2. Create an outreach campaign

After choosing the tools, it’s time to create an outreach campaign.

We’ll walk you through the process using Skylead and Sales Navigator search as a lead source. 

However, bear in mind that you can also use these lead sources with our tool:

• Sales Navigator Lead list (as mentioned)
• LinkedIn and Recruiter search result
• Recruiter Talent pool and Pipeline URL
• LinkedIn post
• LinkedIn event
• CSV file

That said, here’s how to create a campaign step-by-step.

Step 1: Use Sales Navigator filters to refine the search

Narrow down your audience in Sales Navigator using filters like industry, job title, geography, company size, etc.

Once your search results are refined, copy the search URL.

Step 2: Begin campaign creation in Skylead

Now it’s time to hop into Skylead.

• Go to the Campaigns page and click Create New Campaign.
• Name your campaign.
• Paste the search URL into the corresponding field.
• Choose a connection degree.
• Hit Next.

Step 3: Define campaign settings

There are 3 types of settings to set up next:

• LinkedIn settings
• Email settings
• Global settings

Under LinkedIn settings, you get 2 options you can toggle on or off:

• Collect contact information - If turned on, Skylead will collect publicly available information from your leads’ profiles.
• Refresh search automatically - Turned on, it prompts Skylead to refresh search results and add new leads into a campaign if they appear.

If you’d like to use email as an outreach channel, use email settings to select the specific accounts. Skylead lets you connect unlimited mailboxes and rotates through them while sending emails. As a result, you can send tens of thousands of emails a month at no additional cost.

Finally, as part of global settings, you get to set a schedule Skylead will use for the campaign, along with targeting options. 

When you’re happy with the settings, click Create sequence.

Step 4: Create your Smart sequence

This is where you get to build your own Smart sequence.

Just drag actions and conditions from the right and drop them into the workspace. Then, connect them to each other to form coherent outreach flows. Don’t forget to set delays between steps while at it!

Here’s an example of a Smart sequence for inspiration.

Need more inspiration? We’ve got a library of in-app Smart sequence templates that Andrea personally tested. So, feel free to check them out and use them in your outreach for guaranteed results!

Step 5: Add hyper-personalization

Message-based steps (e.g., Invite to connect, LinkedIn message, inMail, and email) allow you to use variables for personalization.

But we’ve got another feature that helps you truly stand out in your leads’ inboxes: native image & GIF hyper-personalization.

To enter the image & GIF editor, click the Add image button above the message field.

Then:

• Click Create new template
• Upload the image/GIF
• Submit

A new window will open where you’ll have the option to personalize the visual with:

• Your or your leads’ LinkedIn profile photo
• Your leads’ logo or a custom logo
• Custom text

Once you’re happy with the results, just click Save Image, and it will be added to your message for a chance at up to 76% response rate, as we had using this feature.

And if you’re happy with your entire sequence, this is consequently the time to kick your campaign running!

The tool will then reach out to your prospects on your behalf. If they reply, the chat will immediately appear in your Smart inbox, where you can take over the conversation and nurture away.

Smart inbox is consequently where you can label leads according to whether they are warmed up, if they booked a call, or converted. Thus, you can also use it to keep track of conversions and ROI.

3. Focus on value, not the pitch

By now, you've probably done the research about the lead from Sales Navigator, so instead of leading with what you sell, highlight what they’ll gain. Share a resource, insight, or quick win that showcases you as a trusted partner rather than just another salesperson. Think about your approach as: “Here’s something useful” before “Here’s what I offer.”

4. Leverage social proof

Share success stories, results, or testimonials from clients in the same industry or role as your leads. Instead of saying “Our tool can help you,” say “[similar company] cut response time by 30%. You can read all about it here.” This kind of credibility reduces resistance and builds trust faster.

5. Nurture with consistency

Most deals don’t happen on the first touch, so they need a bit of a nudge 🙂 . That said, comment on their posts, engage with their content, and send a thoughtful follow-up that adds new value. Building familiarity makes it easier for them to say yes when the timing is right.

How to analyze the success of your LinkedIn sales strategy

Crafting and executing a LinkedIn sales strategy is only half the battle. To make sure it’s working as intended—and to make improvements where needed—you need to track and analyze its performance.

That said, the first thing to do is analyze the KPIs that you defined in the strategy. Doing so will help you determine which parts of your strategy are driving results and which need to be refined.

Depending on the type of KPIs that you want to analyze, you can use LinkedIn’s native analytics to track:

• The demographics of your profile viewers (e.g., job titles, industries, locations).
• The performance of your posts and articles, including impressions and engagement rate.
• Trends in follower growth and audience interactions over time.

In terms of specific LinkedIn sales strategies, LinkedIn’s social selling index is a good indicator of whether your thought leadership strategy is working or not.

Furthermore, if you aren’t sure of the impact of the messages you prepared in a strategy, a good practice is to experiment with A/B testing.

What’s more, if you’re using Skylead for outreach, you can easily keep track of different KPIs, like the number of leads you reached out to (connections sent), connections accepted, response rate, etc. These are available on our Reports page via:

• Graph view to spot oscillations at a glance;
• Table format to analyze day-to-day change in performance and sport patterns;
• Step-by-step mode to identify exact spots where prospects drop off or engage.

Furthermore, if you aren’t sure of the impact of the messages you prepared in a strategy, a good practice is to experiment with A/B testing. For example, while creating a Smart sequence in Skylead, you can define up to 5 different variants of your messaging and compare them against each other later on.

Of course, if results aren’t there immediately, that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Often, they take time to show. That said, Andrea suggests you give your LinkedIn sales strategy 2 to 4 weeks to reflect progress. Only then should you evaluate its performance and optimize it accordingly.

Common mistakes to avoid when creating and executing a LinkedIn sales strategy

Even the best-intentioned LinkedIn sales strategies can fall flat if certain pitfalls aren’t avoided. 

That said, here are some of the most common mistakes to watch out for—and how to steer clear of them.

1. Not adjusting your strategy to your audience

Your audience isn’t a monolith, so your approach shouldn’t be universal. After all, a generic strategy often leads to low engagement and missed opportunities. 

Avoid this mistake by:

• Tailoring your messaging and content to the specific needs and pain points of your ICP and Buyer Persona.
• Regularly revisiting your target audience criteria to make sure they’re still relevant.

2. Sending generic connection requests

Nothing screams “spam” more than a connection request that says “Let’s connect!” without context. These requests often get ignored or outright declined. 

Instead, personalize every connection request with a reference to something specific about the prospect, such as their recent post or a common interest.

For example:

"Hi {{FirstName}}, I loved your recent article on {{topic}}—it gave me some great insights, such as {{insight 1}}! I’d love to connect and exchange ideas on {{shared interest}}."

3. Sending sales pitches right after connecting

The fastest way to lose a connection is by pitching your product or service immediately after connecting. Social selling is about building relationships above all. 

Therefore, engage with their content before sending a direct message. When you finally message them, focus on providing value first and your offerings second.

4. Neglecting to follow up with connections

Not everyone will respond to your initial outreach message. That doesn’t mean they’re not interested, though. In such a situation, a lack of follow-up can cost you some valuable opportunities. 

Avoid this by sending a polite and value-driven follow-ups spaced a few days apart.

To follow up after no response, feel free to share a relevant blog post or case study with a message like:

"Hi {{FirstName}}, I thought this article might be helpful based on our earlier conversation about {{topic}}. Let me know if it resonates!"

5. Giving up too soon

LinkedIn sales strategies often take time to show results, as we pointed out earlier. Many give up after a few weeks of minimal engagement. By all means, don’t do the same! 

Instead:

• Be consistent with your efforts.
• Evaluate your performance occasionally and make data-driven adjustments.

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Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

How do you use LinkedIn effectively for sales?

Focus on building relationships. Optimize your profile, create engaging content that speaks to your audience’s pain points, and use Sales Navigator for targeted prospecting. Combine this with personalized outreach and consistent engagement to nurture leads and drive conversions.

What’s the recommended balance between inbound (content-driven) and outbound (cold outreach) efforts in a LinkedIn sales strategy?

A 60/40 split is often ideal, from our experience. This means you should devote 60% of your efforts to inbound (content-driven) strategies to build trust and visibility and 40% to outbound (cold outreach) to directly engage with prospects. Then, adjust as you go based on audience response and resource availability.

Seal the deal with the proper LinkedIn sales strategy

Creating and executing a successful LinkedIn sales strategy is the difference between chasing leads aimlessly and actually closing deals.

So, take the time to plan it out and put it into motion when you're confident you’ve got it right. And whatever you do, don’t cut corners - success on LinkedIn is all about doing things the right way.

Just keep in mind that results may not come overnight. But that’s just part of the process. Be patient, stay consistent, and tweak things as needed. Over time, it’ll all start to click, and your hard work will pay off.

Updated on: September 15th, 2026

Inbox fatigue is real. Buyers are flooded with emails, LinkedIn messages, ads, and ‘’quick follow-ups’’ every single day. As a result, many sales teams assume outreach is dead. It’s not. What is dead is generic, volume-driven outreach that treats prospects like entries in a spreadsheet. Sales outreach still works in 2027 - but only when it’s intentional, relevant, and built around the buyer’s context instead of the seller’s quota. 

When done right, outreach doesn’t annoy. It starts conversations. And those conversations are still one of the fastest ways to build a pipeline. So, if you're wondering what sales outreach is (really) and how to make it work for you and your team, hold on to your hat - you’re about to find all of it out!

We’ll also show you how the LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software we made - Skylead - can help you put what you learned into practice!

What is sales outreach?

Sales outreach is the proactive process of contacting prospects or customers to start, continue, or advance a sales conversation. It includes every outbound interaction a sales rep initiates, such as emails, LinkedIn messages, social media messages, calls, direct mail, and follow-ups.

Sales teams use outreach to start conversations with new prospects, continue existing ones, and restart conversations that have stalled. It’s a core part of how the pipeline is built and maintained, especially in B2B sales, where buyers rarely reach out on their own.

Sales outreach isn’t limited to cold outreach, though. It also covers warm follow-ups, reactivating old leads, and ongoing communication during an active deal. Because of that, outreach applies across the entire sales funnel, starting from the first contact through the late-stage decision-making.

Sales outreach vs. sales prospecting

You’d be surprised by how many people confuse outreach with prospecting. One cannot do without the other, sure, but they’re not the same thing.

Sales prospecting focuses on finding and qualifying potential buyers. Prospecting activities include finding accounts that match your ideal customer profile, researching business decision-makers within them, and deciding who is worth reaching out to in the first place. So, as you can see, prospecting happens before the first message is ever sent.

Sales outreach is the execution layer, so to speak, where you actually contact people from your prospecting list.

In short:

• Prospecting helps you decide who to reach out to.
• Sales outreach defines how and when you do it, and it includes the execution itself.

Strong outreach can’t compensate for poor prospecting, and vice versa. Reaching out to the wrong people - no matter how well-written the message is - still leads to low reply rates and stalled deals. At the same time, what good are high-quality prospects if no one contacts them, follows up, or gives them a reason to respond?

What makes sales outreach effective?

Everyone can send a message to a prospect. You don’t even have to write it yourself. You can use Chat GPT for sales copywriting.

But will a message generated with no goal, sent at a random interval, land you a reply? Chances are slim.

Effective sales outreach boils down to:

• Personalization and relevance
• Consistency and timing
• Persistence and value-driven messaging
• Alignment with prospects’ needs and pain points

1. Personalization and relevance

Personalization is one of the strongest predictors of reply rates in sales outreach, but not in the ‘’first-name-only’’ sense.

In fact, personalized emails deliver 32% higher response rates than non-personalized ones, especially when they reference the buyer’s role, company context, or current priorities. Meanwhile, Salesforce reports that 66% of buyers expect sellers to understand their needs and expectations before reaching out.

This explains why surface-level personalization fails. Prospects respond when outreach reflects why they’re being contacted, not just that they are. It’s only natural, then, that messages that connect directly to their situation, challenges, or recent activity consistently outperform generic ones sent at scale.

2. Consistency and timing

The best results are achieved from outreach that's both consistent and well-timed.

Statistically speaking, companies that respond to leads within the first hour are 7x more likely to qualify and close a lead than those that wait longer. 

In outbound sales, timing also applies to sales cadences (or, as we like to call them, Smart sequences - but more on that later). Data indicates that consistent touchpoints across a defined time window work better than one-off messages, as buyers often need multiple exposures before they’re ready to engage. Consistency keeps you top of mind without forcing the conversation prematurely.

3. Persistence and value-driven messaging

80% of sales require 5+ follow-ups, yet 92% of reps quit after 4 attempts. This gap alone explains why many outreach efforts underperform.

That said, persistence only works when each follow-up adds value. Prospects disengage quickly when messages repeat the same pitch or are ‘’just following up’’. Effective outreach sequences introduce new context, be it a relevant insight, a different angle, a clearer use case - anything that gives the other party a reason to respond, really.

4. Alignment with prospects’ needs and pain points

LinkedIn’s State of Sales report found that 68% of buyers are unlikely to engage with sellers who provide insights irrelevant to their business.

Similarly, Gartner reports that B2B buyers spend only 17% of their time interacting with sales reps during the buying process, making relevance critical whenever contact does happen.

How sales outreach impacts revenue growth

Revenue growth rarely comes from one perfectly timed message. It comes from staying present throughout the entire buyer journey.

High-performing sales reps are 2.3x more likely to follow a structured outreach process with defined cadences and follow-ups. These individuals don’t rely on memory or gut feeling to decide when to reach out. They systemize it.

That consistency matters because most prospects aren’t ready to act when they first see your message. The more relevant touchpoints you create, the more chances you give a deal to move forward.

What’s more, many reps leave revenue on the table, thinking that sales outreach stops the moment the deal closes. The fact is, B2B buyers are far more likely to expand or renew when sellers maintain ongoing, value-driven communication after the initial sale.

That said, post-sale outreach helps you:

• Stay visible as customer needs evolve
• Spot expansion or upsell opportunities earlier
• Reduce churn by addressing issues before they escalate.

Main sales outreach channels

Sales outreach can be inbound or outbound, depending on who initiates the conversation.

Inbound sales outreach happens when a buyer shows interest first, for example, by downloading content, requesting a demo, or filling out a form, and a sales rep follows up. In this case, the prospect has already expressed clear buying signals.

On the other hand, outbound sales outreach is initiated by the sales rep and targets prospects who haven’t asked to be contacted yet.

In practice, when people talk about sales outreach, they’re usually referring to outbound outreach.

For that reason, the rest of this blog will focus primarily on outbound sales outreach and the channels most teams rely on to make it work.

Email

Contrary to what some say, email is not dead. It’s simply evolved.

It remains one of the most widely used sales outreach channels in 2027, if not the most used, and there are multiple reasons for it. Namely, email outreach scales well, allows for personalization, and gives prospects the flexibility to respond on their own time and terms.

Studies show that the average cold email open rate in B2B is around 27.7%, and while open rates alone don’t tell the full story, they demonstrate that email still reaches real inboxes. Email is also the channel with the highest ROI in outbound, with an estimated $36 for every $1 spent.

That said, email performance depends heavily on relevance and structure. Generic emails sent in high volume rarely perform well, while short, context-aware messages tied to a clear reason for reaching out continue to drive replies.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn plays a dual role in modern sales outreach: research and sales engagement.

Reps typically use the platform for LinkedIn prospecting, primarily because it is home to over 1B professionals across the globe. 

And although a free version is readily available, they also offer 4 paid tiers:

• Premium Business
• Premium Career
• Recruiter
• Sales Navigator

… with Premium Business and Sales Navigator, in particular, earning most reps’ trust. As its name suggests, Sales Navigator is a subset of LinkedIn Premium designed with sales teams in mind. It comes with advanced filters, features like Sales Navigator alerts, Lead lists, and also Buyer Intent - all of which help reps zero in on the right prospects before moving on to targeted outreach.

Once you’ve identified prospects, you can interact with them through profile views, meaningful comments on posts, connection requests with personalized notes, and, once requests are accepted, direct messages.

Paid subscribers also have access to LinkedIn inMail, the platform’s own version of email, which allows them to contact prospects out of their network.

LinkedIn’s structure, with visibility into your profile, title, and mutual connections, gives outreach an immediate context that plain email lacks, which typically contributes to stronger engagement.

Phone

Albeit not as popular as it used to be in the past, some reps still rely on phone outreach, but they rarely engage in it standalone.

Cold calls work best when they’re:

• Timed after prior email or LinkedIn touchpoints
• Used to follow up on interest or signals
• Focused on starting a conversation, not closing a deal

In most successful outbound strategies, calls reinforce other channels instead of replacing them. That’s because familiarity increases pickup rates and context increases willingness to engage.

Social media

Social media outreach means reaching out to prospects directly on platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, along with industry-specific Slack and Discord communities.

These platforms are conversational by nature, so outreach here usually feels more relaxed and contextual. Rather than delivering a polished pitch, reps here often reference a recent post, a comment, or an ongoing discussion. That small bit of context goes a long way in making the message feel relevant and timely, without forcing heavy personalization.

Direct mail

Direct mail may sound old-school, but sales teams are using it again precisely because digital inboxes are so crowded.

When a physical package containing a handwritten note, a book, or a small branded item arrives at a prospect’s desk, it cuts through the noise. It signals intent and attention in a way that digital outreach often can’t.

Direct mail is typically used selectively for high-value accounts, strategic prospects, or when digital channels have stalled.

Video

Ok, video is not exactly a channel; it’s more of a format. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its place in sales outreach.

A short, personalized video (whether hosted on a platform or embedded via email) gives prospects a human face and a concise explanation of why you’re reaching out. It works extremely well in follow-ups or re-engagement attempts where text has gone unanswered. And because it’s so uncommon in cold outreach, it immediately stands out.

Want to take advantage of this right away? You can use Sendspark to record a video once and then personalize it at scale using its AI-powered dynamic video feature. Even better: if you sign up for Skylead first, you can elevate your outreach by adding those personalized videos directly into your multichannel sequences, since Skylead integrates with Sendspark. Plus, Skylead users get 50% off their first month with Sendspark. Create your Sendspark account and use the promo code SKYLEAD50 to claim the offer.

Best practices for successful sales outreach

Knowing the channels is one thing. Using them well is another.

The reps who consistently book meetings and close deals tend to follow a few practical rules, regardless of industry or channel mix.

1. Build an ideal customer profile and buyer persona

Effective outreach starts long before the first message is sent.

A solid ICP defines which companies are worth your time based on firmographics like industry, size, revenue, location, and tech stack. Buyer personas narrow that down to who inside those companies you should talk to, including their role, responsibilities, and common pain points.

Without these clearly defined, you end up reaching out to people who don’t have the problem you solve, don’t feel the urgency, and don’t have the authority to act.

2. Craft compelling, personalized messages

Strong outreach messages connect your value to something specific about the prospect, be that their role, company situation, market pressure, or recent activity. The goal isn’t to impress them with research, but to show that the message wasn’t written for just about ‘’anyone in their industry.’’

If the reason for outreach isn’t obvious within the first few lines, most prospects won’t keep reading.

3. Sequence your outreach instead of sending one-offs

High-performing sales teams plan outreach as a sequence of touchpoints spread across days or weeks. Each step has a purpose: introduction, reminder, added context, or a new angle. Sequences reduce guesswork and prevent outreach from being random or reactive.

4. Leverage sales engagement tools 

Manual outreach is fine… until it isn’t.

When you’re working with a handful of leads, sending messages manually, tracking follow-ups in your head, and switching between inboxes feels manageable. But the moment you try to scale, things fall apart. Follow-ups get missed. Leads slip through the cracks. Consistency drops. And suddenly, outreach turns into a major time drain.

Luckily, there is a solution, and it comes in the form of sales outreach tools.

Not sure which tool to try out? Why not start with Skylead?

Skylead is THE LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software, aka outreach tool that helps agencies and sales teams book 3x more meetings in less time.

At the very core of Skylead are Smart sequences - advanced algorithms that combine LinkedIn and email outreach actions with if/else conditions. The way it works is, you define steps and conditions, and the tool executes the appropriate step based on your prospect’s behavior to reach them in the fastest way possible.

As you go about making your sequence, you also have the opportunity to A/B test up to 5 message variations and personalize messaging using predefined or custom variables

Scaling email outreach is just as straightforward. Skylead lets you connect unlimited mailboxes at no extra cost and rotates them automatically to help you send tens of thousands of emails each month. You can even find and verify emails directly inside your sequences to protect your deliverability. And if you need to warm up a new email domain, we can help as well, thanks to our infinite email warm-up feature, courtesy of Mailivery.

When plain text isn’t enough, Skylead’s image and GIF personalization lets you add images and GIFs to your messages, complete with names, logos, profile photos, and custom text. It’s a small touch that makes outreach feel human and has been shown to increase reply rates by up to 76%.

What’s more, all replies land in a Smart inbox, meaning you can reply from it straight away and even use it to keep track of conversions and ROI. 

The result is simple: a structured sales engagement process, fewer dropped leads, and more meetings booked, without adding hours to your workday.

Sounds good? Go ahead and try Skylead free for 7 days!

5. Keep messages short and focused

Outreach messages aren’t meant to explain everything. Rather, their job is to spark interest and earn a reply. That said, focus on one problem, one insight, or one question. Trust me, if a prospect wants more details, they’ll ask.

6. Follow up with intent, not habit

Your follow-up email after no response or a LinkedIn follow-up message will only work if it brings something new to the table. That something can be a new context, a different use case, or a clearer next step. In other words, if you’re following up just for the sake of doing it and have nothing else to say, then, by all means, don’t.

7. Track & optimize results

How do you expect to know if your sales outreach strategy is working without tracking its performance?

Reply rates, meeting bookings, pipeline creation, and deal progression all offer clues about what’s working and what’s not. The best reps review these regularly and adjust targeting, messaging, and timing based on real outcomes.

Sales outreach templates by channel

Cold email outreach template

Use this when reaching out to a prospect for the first time.

Template:

Hi {{firstName}},

I noticed {{companyName}} is {{relevantTrigger/Context}}. Teams in {{industry/role}} often run into {{specificChallenge}} at this stage.

I’m curious - is {{problem/goal}} something you’re actively working on right now?

Real example:

LinkedIn connection request template

This LinkedIn connection message template works best when it references something visible on the prospect’s LinkedIn profile or feed.

Template:

Hi {{firstName}},

Came across your {{post/comment}} about {{topic}}. I really liked your take. It would be great to connect!

Real example:

LinkedIn follow-up message template

Send this after the connection is accepted to keep the conversation open without forcing a pitch.

Template:

Thanks for connecting, {{firstName}}.

Quick question - when it comes to {{areaYouHelpWith}}, is {{challengeA}} or {{challengeB}} more top of mind for you right now?

Real example:

Phone outreach template (opening)

Best used after an email or LinkedIn touchpoint.

Template:

Hi {{firstName}}, this is {{yourName}}.

I reached out earlier this week about {{reasonForOutreach}}. I’ll keep this brief - I was curious how {{companyName}} is handling {{specificChallenge}} today.

Real example:

Social media outreach template

Use this on platforms like X, Reddit, Slack, or Discord when a prospect is publicly active.

Template:

Saw your {{post/comment/question}} about {{topic}}.

Out of curiosity, have you tried {{approach/idea}}, or are you still exploring different options?

Real example:

Video outreach follow-up template

Send a video accompanied by this message when text alone hasn’t landed.

Template:

Hi {{firstName}},

I recorded a short {{length}} video to explain why I reached out and how this could apply to {{companyName}}.

Happy to walk you through it if it’s relevant.

Real example:

Frequently asked questions

What is the 3-3-3 rule in sales?

The 3-3-3 rule is a simple framework used in outbound sales to keep outreach focused and relevant. It suggests that a sales rep should spend 3 minutes researching the prospect, 3 sentences writing the message, and 3 seconds explaining the value.

How to do sales outreach?

Sales outreach starts by identifying the right prospects and choosing an appropriate channel, then reaching out with a clear, relevant message. From there, it relies on consistent follow-ups through a structured sequence.

What is a good sales outreach strategy?

A good sales outreach strategy is structured, repeatable, and prospect-focused. It combines clear targeting, multichannel sequences, relevant personalization, and consistent follow-ups. Instead of relying on one-off messages or intuition, it creates a system that gives prospects multiple chances to respond at the right moment.

What are the most common sales outreach mistakes?

The most common sales outreach mistakes include targeting the wrong people, sending generic messages, stopping follow-ups too early, and treating outreach as a one-time task instead of a process. These mistakes usually lead to low reply rates and missed opportunities, even when the product or offer itself is strong.

How to choose the right outreach channel?

The right outreach channel depends on where your prospects are active and how they prefer to communicate. Some respond best to email, others to LinkedIn or phone. In practice, combining channels and letting prospect behavior guide the conversation is more effective than relying on a single channel.

Start building your sales outreach engine

Sales outreach only works when it’s structured, consistent, and easy to scale. Random messages, forgotten follow-ups, and manual tracking don’t produce predictable results.

The teams that book meetings week after week rely on sequences, multichannel touchpoints, and clear visibility into what’s working. That’s exactly what sales engagement platforms are built for. That’s exactly what Skylead was built for.

With Smart sequences that adapt to prospect behavior, multichannel outreach support, image and GIF personalization, and performance tracking in one place, Skylead removes the friction from outbound. You spend less time managing outreach and more time talking to interested prospects.

The result? 3× more meetings and 11+ hours saved every week.

Start your 7-day free trial now and see results in your first campaign!

Updated on: September 15th, 2026

LinkedIn, as the main professional network, with 1 billion users, is the number 1 tool to help you find leads. 

Using LinkedIn lead generation is great. However, there are other sources you can use and combine with LinkedIn to reach more high-quality leads. Extra targeting work always pays off.

We’ve done the work, researched, and analyzed creative ways to find these leads for your business besides our favorite targeting hacks on LinkedIn. This blog will show you lead generation sources that can be beneficial for your outreach efforts, match your ICP and Buyer Persona, and actually convert.

Let’s jump right in! ?

What is a lead?

A business or sales lead is a potential customer who is interested in your product or service. Salespeople use lead generation methods to find leads from multiple sources. Then, they reach out and follow up with each one continuously to warm up the lead and convert them.

Leads vs. prospects

A prospect is a qualified lead. For a lead to become qualified, they have to match your ICP, and you need to interact with them. Once they show interest in your product/service, they become qualified and can continue their journey through the sales process.

How to define and find leads 

If your goal is to find leads of high quality, cold outreach can be a powerful tool for building solid relationships. If done right, it could help you close more deals. This could depend on multiple factors, ranging from a catchy email subject line, a LinkedIn inMail subject line, and a powerful call to action to creating a strong follow-up email after no response campaign flow.

However, before you get into outreach, your first job is to define your target audience. Here are the 3 main things to consider. ?

1. Build your inbound strategy

To maximize results, you should consider investing time and effort into building your inbound strategy as well, as inbound and outbound work well together. 

Make sure to build your website and fill it with educational content, such as blogs, downloadable templates, lead generation forms, case studies, and documents. Your support team should always be available, and the support chat icon should be visible on the homepage.

2. Define your ICP and Buyer Persona

Both the Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Persona are your essential documents for defining the type of company or person you’ll target with your outreach. Before you go out to find leads, you should define both.

Just a reminder, the Ideal Customer Profile describes the company that would benefit the most from your product or service. These companies should have the fastest conversion cycle, the highest LTV, and the highest customer retention and be willing to refer your product or service to others. 
On the other hand, a Buyer Persona describes your perfect decision-maker. In other words, a Buyer Persona is a collection of an individual’s personal data, such as age, location, likes, dislikes, goals, wishes, challenges, and motivations.

Ideally, both Buyer Persona and ICP should be based on existing customers and data, as it will help you create these documents more precisely.

3. Create your sales leads personalization document

Social selling is about building relationships and helping your sales leads reach their goals with your product or service. But before you can dive into relationship-building, you should gather personal info about your leads.

To personalize your outreach at scale, you would need to do extensive research on what they do and the content they publish or get more personal by finding their hobby. Start by creating an Excel file with columns like:

• First name
• Last name 
• LinkedIn profile URL
• Company

Then, continue by inserting information, such as:

• The topic of the content they published
• What stood out to you the most from the particular post
• The school they went to
• Field of study
• Jobs they posted
• Company growth information
• Personalized message intro (the message you can create based on the above-mentioned)

In other words, create a column for everything you can find while researching. This document contains actionable data for your outreach. So, read on to see how you can use and benefit from it.

Pro tip: Before you start your outreach, be sure you have your LinkedIn prepared to sell for you.

Why you need to update your lead generation strategies

LinkedIn is still our #1 platform for generating leads, right? However, by using different strategies and sources to find leads apart from LinkedIn, you will gain even deeper insights into your potential ICP or Buyer Persona. This will ultimately help you maximize your sales efforts and results.

Below, we will review a list of 30 ways to find leads online and how to use them. We’ll show you how to automate outreach, save 11 hours per week on manual work, and focus on closing deals. Sounds good? Keep reading! ?

30 ways to find leads

1. Find leads on company websites

To find leads on company websites, you identify target companies and visit their official websites. Then, you explore the “About us” and “Team” pages to find the business decision-makers. While you’re at it, you should also check the “Contact us” page for general contact info.

Once you click, you’ll usually get to names and titles, sometimes, even with LinkedIn icons, so you don’t have to look for them manually.

After getting leads on these pages and finding them on LinkedIn, you can send connection requests for a more natural and personalized outreach.

You can also use operators like “site.com email” to find employee email addresses. Or, even better, use an automation tool to find & verify business emails. Lastly, you can use content to engage and comment on blog posts to get noticed by content creators, start conversations, and get recommended to their colleagues, who are your target audience.

2. Find leads on live events

To find leads at live networking events, you should find relevant events first: industry conferences, trade shows, and meetups. Our advice is to register early to ensure your spot. Also, make sure to review the attendee list if it’s available. Before the event:

• Do the prep work
• Research key participants and companies
• Plan your approach to engage with attendees 

In case of a live event, you can go as an attendee, or you can have your own booth. As an attendee or guest, you should attend sessions and participate in all discussions to connect with other attendees. The main goal is to learn about industry news, meet new people, and build relationships with potential leads. 

If you have your own booth, you will have a chance to talk to interested parties, distribute marketing materials, and start meaningful conversations. You can also exchange digital cards or connect on LinkedIn immediately. 

After the conference, in both cases, you should follow up with new contacts shortly after to keep the conversation going and nurture newly built relationships.

3. Find leads on digital events

With digital networking events, such as webinars, LinkedIn events, and online meetups, the rules are a bit different. Come prepared, research everything about the event and the attendees, and plan your approach.

You should join Q&A sessions, breakout rooms, and chats to connect with attendees. After the event, be sure to reach out on LinkedIn or email and mention your interaction or a specific topic from the event. By keeping the conversation going, you’ll easily generate and nurture B2B leads.

4. Find leads via referrals

You can find leads with a little help from your existing customers. Reach out to satisfied clients, colleagues, and industry contacts for referrals.

To get the most out of your referrals, our advice is to create strong incentives or a reward-based referral program. This will encourage referrers and keep leads coming in. You should also always keep in touch with your network through LinkedIn chat or email.

When you do get the leads from referrals, our advice is to always make sure to follow up and show appreciation to both the referrer and the new contact they brought in.

5. Find leads via industry associations

Another way to find leads is to join industry associations and actively participate in their activities. Attend association meetings, conferences, and events to network with other members on LinkedIn or via email.

The trick is to pick associations relevant to your business that have active memberships and ongoing events. For example, if cloud-based companies are your ICP, you could join the Cloud Software Association.  

After that, go to their directory and search for businesses of interest. You can use numerous filters to narrow down your search.

After that, you know the drill. Go to LinkedIn, find the company of choice, go to their people section, find decision-makers, and outreach away!

6. Find leads on X

Finding leads on X can be a real game-changer! For example, you can search for your competitors and find negative Tweets or comments. Then try finding them on LinkedIn (if they have their full name and a legit picture) and add them to your CSV file for future outreach. Don’t forget to personalize your outreach and reference how you’ve found them.

7. Find leads in Facebook groups

Facebook is a perfect place to find your Buyer Persona. However, you just need to dig a little deeper to find them and join a couple of groups here and there.

The first thing you need to do is to research and find the Facebook groups your sales leads follow. Then, join these groups and wait for approval. From there, you can find your sales leads by the posts they have published. The only thing you need to do is search the group by the keyword.

You then search sales leads by, for example, the exact pain point they experience or the goal they want to achieve. This is where you find potential interested parties for your product/service.

You can message the people who posted directly on Facebook or, better yet, connect with them on LinkedIn and begin your outreach campaign. 

8. Find leads on Instagram

Instagram is all about good visuals, hundreds of followers, but also finding leads. Yes, we’re not kidding. Go to the profiles of companies that are your competitors or have similar ICP and Buyer Persona, go to the followers section, and scroll down to find leads. 

Once you get to them, we’re using our favorite lead gen ally - LinkedIn ?

9. Find leads on Reddit (Specific subreddits)

If done right, finding leads on Reddit can be incredibly effective. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

• Find relevant subreddits
• Actively participate in discussions
• Find content that discusses problems you’re solving and mention your product without sounding too salesy (use the Search comments option for keywords)
• DM those people and ask to connect on LinkedIn

From what we’ve learned from our own experience, people will see your comment as useful and reach out to you themselves, asking for more information. This is usually a sign that you’re providing value where value is needed, so keep up the good work!

10. Find leads with gated content

You might know this already, but using gated content with lead capture forms is a smart way to get leads. The marketing team creates:

• E-books
• Whitepapers
• Exclusive webinars
• Downloadable templates 

Then, they send the list of leads to the sales team, who creates outreach campaigns. In fact, this is how we did it: We’ve offered a sales book that helped us grow our business from 2,500 to 10,000 users in just 9 months. In exchange, people leave contact information through a simple sign-up form on our website. We’ve also promoted our gated content through blog posts, social media, and email campaigns to drive more traffic and capture more leads.

Here are our tips on how to attract leads with quality gated content:

• Strong CTAs: Use clear and enticing calls to action to encourage users to access your gated content.
• Tailor your content: Tailor your gated content to specific segments of your audience to increase relevance and engagement.
• Follow up quickly: Send a follow-up email immediately after someone downloads your content to nurture the lead.
• Use analytics: Track the performance of your gated content to understand what resonates best with your audience.
• A/B test: Test different formats, headlines, and designs to optimize your landing pages and sign-up forms.
• Offer multi-step content: Create a series of gated content pieces that build on each other to nurture leads to conversion over time.
• Integrate with CRM: Make sure your sign-up forms are integrated with your CRM to streamline lead generation.

11. Find leads on review websites

Review websites can be very useful for finding leads. Here are a few review website examples:

• Capterra
• G2
• Software Suggest
• GetApp

Just go to the review website of choice, find your competitor, and then search for people who posted negative reviews. For example, here’s a person who is not satisfied with calendar software. Find them on LinkedIn and put them in your CSV file so you can include them in your automated outreach campaign.

12. Find leads using a LinkedIn X-Ray Search

LinkedIn X-ray search, a.k.a. Boolean search, is a method that allows us to research our leads on Google without using LinkedIn’s internal filters. But why would you do that if you have LinkedIn? Well:

1. You’ll get more search results
2. You’ll get to see 3rd-degree and out-of-network connections, too
3. More relevant search results, thanks to Google’s different algorithms
4. A more comprehensive search (thanks to the * symbol (Asterisk) that includes missing words in your search results.

Now, to find leads using LinkedIn's X-ray search, use Google with specific search operators. Enter "site.com" followed by relevant keywords, such as job titles or industries (e.g., "site

.com marketing manager"). This narrows down the LinkedIn profiles that match your criteria. Refine your search by adding location or company filters to target specific leads effectively.

After you’ve pinpointed your leads, you go to LinkedIn and copy-paste their info to your CSV file for future outreach.

13. Find leads in CRM databases

Up until now, we’ve been talking about finding leads elsewhere, but you should not forget to look for leads among your own clients. Or rather, the ones that ended up in the churn box. Go to your CRM database and find the email addresses of clients who went in another direction, so to speak.

Think about why they might have left and use a new feature or update to start the conversation again or rather a check-in message. Since you’ve already had a relationship with them, restarting the conversation should be easier than with cold leads. 

Our advice is to review your earlier conversations and create a separate automated outreach campaign tailored for these old/new leads.

14. Find leads via partnerships and alliances

It’s time to partner up! Start by identifying potential partners whose services complement yours or similar businesses that are not your competition. Reach out to these companies to find out about mutual benefits and opportunities for collaboration. Partnering up can open doors to new networks, which will increase your lead pool.

Here’s an example. Our partner included this image in their newsletter when we launched Product Hunt. It was a perfect opportunity to show us off to their user base and inform them about our special event.

This also works for sharing gated content and referrals through mutual B2B marketing strategies.

15. Find leads via job listings

When a company is hiring, it usually means one of these 3 things:

1. They have a bigger budget for the department
2. Something is not right in the current process
3. Or a person from the team is leaving for a certain reason.

Job postings mean a department change, and you should seize that opportunity. This is where recruiters usually spill the beans, so keep an eye on the department and industry of interest.

For example, let’s say you are selling team management software for remote teams. You can go to any job search website like Indeed and filter the jobs by industry, job type, and remote work.

This is a great place to find your ICP and go from there. In addition, if you have a LinkedIn Premium account, you can check out the company’s growth insight on LinkedIn and move on to find your decision-maker.

You can do this process on LinkedIn, as well. However, keep in mind that if your ICP is a small company, you might not be able to see their job posts unless you are their 1st-degree connection or they promote these posts on LinkedIn.

16. Find leads using LinkedIn topics

Another place to look for leads on LinkedIn is LinkedIn topics. You get to go through industry-related questions, discover key contributors and find your Buyer Persona. You can also filter topics by industry and narrow down your lead search.

Once you click on a topic, you’ll see different sections and related subtopics you can access. You can go through the contributors listed on the right. Then, you can find the ones you’ll reach out to easily since you’re already on LinkedIn. Our advice is to reference their contribution to a certain topic as an opener. It’s that easy.

17. Find leads through recently funded companies

Another great way to find your ICP is to research what companies recently got funded. Since we know they’ve got money to invest, make sure their priority is growth.

So, to find these companies, you can choose one of two ways. First, you can use company data websites, such as Fundz, TechCrunch, or Crunchbase. Crunchbase makes it easier to find information, as you can filter the companies using the free Funding Rounds feature.

Secondly, you can Google search for companies using Boolean search operators.

Whatever approach you pick, making the connection with the person from the company that just got the funding and building the relationship can result in a long-lasting partnership.

18. Find leads through Slack communities

Slack channels offer many possibilities, from finding leads to learning something new. The best part is that you can contact each member privately via chat.

There are different communities all over Slack, and you can explore and find the ones your Buyer persona joined. For example, a B2B content director must follow the content trends, so you will most likely find them in the SuperpathSlack community under the content-b2b channel. 

What’s best is that Slack channels like RevGenius or The Trenches are very educational, supportive, and welcoming. So, apart from finding sales leads and reaching out to people who face a problem your product can resolve, you can enjoy your stay and learn about the changes in the market.

19. Find leads through YouTube comments

To find leads in YouTube comments, all you need to do is find the videos your sales leads might be watching and look in the comment section. Our advice is to find someone with a legit profile, meaning with their full name and picture. You can use this information to find these individuals on LinkedIn.

Let’s say your sales leads are SaaS founders. Consequently, you would find a video related to SaaS, such as this one. ?

Now, scroll down to find a comment such as this one:

Now go to LinkedIn and search for the person. You can contact them there directly or save their profile in a CSV file with remarks for a perfect conversation starter.

20. Find leads via LinkedIn events

Using LinkedIn events for lead generation is a great strategy for connecting with potential leads and clients. Go to LinkedIn’s search bar, type in a keyword of choice, and select “Events” as your main category.  

To access the attendees' list and find those leads, you have to click on “Register.”

After that, you should click here ?

Use filters to narrow down your search to match your Buyer Persona as closely as possible. The only thing left to do is attend the event and use some of the topics and information mentioned in the event to break the ice with your leads.

21. Find leads via Product Hunt

Your journey on Product Hunt begins with discovering new and trending products in your industry. There are two ways to find leads here. Firstly, you can go to relevant discussions, watch out for questions from your target audience, and find them on LinkedIn.

Secondly, if SaaS is your industry of choice, you can watch for new software or releases and find makers.

Then, the only thing left to do is to find them on LinkedIn and put the data and personal reference to your CSV file for outreach later on. 

22. Find leads on Medium

Many people of all occupations share their stories and thoughts on Medium, and your sales leads could be one of them. Medium is a blogging platform with over 100 million active monthly readers and 175,000 authors who are thought leaders, journalists, and experts, so you have a deep pool of sales leads to search from.

Also, Medium is pretty easy to use. You just need to type the topic of interest in the search bar and comb through articles.

Once you find an interesting post, go to the author's profile. You will usually see their LinkedIn profile or other Social Media URLs in the About section, so it is easy to find leads right away. 

Additionally, you can see the comments and the profile of the person who posted that comment. Your sales leads could be one of them, so you can find them on LinkedIn and put them in your personalized document for further outreach.

23. Find leads on podcast guest lists

Use a simple Google search to find podcasts relevant to your industry or target market. Then, examine video titles and write down the speakers so you can find them on LinkedIn. Once you're ready to reach out to them, use personalized messages where you reference their podcast appearance and explain how your services can benefit them.

24. Find leads on Discord

Discord is a place where people can communicate with each other via either text or voice chat. Unlike Slack, Discord was initially created as an informal place to hang out with your friends or even play massive multiplayer online games.

However, Discord grew to be more. Now, it is a new hotspot where people all around the world gather to share their experiences and thoughts on all kinds of topics. Thus, many so-called servers, aka groups, have emerged, and you will be able to find the ones of your target audience.

For example, here is what the Salesforce Discord channel looks like.

Once you find your niche, join that server, and you’ll get to see a list of all members you can message privately or ask to connect on LinkedIn and take it from there.

25. Find leads on forums and online communities

Online communities such as GrowthHackers or SalesHackers are another place where you can find sales leads. With plenty of topics to search from, you will be shocked by how many discussions and users you will find.

For example, the nice thing about the GrowthHackers community is that you can find the user, see their publications and topics they follow, and choose to follow them or contact them directly. You can also always find them on LinkedIn and reach out from there.

26. Find leads in LinkedIn groups

Despite the common belief, LinkedIn groups can still be useful for something - lead generation. To find leads in LinkedIn groups, you should look for relevant ones from your industry and join.

Once you join, you’ll get access to a members' list. Click on “Show all.”

Then, extract the leads from the People section by copying the URL from your browser.

Now, this only works if you use Skylead to help reach out to these particular group members. Just paste the link and create a dedicated campaign for these group members only.

27. Find leads via LinkedIn posts

Lastly, you can also find leads via LinkedIn posts. For example, find a viral post on LinkedIn and go through the comment section and likes. Comb through them, find decision-makers, and put them in your personalization document. Here’s what that looks like ?

Once you click, this is what you’ll see:

The next step is to use automation tools like Skylead to create an automated outreach campaign and target leads from that specific post. Isn’t that amazing? Yes, we think so too. ? Here’s a connection request message example you can use in this case:

Hey,

I’ve noticed you liked this post on how volume creates abundance. 

Just wanted to check what your thoughts are on the subject.

28. Find leads with LinkedIn polls

You can also use LinkedIn polls to attract and find leads. Just create a poll that has a relevant industry pain point, and once you get your replies, go through those people and reach out to them. It’s that simple. Here’s an example:

In this case, since users opted for one of three answers, we have three groups of leads: the ones who said "always," "never," and "it depends." You can adapt your outreach efforts to each answer group. 

29. Find leads by discovering startups

If your ICP consists mostly of startups, you should visit websites such as ProductHunt, BetaList, AngelList, or Crunchbase. BetaList is the place for recently launched internet startups. It cleverly segments startups by industry, so you’ll find the one you need easily.

Another advantage is that you can contact the founder directly by finding their social media account on the profile listed beneath the company description or manually on LinkedIn.

30. Find leads by researching niche platforms

Not all companies are alike, and many niche businesses have buyer personas with unique jobs. So, it’s important to research and visit platforms where the target audience has a profile.

For example, if your target group is videographers or graphic designers, you would most likely visit Behance or Vimeo. On the other hand, if your sales leads are music artists, then SoundCloud is the place for you. Looking for developers? Give GitHub a try. 

If, for example, you are selling an invoice management tool and need to reach out to freelancers, go to Upwork. The more information you have on your sales leads, the easier it will be to start the conversation. Here’s an example:

Hey, 

I have seen the ratings on your Upwork profile. They are amazing!

I bet you get a lot of work as a freelancer. I was just wondering what tool you use for the invoice.

The possibilities are pretty much endless here.

Leads found, now what? Streamline your outreach to optimize time

Your leads are found, so now it’s time for outreach. Using an automation tool can help save time, track your outreach results better, and give you more time to focus on building relationships with prospects. So, what’s your choice of tool? Skylead, of course, since it also has the functionality of a  LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software.

Now, remember when we said there’s a good use for the personalization document with actionable data? Well, this is where we teach you how to use it. 

To streamline the process and reach out to the sales leads you’ve found and researched, you should create a CSV file out of the gathered data. The only condition is also to paste the lead’s LinkedIn profile and/or email address. 

Skylead already offers the following native variables for message personalization based on the sales leads’ LinkedIn profiles:

• First name
• Last name
• Current company
• Years in current company
• Total career positions count
• Total years of experience
• College name
• Occupation

Nonetheless, you can insert personalized information into columns, such as a reference to a certain post, comment, or any other place you’ve found them, and create your own custom variable for more personalization. For example, let’s take a customized intro that references how you’ve found them as a custom variable. Now, here’s what your CSV file should look like.

From here, you proceed with automating the outreach process. Here’s how ?

Create a campaign in Skylead

It’s time to launch our first Skylead campaign, and we’ll go over it step-by-step.

First, go to your Skylead dashboard and click the Create new campaign button.

The second step is to choose your campaign type - Import.

The next step is to set up additional settings, like date, email tracking metrics, etc. In this section, you can add an unlimited number of email addresses at no extra cost. Skylead will auto-rotate them for extra safety. Once you’ve made your changes, you can proceed.

Now, all you need to do is create an action path for your outreach that Skylead will follow automatically. This is where we introduce our first-to-market Smart sequences. With them, you can combine LinkedIn and email action with if/else conditions. This will help you reach your leads while maximizing touchpoints with them. 

This is what a Smart sequence looks like in the tool:

Lastly, don’t forget to create personalized messages for the actions, such as an invite to connect, LinkedIn InMail, LinkedIn message, or email message. From our experience, adding a personalized image to your outreach flow increases the response rate to 63%.

FAQs

How to find leads?

Identify potential customers through content marketing, social media engagement, and networking. Create valuable content, participate in discussions, and connect with prospects at industry events to generate interest and build relationships.

How to find B2B leads?

Use LinkedIn, industry associations, trade publications, and networking events. Leverage content marketing, email campaigns, and partnerships to attract and engage business clients.

How do I measure the effectiveness of each lead generation strategy?

To measure the effectiveness of each lead generation strategy, you need to track and analyze key metrics. Start by setting clear objectives for each strategy, such as the number of leads generated, conversion rates, and the quality of leads.

Tools like Google Analytics, CRM software, and marketing automation platforms are used to monitor these metrics. Look at the engagement levels, such as open rates and click-through rates for email campaigns or the level of interaction on social media posts. By comparing these metrics against your goals, you can determine which strategies are most effective and adjust your approach accordingly.

Can you provide examples of successful lead generation campaigns using these strategies?

Yes! A SaaS company used content marketing by creating a series of whitepapers and e-books targeting specific pain points in their industry. They promoted these resources through blog posts and social media, capturing leads through gated content forms. Another example is a B2B firm that utilized webinars and online events. They hosted industry-specific webinars, offering valuable insights and networking opportunities, which helped them gather high-quality leads.

A third example is a small business that leveraged email marketing and CRM automation. They segmented their email list based on customer behavior and engagement, sending personalized follow-ups and nurturing leads effectively, resulting in a significant increase in conversions. These examples highlight the importance of targeted content, engaging events, and personalized outreach in successful lead generation campaigns.

Ready to get those leads?

Now that you’ve seen 30 ways to find leads, it’s time for you to put your newly found knowledge to the test. Pick a couple of sources that hit close to home, and begin expanding your lead generation strategy. 

While you’re at it, remember to incorporate an automation tool into your sales strategy. After you’ve found your leads, you can check out Skylead, schedule a demo, or get a 7-day free trial to explore all the outreach possibilities we offer.

Or better yet, use Skylead to prospect, enrich & outreach to avoid tool hopping and keep your entire workflow in one place!

Updated on: September 15th, 2026

Blank email interface. The insertion point flickers on your document. You can feel it staring back, almost judging you for not knowing what to write anymore for your cold email outreach. You tried everything - it’s not working, and you don’t understand what you are doing wrong.

Once again, without any inspiration, you scribble what your company does, offer a product, and mass blast it. 

You wait. A couple of days later, history repeats itself. There is no response.

You think to yourself ’’This is too hard’’, or worse ’’This is not working for me’’.

As Darth Vader, you start breathing heavily. Take off the mask and get wind of the list of cold email mistakes you're probably making, what impact they have on your email metrics, and how to fix them to improve email campaign performance.

Do not worry. These mistakes happen to everybody.

The most important cold email outreach metrics

Before we dive deep into these email mistakes, let’s recap the metrics you need to track that will tell you a lot about your overall campaign performance.

Understanding and tracking the email metrics is crucial when deciding if your outreach campaign was victorious. It’s like putting a billboard up in the city and not knowing how many people saw it or bought your product afterward. Thanks to technology, now you can.

To be more precise, to measure email performance, you need to know how many emails were bounced, opened, responded to, and how many people converted via cold email outreach. Once you have that mastered, you can start creating engaging cold email campaigns.

#1 Cold email metric: Bounce rate

Bounce Rate in email outreach is the total percentage of email messages that have not been delivered successfully. This can happen if, for example, an email address is invalid or there is a technical issue with the email provider.

How to calculate email bounce rate

Example: 

Let’s say that during your email campaign, you sent 1000 email messages. Out of those, 98 weren’t successfully delivered. The calculation would go like this:

Bounce Rate = 98 / 1000 x 100 = 9.8%

#2 Cold email metric: Open rate

Email open rate is the percentage used as an indicator of email campaign health. The higher it is, the better. 

This metric doesn’t tell you a lot about the email convertibility as a whole. However, it can indicate why it wasn’t opened, whether or not your subject line, or preview text (first several words of your email body) are appealing, or can imply broken email deliverability. 

How to calculate email open rate

Example: 

Taking the numbers from the previous example, say, you have 1000 sent out, 98 out of those bounced and 565 were opened. The calculation will go like this:

Open rate = 565 / ( 1000 - 98 ) x 100 = 62.63%

#3 Cold email metric: Response rate

It’s nice to have a high Open rate, but it is even better to have a high Response rate, as well. As per its name, this metric indicates the number of individual emails in the cold campaign that leads responded to. This metric shows the quality of your email’s content. Ultimately, a good response rate means that you’ve managed to get the lead’s attention.

How to calculate email response rate

Example:

Continuing the example thread. Now you have 902 unique emails that have been delivered. Out of those, only 133 leads responded. The calculation goes like this:

Response rate = 133 / 902 x 100 = 14.75%

#4 Cold email metric: Email conversion rate

Conversion is an activity when a lead completes a desired goal, such as signing up for Demo or starting the Subscription. That said, the conversion rate for email outreach is the percentage of prospects who took the desired action from your email campaign. 

To find out more about conversions, their types, and other KPIs, check out 5 Must-Know KPI Metrics to Grow Your B2B Business [Bonus Metrics Included].

Needless to say, the conversion rate is the ultimate metric to figure out if an email campaign was successful.

How to calculate email conversion rate

Example: 

Out of 902 successfully delivered emails, you have 36 conversions in total. Calculation is the following:

Conversion Rate = 36 / 902 x 100 = 3.99%

Now let’s see what email mistakes you are making that negatively impact these metrics and how to correct them.

Cold email outreach mistakes to say goodbye to

Successful email outreach is a lot tougher than ever these days. With so many emails clogging up the leads' inboxes, it is hard to remember and know what best works for your targeted prospects, let alone see the mistakes that slither in without you even noticing. ‍

That’s why we created this ultimate guide to the most common email mistakes, how they affect the metrics, and how to fix them. First, let's break the email mistakes down into the following four categories to make it easier. There are Email Mistakes:

1. Affecting Deliverability 
2. Regarding Content
3. Related To Attitude Towards the Prospect
4. Affecting Sales Process

I Email mistakes affecting deliverability 

1. Acquiring poor quality leads

Let’s address the elephant in the room: many came across a situation where you are weighing options, whether you should go for a cheaper alternative or not, when buying prospects’ data. Unfortunately, the cheaper option almost always leads to devastating results in the end.

Starting, the leads’ contact information you get from unverified vendors might be completely untargeted for your outreach. You can get every mistake right on this list, but if your ICP is not targeted, the entire email outreach will fail. 

Or, maybe the prospect’s name is incorrect, and you might address them wrongly, which will definitely affect the response rate, and you will lose this lead. Forever. 

But there is a worst-case scenario above all: if emails are invalid or non-existent, they can crumble your email outreach efforts because it increases the bounce rate and risks getting your domain blacklisted. 

Think of it as the butterfly effect: the bigger the bounce rate is, the more it damages your domain health and increases the danger of getting your emails in the spam folder or being blacklisted. It also decreases your open rate, response rate, and conversion rate in the long run.

What to do?

Buy the data from well-established and verified data vendors or gather the right information as first-party data yourself. 

Another solution is to find a reliable partner for data research or introduce your sales team to one of the top sales engagement platforms - one that includes outreach and email discovery and verification features. 

2. Adding a big number of links or sending the broken ones

Everyone wishes to tell the prospect as many things as possible about our product or service. We want to show them the blogs, ask for a meeting, attach a whitepaper file, and add alternative comparison pages for them to see. While this confuses the prospect regarding CTA (which we will mention below), it also overcrowds the email itself, making email providers raise their robot heads as bloodhounds. Too many links or files in your email will trigger a warning to the email provider and increase the possibility for your emails to wind up in the Spam folder. 

Furthermore, if you send a broken link to prospects, they will think of you as an unprofessional or worse spammer, and it will decrease the response and conversion rates, as they will lose interest in you.

What to do?

Try to keep the number of links to a minimum as you can (preferably without any links), and of course, check the links before sending. 

Additional tip: If in your signatures you have linked icons, check every one of them. As those links count as well, and sometimes they get broken, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

3. Sending too many messages per day

We all wish to send as many emails as possible for a short period. But this is a big mistake, especially if your email address is new. Sending too many emails per day can result in your messages ending up in the Spam folder. This can be one of the causes of your open rate dropping. 

What to do?

Slowly warm up your email address manually by sending a low number of emails, and then gradually increase the volume over time. Or, use email warm-up tools to do it automatically. The warm-up of a new email address or domain can last from 30 to 90 days. 

II Email mistakes regarding content

4. Being too casual or too formal

Balance is everything. Sales representatives sometimes go overboard trying to get their prospects to laugh, which only ends up being too cringey. We do not say GIFs or jokes are bad; we even use them in outreach and thread them to the context of the message. So know what thy boundaries are. 

Then, on the other side of the scale, we have an overly formal approach. The truth is that everyone wishes to be respected, so a formal approach is good, but if you go overboard, you will sound like a robot.

What to do?

Find the balance between the two scales. You can even send personalized GIFs or Images to show creativity and genuine interest, but keep it tasteful.

When it comes to an overly formal approach, you can loosen up a bit. 

5. Subject lines mistakes

Coming up with the subject line cannot be an easy feat. It has to be attractive, short, explain everything, but still leave the prospect interested in clicking on it. As challenging as it is, there are still some mistakes people make when it comes to these:  

• Spammy or clickbait subject lines - Big no. It will only enrage your prospects.
• Subject lines not specific enough for the market – This can cause lower open rates, as the prospects will not relate to the email at all.
• Subject lines in caps lock - It’s good to be excited, but you don’t need to shout at your leads to get their attention.

What to do? 

These mistakes influence every important email metric, starting with open rate, so make sure to avoid them. Think about how you would attract the leads’ attention and bind the subject line as a whole with the email body. Even better, try to make the subject line a prequel to your Preview text of the email and make it a united lead magnet.

6. Message copy not relevant to the market

As mentioned for the subject line, you need to keep a close eye on your email content's relevance to the market, as well. Writing an email not relevant to the industry can result in a lower response rate and conversion rate.

What to do?

Go full private detecting on this one. Research the industry, find the pain points. Go even further - find prospects' companies and information about them. Show them you understand the industry problems and what solution you offer instead.

7. Self-centered messages to prospects

Writing messages that are more focused on you instead of your prospects’ companies can come across as being too aggressive or assertive, resulting in lower response rates.

What to do?

Instead, be aggressive in knowing your lead: Showcase the research you did on them, ask for the call to know more about their pain points, and see how your product or service can aid them further. 

People resonate with what’s in it for them. Talk about them, gain their interest through email. 

Example:

8. Adding too many CTAs or not at all

As mentioned above, if you wish to show the prospect the blog posts, ask for a meeting, add alternative comparison pages for them to see, and top it off with a YouTube video - Stop. 

All these are a type of call to action, and piling them in one email will only confuse the prospects regarding CTA. 

On the other hand, if you do not use CTA at all, you will lose the purpose of your cold outreach, so the prospects won’t have any action in their mind to fulfill. 

What to do?

The goals of outreach campaigns are different for every purpose. Define one short CTA, and stay away from the unclear ones.
For more information on CTA in sales emails, check out our Detailed Guide On Crafting The Powerful Call To Action.

9. Not enough value

Often, our value proposition is not deep enough, doesn’t hit the bullseye, and is too generic. This directly affects the response rate, and you will lose the prospect because you weren’t compelling enough. 

What to do?

Once again, put on your detective glasses and go into a deep search for a particular prospect’s main pain points. You need to know and understand them. 

If you can explain their situation better than they can, they will automatically assume you have the solution and gain interest.

Example:

10. Unnecessary text length

If your cold email message is too long and has numerous paragraphs, take a step back. 

Let's say you are reaching out to CEOs or other higher-up positions. They usually have a lot on their plate, so you probably know the one virtue they lack is time. Please make sure not to waste it. 

What to do?

If you can draw the line through any piece of your text without losing the value, remove it. 

Let's say you have sentences such as: 

• I know you are busy, but... 
• I’m following up... 
• I’d love to give you a demo… 
• Do you perhaps know when would be the best time...

You won't lose the value if you cut them off. So instead, tell them something short, sweet, and essential about their business in particular, straight to the point:

• I see that your company struggles with VALUE...
• Would Wednesday at 10 AM work for you...

III Email mistakes related to attitude towards the prospect

11. Questioning the prospect's integrity and authority

Now we have a mistake example, which is a little further down the cold email outreach sequence. Let’s say you have a correspondence with the lead from a medium or large company, and you are not sure if they are a decision maker or not.

Asking a straightforward question ’’Are you the right person?’’ or responding’’I guess you are just not the right person to reach out to’’ after they do not reply is a big no-no. 

Simply do not ask a straightforward question if someone is a decision-maker. If not a decision-maker, they would feel invalidated.

Or maybe they indeed are, but your outreach was just not compelling enough to respond to, or they might think ’’If I'm not, would you treat me with the same respect?’’ Either way, this is how you will decrease your conversion rate. 

What to do?

If you really wish to know if someone is the right person to reach out to, then you can say something like this: 

When you bought this {{Product}} in the past, who was involved in the process?

12. Being authoritative over or submissive under the prospect 

There are three ego states in the body: child, adult, and parent ego states. If you command someone to do something, you talk to someone from the parent's ego state, and they will automatically go to their child's ego state. 

An example would be ’’Let me know the time that works for you’’.

How would you feel if you got this sales email?

Would you want to rebel against that sentence? Your prospect would want to rebel, too. 

Another example would be if you start your email with just a prospect's name, it will trigger a child's ego state, and they will think they are in serious trouble. You would want to increase the chance of somebody responding, so when cold outreaching, your goal should be to trigger ONLY their adult ego state. 

What to do?

So, what exactly should one avoid in communication?

1. Commanding prospects to do something (Child ego state trigger)
2. Putting accountability on them for not responding (Child ego state trigger)
3. Invalidate their objections (Child ego state trigger)
4. Sentences like: 

• Just checking in...
• I know you are busy, but…
• Would you have the time… (Parent ego state trigger)

Overall, avoid triggering their Parent or Child ego state. Instead, trigger an adult ego state. 

For example, instead of saying:

Would you have the time…

You can offer an up-front contract. For example, write the exact time and date of the meeting and ask for consent. Additionally, provide a sales meeting agenda for your call. 

13. Judging or making the prospects feel bad

Even though you think you will never do this to your prospects, this type of mistake is one of the most common ones. 

The first example is being harsh regarding the leads' choice to use similar products. Even though you are not saying anything bad about the leads themselves, you are indirectly insulting the decision they made. This easily translates to insulting them.

What to do?

Instead of judging the prospect for using a competitor and bragging about why your product is better, say something like this:

Oh, you are using an XY competitor? That’s great! So you are familiar with the type of product itself. What differs our product from theirs is…

Also, do not allow your words to make your prospects feel bad. Put the onus on you, not on your prospect. 

Example: 

IV Email mistakes affecting the sales process

14. Not setting up follow-up message sequences

Not having your follow-up game is the next in line of common lead generation mistakes (both for lead generation on LinkedIn and off). If the prospect doesn’t reply, do not give up. 

Follow-up emails always get a better response rate than the first email. In this study, there is an illustration of difference as follow-ups got 18% response rate higher than the first email, 13% to the fourth, and 27% to the sixth email *.

What to do?

Set up follow-up emailing sequences for the prospects who did not respond. Even if they do not respond to these follow-ups, insert them for other purpose sequences. Never give up, and never give in. 

15. Not tracking email campaigns’ performance

As we mentioned in the beginning, tracking is everything when it comes to your sales effort, especially if we talk about cold outreach.

If you do not know what you are tracking, how would you know if the channel is effective?

What to do?

So be sure to set and track the following: 

• Bounce Rate
• Open Rate
• Response Rate
• Conversion Rate

On the other hand, you can use a LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software, such as Skylead, to track it for you. Analyze the chosen tool thoroughly and start tracking your performance. 

Honorable mentions

We cannot finish this blog without mentioning a couple of short email mistakes that are essential to correct.

16. Poor Grammar - You have so many grammar checkers and tools available on the internet nowadays to remove sloppiness in communication.

17. Using initials - signing your email message using your initials, such as J.K., can come across as unprofessional. Use your full name and surname in your signature. 

18. Not personalizing the email - Nowadays, in cold outreach, you need to step up your personalization game, especially if you did the prospecting on LinkedIn first. To learn all about outreach personalization, check out Cold Outreach: Increase The Level of Personalization [+Templates]

Summary

Cold email outreach is still a powerful tool for lead generation and conversion if done right. Take time to study all of the mistakes mentioned above, let them be your guide, and double-check. 

Here are all the email outreach mistakes to serve you as a checklist: 

1. Acquiring Poor Quality Leads

2. Adding A Big Number Of Links Or Sending The Broken Ones

3. Sending Too Many Messages Per Day

4. Being Too Casual Or Too Formal

5. Subject Lines Mistakes

6. Message Copy Not Relevant To The Market

7. Self-Centered Messages To Prospects

8. Adding Too Many CTAs Or Not At All

9. Not Enough Value

10. Unnecessary Text Length

11. Questioning The Prospects' Integrity and Authority

12. Being Authoritative Over Or Submissive Under The Prospect 

13. Judging Or Making The Prospects Feel Bad

14. Not Setting Up Follow-Up Messages Sequences

15. Not tracking email campaigns’ performance

16. Poor Grammar

17. Using initials 

18. Not personalizing the email 

Now get to cold email writing - You’ve got this. Godspeed!

Wish to use email and LinkedIn in your outreach and successfully track their performance? See Skylead in action - Start your 7-day Free Trial.

Updated on: October 16th, 2026

Looking for an Evaboot alternative? The right replacement depends on what you need to do with your leads after exporting them from LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

If you only want to extract contacts, clean the data, and find business email addresses, a dedicated prospecting tool may be exactly what you need.

But what if you also want to enrich lead data using AI, automate LinkedIn and email outreach, and have AI handle conversations with interested prospects?

That's where the differences between Evaboot alternatives become much more important.

We've compared eight tools based on their prospecting capabilities, AI data enrichment, outreach automation, AI SDR features, pricing, and limitations.

The goal? Help you choose a tool that fits your workflow, without paying for features you won't use.

TL;DR: The best Evaboot alternatives in 2026

Here are our picks based on what you're trying to accomplish:

• Skylead: Best for sales teams and agencies that want prospecting, AI data enrichment, LinkedIn and email outreach, and AI SDR capabilities in one platform.
• Wiza: Best for finding verified emails and phone numbers from LinkedIn prospects and enriching lists with AI research.
• Emelia: Best for combining LinkedIn and cold email automation with AI-assisted prospecting and replies.
• Bardeen: Best for teams that want customizable scraping, research, and enrichment workflows across applications.
• Skrapp: Best for email discovery, verification, and enriching LinkedIn prospect lists.
• LeadLoft: Best for smaller sales teams looking for CRM, outreach automation, and AI SDR features.
• PhantomBuster: Best for building flexible data extraction and automation workflows across LinkedIn and other platforms.
• GetProspect: Best for verified B2B contact discovery, email enrichment, and cold email sequences.

Our recommendation: If you're replacing Evaboot because you want to go beyond lead extraction and run your outbound workflow in one place, consider Skylead, Emelia, or LeadLoft first.

If your main priority is exporting contacts and enriching their data, Wiza, Skrapp, GetProspect, and PhantomBuster may be more suitable.

How we evaluated these Evaboot alternatives

Not every tool on this list is a direct Evaboot replacement.

Some specialize in extracting Sales Navigator data. Others help you enrich contacts or automate outreach. A few bring those capabilities together in a broader sales platform.

So, instead of comparing them by feature count alone, we used four main criteria.

1. Prospecting

Can you discover leads within the platform, import Sales Navigator prospects, extract information, and build targeted lists?

We also considered how dependent each tool is on an existing LinkedIn or Sales Navigator subscription.

2. AI data enrichment

Can the tool find and verify emails, add company information, research prospects, or use AI to generate relevant context?

An AI-powered research feature is not automatically the same as multi-provider contact enrichment, so we've made those distinctions.

3. Outreach automation

Can you build automated LinkedIn and email sequences, apply conditions, personalize messages, and manage replies?

We considered whether outreach is built into one platform or requires combining separate workflows and integrations.

4. AI SDR

Can AI do more than write a first message?

For this comparison, we distinguish between AI copywriting, AI-generated reply suggestions, and AI agents that can respond to leads, qualify interest, follow up, and help book meetings.

About our research and testing

We reviewed the vendors' public product information, feature documentation, and pricing pages in October 2026. We also incorporated our team's hands-on observations of each tool. Prices and plan allowances were checked in October 2026 and may change.

Evaboot alternatives compared: Features and pricing

Pricing note: Figures are displayed in the currencies shown on the vendors' public pricing pages. Annual-billing discounts, optional credits, connected accounts, and extra tools can affect your final cost. “AI SDR” refers to conversation-management capabilities, not merely generating sales copy.

What is Evaboot, and why look for an alternative?

Evaboot is a LinkedIn Sales Navigator extraction and data-cleaning tool.

Its main purpose is to help sales teams turn Sales Navigator search results into usable prospect lists.

It can:

• Export leads and companies from LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
• Clean profile and company information.
• Remove or filter irrelevant records.
• Find business email addresses during lead exports.
• Verify emails.
• Enrich LinkedIn profile URLs.
• Transfer data into other systems through integrations, APIs, and webhooks.

These capabilities make Evaboot useful if you already know who you want to target and primarily need to prepare their data.

However, Evaboot is not designed to manage the entire sales engagement process.

Where Evaboot may not be enough

1. It doesn't replace an outreach platform.

Evaboot helps prepare prospect data. However, it doesn't provide the same end-to-end LinkedIn and cold email sequencing workflow as a dedicated sales engagement tool.

If you want to contact prospects, automate follow-ups, or manage conversations, you'll need additional software.

2. Its core prospecting workflow depends on Sales Navigator.

To use Evaboot's Sales Navigator export capabilities, you need an active LinkedIn Sales Navigator subscription.

That subscription is a separate cost from Evaboot.

3. Its enrichment scope differs from broader sales platforms.

Evaboot provides email finding, verification, LinkedIn URL enrichment, and data cleaning.

But if you want to research companies across multiple data sources, find buying signals, generate personalized insights, or automatically use enrichment outputs in an outreach sequence, you'll need to compare its capabilities with more comprehensive tools.

4. It uses credits for data operations.

Credit-based pricing can be economical when you're exporting a defined number of leads. But the total cost will depend on the number of records and additional tools involved in your workflow.

Evaboot pricing in 2027

Evaboot currently advertises these monthly plans:

Evaboot's credit system is important to understand:

• Exporting one lead costs one credit, with email discovery included.
• Exporting one company costs one credit.
• Standalone email discovery costs one credit per email found.
• Standalone email verification costs one credit per address checked.
• LinkedIn URL enrichment costs one credit per URL.

An export attempts to find the lead's email, but an email isn't guaranteed to be found for every contact. The exported lead still consumes a credit.

For example, a 1,000-credit plan supports approximately 1,000 lead exports, rather than only 500 leads with emails as an outdated two-credit calculation would suggest.

See Evaboot's pricing and for the details.

Now that we've established what Evaboot offers, let's compare your alternatives.

1. Skylead - Best for prospecting, enrichment, LinkedIn and email outreach, and AI SDR

Best for: Sales teams, recruiters, founders, and agencies that want to turn prospect lists into conversations using one platform.

Pricing: $100 per seat/month; AI enrichment and AI SDR demonstrate real provider's cost, making it 95% cost-effective than other tools - $1 per 100 credits.

Free trial: 7 days.

Yes, that's us. 👋

Skylead is a cloud-based LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software that brings multiple stages of outbound sales into one workflow.

While Evaboot is primarily designed to extract and prepare prospect data, Skylead helps teams discover prospects, enrich their data, build outreach sequences, and manage replies.

That makes it a stronger fit when you're looking to reduce the number of tools involved in getting from a prospect list to a booked meeting.

Prospecting: Find leads and accounts in one place

Skylead offers several ways to build your prospect list.

With account-based prospecting, you can start by identifying target companies and finding relevant decision-makers inside those organizations.

Its B2B Database also lets you search for contacts and companies using filters.

If you already use LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can bring Sales Navigator-sourced leads into Skylead campaigns without having to rely exclusively on a separate data-export tool.

And with Post Signals, you can identify prospects based on the topics, keywords, and problems they're discussing or engaging with on LinkedIn.

For example, a sales team targeting companies interested in a specific CRM integration could use account criteria and relevant buying discussions to refine its prospecting.

Compared with Evaboot: Skylead focuses on building an actionable prospecting and outreach workflow.

AI data enrichment: Research, enrich, and personalize

Skylead's AI data enrichment is designed to help you go beyond basic contact records.

Depending on the enrichment action, you can:

• Enrich contact and company information.
• Research company attributes and relevant business context.
• Discover available company signals, such as funding or technology information.
• Use AI prompts to generate structured insights or personalized icebreakers.
• Apply execution conditions to selected enrichment actions.
• Use enriched information in subsequent outreach.

Instead of manually transferring data between a research tool, spreadsheet, and outreach platform, you can work with enriched lead data inside Skylead.

Compared with Wiza or Skrapp: Those tools focus strongly on obtaining and enhancing contact data. Skylead's advantage is the connection between enrichment and outbound campaign execution.

Outreach: LinkedIn and email Smart Sequences

This is where Skylead differs most from Evaboot.

With Smart Sequences, you can combine LinkedIn actions and emails into the same campaign, with if/else conditions to act on your leads' behavior.

For example, consider a prospect who hasn't accepted your LinkedIn connection request.

Instead of manually deciding what to do, you can configure a sequence that sends an email when its conditions are met.

And if a prospect replies, your workflow can respond to that event rather than continuing every scheduled touch.

Skylead also supports:

• Unlimited connected email accounts, with a published allowance of 100,000 emails per month on the All-in-one plan.
• Email account rotation.
• Email warm-up.
• Email discovery and verification.
• A/B testing.
• Image and GIF personalization.
• A unified Smart Inbox.
• Campaign analytics and reporting.

Unlimited connected mailboxes should not be confused with unlimited sending volume, and email warm-up does not guarantee inbox placement.

Compared with PhantomBuster: PhantomBuster offers flexible LinkedIn automation workflows, but Skylead provides a more directly integrated environment for building multichannel campaigns and managing replies.

AI SDR: Keep qualified conversations moving

Skylead's AI SDR can help manage conversations after prospects respond.

You can train it using information about your company, offerings, sales strategy, and goals.

It can then help qualify interested prospects, respond to common questions, and move suitable conversations toward meeting bookings.

Skylead offers automatic and semi-automatic operation, allowing you to choose how much human review is involved.

This is a separate capability from simply generating AI outreach messages.

Compared with Evaboot and PhantomBuster: Neither currently offers a comparable native, unified AI SDR conversation-management workflow in its publicly documented core product.

Agency features

If you manage prospecting and outreach for multiple clients, Skylead also provides an agency-oriented offering.

Depending on the agreement, agencies can access:

• Client and seat management through an agency dashboard.
• Centralized visibility into client conversations.
• Granular roles and permissions.
• Client performance and risk monitoring.
• Dedicated support arrangements.
• White-label options with custom branding and client-facing support.

These features are especially relevant to agencies looking to deliver outreach software under their own brand rather than simply supply prospect lists.

Skylead pros and cons

Skylead pricing

Skylead's All-in-one plan costs $100 per seat/month.

It includes core prospecting, LinkedIn automation, cold email features, Smart Sequences, email discovery and verification, warm-up, and access to the published email-sending allowance.

For agencies, Skylead also advertises promotional packages starting at $999/month for 25 seats and $1,999/month for unlimited seats during the first year, with white-label availability subject to agreement. See Skylead's pricing.

Our verdict: Choose Skylead when your goal is not just to get a list of contacts, but to manage more of the journey from targeting to outreach and qualified conversations in one place.

Want to see how your prospecting workflow could work in Skylead? Try Skylead free for 7 days.

2. Wiza - Best for LinkedIn contact data and AI research

Best for: SDRs and recruiters who primarily need verified contact information and better-qualified prospect lists.

Pricing: Free plan; paid individual plans start at $49 per user/month.

Wiza is a prospecting and contact enrichment platform focused on helping teams build usable lead lists.

Like Evaboot, it is particularly relevant to people who already use LinkedIn and Sales Navigator to identify their audience.

Prospecting

Wiza supports prospect discovery and extracting contact data from LinkedIn-based workflows.

It also offers Wiza Prospect, allowing teams to work with a broader prospecting dataset rather than only a manual Sales Navigator export process.

You can find contact information, export lists, and sync results into supported CRMs.

AI data enrichment

Wiza's AI Research is more than a basic email finder.

It can research companies and contacts using public web information and Wiza's data, then turn the findings into structured fields.

For example, you could use it to investigate whether a company serves enterprise customers, appears to use a particular technology, or is actively expanding its sales team.

You can filter contacts using those additional insights before exporting or transferring them to a CRM.

Wiza also provides email and phone-number enrichment.

Outreach

Wiza is strongest as a prospecting and data-preparation solution.

It supports moving enriched contacts into CRMs and other workflows, but it is not positioned around a native LinkedIn-plus-email Smart Sequence builder comparable to Skylead's.

If multichannel outreach is your primary goal, assess the additional software you would need.

AI SDR

Wiza offers AI research for improving lead selection like Skylead has, but its AI Research feature is not equivalent to a native AI SDR that manages ongoing sales conversations and books meetings.

Wiza pros and cons

Wiza pricing

Wiza advertises:

• Free: 20 valid emails and 5 phone numbers.
• Starter: $49/user/month with 100 valid emails and 100 phone numbers monthly.
• Email: $99/user/month with 500 valid emails monthly.
• Email + Phone: $199/user/month with 500 valid emails and 500 phone numbers monthly.
• Team: Custom pricing, with different enterprise allowances.

Annual billing options are also available.

See Wiza pricing.

Our verdict: Wiza is a useful Evaboot alternative when verified contact data and AI-assisted qualification matter more than running your outreach in the same platform.

3. Emelia - Best for combining prospecting and multichannel outreach

Best for: Sales teams and agencies that want to combine LinkedIn and cold email campaigns with enrichment and AI-generated replies.

Pricing: Starts at €37/month.

Emelia offers cold email, LinkedIn automation, lead sourcing, email warm-up, and AI features within a multichannel prospecting platform.

It's closer to Skylead's sales engagement category than to Evaboot's specialist data-export category.

Prospecting

Emelia supports importing prospects from LinkedIn Sales Navigator, search results, and CSV lists.

Its scraping and list-management features allow users to collect leads and prepare them for outreach.

The number of connected LinkedIn accounts varies by plan.

AI data enrichment

Emelia provides email finding, email verification, phone discovery, and AI enrichment functions.

Its Magic Writer feature also helps generate personalized sales copy.

These functions use enrichment credits, so teams should separate their cost of collecting data from their outreach subscription.

Outreach

Emelia supports multichannel campaigns with LinkedIn and email actions.

Its public pricing comparison also lists conditional or smart steps, A/B testing, a unified inbox, mailbox rotation, and email warm-up.

That makes it a genuine competitor for sales teams looking beyond Evaboot.

Compared with Skylead: Both cover LinkedIn and email automation. The best choice depends on your sequencing requirements, account allowances, enrichment workflows, and whether you also need advanced agency management or Skylead's account-based and signal-based prospecting.

AI SDR

Emelia offers Magic Reply and Auto Magic Reply.

Magic Reply can suggest responses based on previous conversations and writing style. Auto Magic Reply is designed to respond automatically, follow up, and help arrange appointments.

This goes beyond simple AI copywriting.

Emelia pros and cons

Emelia pricing

Emelia's public monthly pricing includes:

• Start: €37/month — up to 3 mailboxes, 1 LinkedIn account, and 500 included enrichment credits.
• Grow: €97/month — up to 50 mailboxes, 3 LinkedIn accounts, and 1,000 included credits.
• Scale: €297/month — unlimited mailboxes, up to 10 LinkedIn accounts, and 5,000 included credits.

Additional LinkedIn accounts and enrichment credits can be purchased under its published terms.

Emelia also advertises a 7-day free trial.

See Emelia pricing.

Our verdict: Emelia is worth considering if you want multichannel outreach rather than only Sales Navigator lead extraction. Compare its account and credit allowances with Skylead's broader prospecting, AI SDR, and agency features.

4. Bardeen — Best for customizable prospecting and data workflows

Best for: RevOps and growth teams that want to automate research, extraction, qualification, and data transfers across multiple tools.

Pricing: From $10/month for its Basic plan.

Bardeen is a workflow automation platform that helps teams automate repetitive browser and data tasks.

Unlike Evaboot, which focuses on Sales Navigator data exports, Bardeen can support workflows across different websites and applications.

Prospecting

Bardeen allows users to build web scraping and data extraction workflows.

For example, a workflow can collect search results, extract profile information, and write the data to a spreadsheet.

Teams can build their own automations or use available templates rather than rely on one fixed export process.

AI data enrichment

Bardeen can combine scraping with data enrichment and AI-based qualification.

You might extract prospect data, validate available contact information, ask AI to classify the record against your ICP, and transfer qualified results to another system.

This is particularly useful if your team has custom prospecting requirements that don't fit a standard tool.

Outreach

Bardeen can connect prospecting workflows to sales and CRM applications.

However, its core value is automating tasks across tools rather than replacing a dedicated LinkedIn and email sales engagement platform with a unified conversation inbox.

Compared with Skylead: Bardeen gives users flexibility to build their own data workflows. Skylead offers a more purpose-built path from prospecting and enrichment to outreach and reply management.

AI SDR

Bardeen provides AI-powered workflow and qualification capabilities.

A directly comparable native AI SDR that independently manages LinkedIn and email conversations was not established in the reviewed product offering.

Bardeen pros and cons

Bardeen pricing

Bardeen's current public pricing advertises:

• Basic: From $10/month, with 100 credits/month shown at the entry configuration.
• Premium: From $50/month, with 1,000 credits/month shown at the entry configuration.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing.

The pricing page also explains that credit consumption varies by action, with scraping, AI actions, and enrichment potentially consuming different amounts.

See Bardeen pricing.

Our verdict: Choose Bardeen if you want customizable automation for collecting, qualifying, and routing data. If you want native LinkedIn and email outreach with integrated reply management, Skylead is more directly aligned with that requir

5. Skrapp — Best for finding and enriching business emails

Best for: Recruiters, SDRs, and B2B teams that need professional email addresses and prospect list enrichment.

Pricing: Free plan; Professional starts at $39/month, or $29/month billed annually.

Skrapp is a business email finder and lead enrichment platform.

Like Evaboot, it is most relevant when your immediate need is turning prospect information into a usable contact list.

Prospecting

Skrapp supports prospecting through LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, LinkedIn Recruiter, company websites, and its email-search functionality.

You can find business emails, verify contact information, and save or export lists.

Paid plans also list Sales Navigator list-saving and multi-page enrichment capabilities.

AI data enrichment

Skrapp has expanded beyond basic email discovery.

Its Professional and Enterprise pricing tiers now list AI Enrichment, in addition to email verification and LinkedIn-based enrichment.

That makes the older description of Skrapp as a tool with only basic company enrichment too limited.

However, AI enrichment features should not automatically be treated as equivalent to a customizable multi-provider enrichment workflow with conditional actions.

Outreach

Skrapp's current feature list includes an Auto-Connect capability for LinkedIn profiles.

That is worth distinguishing from a fully integrated sales engagement platform: its public feature list does not establish a native multichannel sequence builder, unified LinkedIn/email reply management, or equivalent conditional outreach features.

AI SDR

Skrapp's published AI Enrichment capability is not a dedicated AI SDR for managing prospect replies and booking meetings.

Skrapp pros and cons

Skrapp pricing

Skrapp advertises:

• Free: 50 email credits.
• Professional: $39/month on monthly billing, or $29/month billed annually, with 2,000 credits and 2 users at the displayed configuration.
• Enterprise: From $349/month, or $262/month billed annually, with 50,000 credits and 15 users at the displayed configuration.

Additional volume options are available.

See Skrapp pricing.

Our verdict: Skrapp is suitable when verified emails and enrichment are your immediate priorities. Skylead is the more relevant option when those contacts need to move into ongoing LinkedIn and ema

6. LeadLoft — Best for sales engagement, CRM, and AI SDR

Best for: Startups and smaller sales teams that want prospecting, outreach, and pipeline management together.

Pricing: From $99/user/month.

LeadLoft brings prospecting, sales engagement, and CRM functions into one platform.

That makes it different from Evaboot, which primarily helps users prepare contact data.

Prospecting

LeadLoft offers database access, a LinkedIn extension, email finding, and list enrichment.

Users can collect contact data, organize prospects, and manage them inside its sales environment.

AI data enrichment

LeadLoft provides contact enrichment and AI-assisted prospecting.

Its higher-tier features include an AI Prospector that can help generate targeted prospect lists from natural-language instructions.

It also offers AI writing, playbook building, and deal-routing capabilities.

Outreach

LeadLoft supports both LinkedIn and email automation. However, using LinkedIn in prospecting or outreach requires Chrome extension which makes this tool not the safest on the market, like some other cloud-based solutions.

It also includes CRM and deal-pipeline features, allowing teams to keep prospect records, conversations, and opportunities together.

Compared with Skylead: LeadLoft has a stronger native CRM emphasis. Skylead provides a broader selection of dedicated outbound features, including account-based prospecting, Post Signals, Smart Sequences, and agency white-label options.

AI SDR

LeadLoft introduced AI SDR Agents that can respond to prospects, answer questions, qualify interest, follow up, and coordinate meetings. It also supports for conversations across LinkedIn and email.

The important buying distinction is which AI features are included in each plan and how much control users have over the conversation workflow.

LeadLoft pros and cons

LeadLoft pricing

LeadLoft lists:

• Unlimited: $99/user/month, including its core sales automation and prospecting features.
• Scale AI: A promotional $299/user/month displayed against a $400 reference price, adding AI SDRs, AI Prospector, AI writing, and other AI features.
• Managed Service: Pricing on request.

LeadLoft advertises a 7-day trial.

See LeadLoft pricing.

Our verdict: LeadLoft is a credible option if you want sales engagement, CRM, and AI-assisted conversations together, however features are limited. Compare it directly with Skylead if your priority is an integrated outbound workflow rather than only contact extraction.

7. PhantomBuster — Best for flexible data extraction and automation

Best for: Growth teams, RevOps specialists, and prospectors who want to automate data extraction, enrichment, and actions across multiple platforms.

Pricing: From $56/month billed annually on the public USD pricing page.

PhantomBuster is a cloud-based automation platform built around individual automations and connected workflows.

Its strength is flexibility: it can automate data collection and tasks across LinkedIn and several other platforms.

However, its operating model differs from a purpose-built sales engagement platform.

We also explored its workflows directly, which helped us identify the practical differences.

Prospecting: Flexible, but workflow-driven

PhantomBuster offers prebuilt automations for collecting prospect and activity data.

For LinkedIn, these include workflows for:

• Extracting Sales Navigator search results.
• Collecting LinkedIn profile and company information.
• Finding people who commented on or engaged with posts.
• Gathering followers and related profile data.
• Researching prospects with AI-assisted tools.

It also supports data collection from other platforms, including Instagram, X, Facebook, Reddit, and YouTube.

This is useful if your prospecting workflow involves multiple sources.

For example, you might collect people who engaged with a LinkedIn post, enrich their information, and transfer them into another workflow.

What we noticed during testing

PhantomBuster relies heavily on separate automations, often called Phantoms, which can be connected into broader workflows.

This provides customization, but can require additional configuration when your process involves several prospecting and outreach steps.

It also uses a browser extension for connecting LinkedIn sessions to PhantomBuster.

Using unauthorized tools to scrape or automate LinkedIn activity carries account-restriction risk. That risk cannot be reduced to a simple claim that cloud tools are safe and extensions are unsafe.

Compared with Skylead: PhantomBuster can gather data across more types of websites. Skylead provides account-based prospecting, a B2B Database, data enrichment for 20+ signals, and Post Signals tied more directly to a B2B outreach process.

AI data enrichment: LinkedIn data plus external providers

PhantomBuster can collect available LinkedIn profile and company information and structure it for further processing.

It also offers AI-assisted prospect research and message generation.

For finding professional email addresses, PhantomBuster integrates with BetterContact's waterfall enrichment services.

Waterfall enrichment searches multiple data providers in sequence to improve contact discovery coverage.

PhantomBuster also supports integrations with services such as Hunter, Dropcontact, and Snov.io, including bringing your own provider account where supported.

It's also important to check credit consumption rather than judging the price only by the number of emails successfully returned.

PhantomBuster's documentation explains that its included email-discovery credits can be consumed per lookup attempt, even when no email is found.

Compared with Skylead: PhantomBuster offers a configurable combination of LinkedIn data collection and external enrichment providers. Skylead's AI data enrichment is more directly connected to prospect records and subsequent multichannel campaigns.

Outreach: Powerful automations, but a different structure

PhantomBuster supports LinkedIn actions such as connection requests, message sending, and outreach flows.

It also offers AI LinkedIn Message Writer and AI LinkedIn Post Responder workflows.

For example, the AI Post Responder can evaluate a lead's recent LinkedIn posts and generate a relevant comment or message.

PhantomBuster also supports connecting automations and using AI tools or its MCP server to orchestrate workflows.

What we noticed during testing

Using external AI tooling to coordinate LinkedIn outreach required additional configuration.

That setup was more involved than using a dedicated visual campaign builder.

PhantomBuster can run linked and conditional LinkedIn workflows, however they are simple, and require Chrome extension, which is not a safe option.

The key difference is that it doesn't provide the same native, cloud-based and unified LinkedIn-plus-cold-email Smart Sequence and Smart Inbox experience as Skylead.

You may also need to account for AI credits, execution time, and any third-party tools used alongside the PhantomBuster subscription.

AI SDR: Automation is not the same as conversation management

PhantomBuster offers AI-assisted prospecting and content-generation capabilities.

However, we did not establish a native AI SDR with the same integrated LinkedIn/email inbox, configurable prospect-response handling, qualification, and meeting-booking workflow offered by dedicated AI SDR platforms.

Its AI message generation and post-response features should not be confused with full conversational AI SDR functionality.

Compared with Skylead: Skylead's AI SDR can work with incoming conversations, whereas PhantomBuster is primarily designed to execute data and automation workflows.

PhantomBuster for agencies

PhantomBuster supports multiple users, automation workflows, and integrations, including CRM connections with HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive.

These are useful capabilities for agencies managing prospecting operations.

However, we could not establish a comparable native white-label SaaS offering with client branding, client dashboards, granular permissions, and branded support.

Compared with Skylead: Skylead is more directly positioned for agencies that want to manage outreach clients under one platform and potentially offer a white-labeled experience.

PhantomBuster pros and cons

PhantomBuster pricing

PhantomBuster's current public USD pricing page lists the following annual-billing rates:

The trial also limits exports to 10 rows. Plans include the MCP server, while paid plans have higher extraction and workflow allowances.

Prices may be displayed in different currencies and at different rates depending on billing selection and region.

Our verdict: PhantomBuster is a strong choice if you want to assemble flexible scraping, enrichment, and LinkedIn automation workflows across multiple sources.

If your team wants prospecting, conditional LinkedIn and email outreach, unified reply management, and an AI SDR within a purpose-built sales platform, Skylead is worth considering instead.

8. GetProspect — Best for B2B data enrichment and cold email

Best for: Teams that want verified B2B contacts, list enrichment, and email-focused outbound campaigns.

Pricing: Free plan; paid plans start at $49/month.

GetProspect is a B2B email-finding and prospecting platform.

It offers a contact database, LinkedIn-related prospecting, contact enrichment, email verification, and cold email functionality.

That last capability matters: GetProspect is not just a data-export tool.

Prospecting

GetProspect lets users search for leads using filters such as industry, company size, location, and job title.

It also offers a LinkedIn email-finder extension and bulk contact enrichment.

You can upload CSV files, find professional email addresses, verify records, and transfer contacts into a CRM.

AI data enrichment

GetProspect provides contact and company enrichment, including email verification and available phone information.

Its data enrichment is helpful for preparing outreach lists.

However, we did not establish an equivalent customizable AI research environment or AI SDR workflow from the reviewed product documentation.

For teams that need advanced company research or signal-based personalization, this distinction may matter.

Outreach

GetProspect supports native cold email sequences.

You can create personalized messages, automate follow-ups, adjust sending schedules, and track campaign results.

It also offers A/B testing and CRM-related integrations.

Compared with Skylead: GetProspect's outreach is primarily email-focused. Skylead combines LinkedIn and email actions inside Smart Sequences, alongside a unified reply-management workflow.

AI SDR

GetProspect's cold email automation should not be confused with a dedicated AI SDR.

Its documented capabilities do not establish an autonomous agent for handling ongoing LinkedIn and email conversations and qualifying prospects toward meetings.

GetProspect pros and cons

GetProspect pricing

GetProspect advertises:

• Free: 50 valid emails and 100 email verifications.
• Starter: $49/month, including 1,000 valid emails, 2,000 verifications, and 5 phone numbers.
• Growth: From $99/month, including 5,000 valid emails and 10,000 verifications at the entry Growth configuration.
• Higher-volume options: Available at additional prices.

Its cold email functionality has separate sending limits and usage considerations. For example, its pricing FAQ refers to free-tier email sequences and larger sending allowances on paid configurations.

Our verdict: GetProspect is a good fit when B2B data collection and email outreach are the priorities. If LinkedIn automation, branching between communication channels, and AI-assisted conversation handling are essential, Skylead is the broader alternative.

How to choose the right Evaboot alternative

The best tool isn't necessarily the one with the most features.

It's the one that handles the work your team actually needs to get done.

Here are the questions we'd ask before choosing.

1. Do you need lead extraction or an entire outreach workflow?

If you mainly export Sales Navigator leads and send them elsewhere, start by comparing Evaboot, Wiza, Skrapp, and PhantomBuster.

If your goal is to discover prospects, enrich their data, contact them, and manage replies, compare Skylead, Emelia, and LeadLoft.

A specialist scraper can be more economical than an all-in-one platform when contact extraction is your only requirement.

2. Do you need LinkedIn outreach, cold email, or both?

This distinction matters more than it might seem.

Some tools help you find leads but don't provide a complete native outreach workflow.

Others support email sequences without offering the same level of LinkedIn automation.

If your sales process requires both channels, evaluate whether they operate inside one sequence or need separate tools.

For more options, see our comparison of LinkedIn automation tools.

3. How much enrichment do you actually need?

Not all data enrichment is the same.

Basic enrichment may mean finding a business email or phone number.

More advanced enrichment may involve researching company funding, technology usage, business context, hiring activity, or other relevant attributes.

Before choosing, check whether enrichment data can flow into your outreach automatically or whether it needs to be exported and imported again.

You may also want to compare your options against the broader category of B2B prospecting tools.

4. Do you need AI to research prospects or manage conversations?

AI research, AI message writing, and AI SDR capabilities solve different problems.

AI research helps you understand who to target.

AI writing helps you produce messages.

An AI SDR can assist with conversations after a lead responds, potentially including qualification, objection handling, follow-ups, and meeting scheduling.

If conversation handling is your priority, compare the AI SDR features of Skylead and LeadLoft, and examine Emelia's automated reply capabilities.

5. What is the total cost of your workflow?

Don't compare only the lowest subscription prices.

Your actual monthly cost may include:

• Sales Navigator subscriptions.
• Lead export or scraping credits.
• Email discovery and verification credits.
• AI research or enrichment credits.
• LinkedIn account or user-seat charges.
• Email outreach software.
• AI SDR features.
• CRM or integration costs.

For example, Evaboot's subscription may be sufficient if you only need exports.

But if you also subscribe to several tools for enrichment, outreach, and reply management, an integrated platform may become more attractive.

On the other hand, a $100-per-seat sales engagement subscription doesn't make sense for everyone who occasionally needs a CSV file.

Consider the cost per usable prospect and the complete workflow—not just the price per credit.

6. Are you managing outreach for clients?

Agencies often need capabilities that individual SDRs don't.

These may include separate client access, reporting, permissions, branded interfaces, support arrangements, and centralized campaign management.

If your business involves selling managed outreach services or white-labeled software, evaluate those requirements before choosing a product.

You can read more about Skylead for agencies.

Which Evaboot alternative should you choose?

Here's our final recommendation based on your primary use case:

There isn't one perfect replacement for every Evaboot user.

If you need only clean prospect exports, a focused data tool may be all you need.

But if your goal is to find qualified prospects, enrich their information, reach out through LinkedIn and email, and keep conversations moving toward meetings, it's worth considering a broader platform.

That's where Skylead comes in.

With account-based prospecting, a B2B Database, Post Signals, AI data enrichment, Smart Sequences, and AI SDR capabilities, Skylead is designed to connect more of your sales process in one place.

And you don't have to commit to a paid subscription to explore the workflow.

Start your 7-day Skylead free trial and see whether it fits your outbound process.

Updated on: September 15th, 2026

What would you say is the first thing that catches your prospects' attention in their inbox? That is right, email subject lines. They are undoubtedly the most integral part of your cold email outreach. In just seconds, the fate of your outreach success is determined.

How? Well, if you do not create catchy email subject lines, you risk getting your email deleted, your open rate becomes much lower, and you will be disregarded as Spam. Consequently, this ultimately leads to a lower number of warmed-up leads and closed deals. Furthermore, effort and time spent will go to waste.

Don’t panic. We’ve got your back.

In this article, we explain what the subject line is and why it is important for your email outreach. Furthermore, we are digging deep into catchy email subject examples, why they work, and how to help you create your golden subject line that catches your prospects’ attention immediately.

What is an email subject line and why is it important?

Let’s start with the basics. When you open up your email inbox, you can notice the 3 following components of the email message:

• Sender’s name,
• Subject Line, 
• And the preview text. 

The email subject line is a text line next to the sender’s name, describing the title of the email message. In other words, it is an indication of what the message is about and why you should read it. 

The email subject line communicates value, sets expectations, and entices recipients to discover more about the topic by reading the email message. 

Getting your email subject line just right will make you stand out in the sea of other emails and increase the open rate. In sales terms, this means increasing the chances of getting your message across and warming up leads so you can close more deals.

Another thing worth mentioning is the importance of the Preview Text.

A preview text, aka preheader text, is a line next to the subject line that shows the beginning of your email message. In some cases, preview text can be custom-made if you use newsletter software or similar tools, but in most cases, it shows a preview of your message. That is why it is important to perceive them in synergy rather than as separate components to make your outreach as effective as you can (but we will talk more about this below).

How to write catchy email subject lines: Tips to get started

Email subject lines’ first and foremost purpose is to get your prospects to open up your email. In other words, you need to catch their attention and entice them towards this action. 

Therefore, make email subject lines mean something. Let’s go through a couple of steps to get started. 

1. Determine the type of subject lines

As a salesperson, especially when doing cold outreach, your job is to set the tone of the email subject lines. There are many ways to do it - making bold, sweet, or commanding statements - but first, you need to figure out the email content. After that, write down the email core meaning, and choose the type of tone that best fits your outreach message, personality, and prospects’ preferences. 

The usual subject line types for sales are:

2. Straight to the point 

Be clear and concise about your email subject lines whenever you can. The reason is that often prospects prioritize the emails by their subject line and order of reading/replying. For this reason, the email subject line should communicate what the message is all about and its importance. 

Avoid vague subject lines, such as “While I wait for your response”, which don't show anything about the email content, as it will end up at the bottom of the priority list, and prospects will eventually forget it.

However, this doesn’t mean you can’t get crafty with it. You can create wordplay such as “Let’s Taco ‘bout your performance”, create a theme as “Let’s schedule a coffee chat”, or even use the power words to enhance your catchy email subject lines.

3. Power words in email subject lines

Specific words can trigger an emotion in us on a conscious or subconscious level. Let's take the word “happy” for instance. After reading it, you suddenly felt a slight uplift in your mood, didn’t you? What happens with the word “Sad”? You felt slightly down there, correct? 

Words are indeed powerful. So using specific words in subject lines can do the same for your prospect. To be more precise, using Power words can really catch your prospects’ attention and activate an emotion. Furthermore, if you put the Power word at the beginning of the subject line, it will draw even more attention.

Here is a list of power words to catch your prospects’ attention and get them to open up your email:

Note: The important thing is to set expectations with power words, but be careful not to overpromise, as this will only annoy your prospects. And do not go overboard with them.

4. How long should email subject lines be 

On average, email subject lines should ideally be 4 to 7 words. If you need more words, aim for a subject line no longer than 9 words, which is the upper limit. Furthermore, contemporary inboxes can reveal up to 60 characters on average, depending on the email provider. 

Also, keep in mind that some people check their emails on mobile devices, which show only 41 to 50 characters. This roughly translates to 7 to 8 words. Therefore, to lower the number of characters, you need to remove any filler words, such as just, hi, thanks, going to, etc.

Note: If you plan to reach out to your prospects using LinkedIn InMail, you should know that the subject line character limit is 200 characters. Check out our complete guide on how LinkedIn InMail works and 13 InMail templates for a better response rate.

5. Use subject lines and preview texts in synergy

As we mentioned earlier, the preview text is a line of text found next to the subject line. It shows the first couple of words of your email message. In addition, it can show custom text if you use a newsletter software tool. 

Preview text is just as important as the subject line - it is your chance to deepen the message and make it more effective to get your prospects to open up an email. 

Preview text is usually 35 to 90 characters long, depending on the email provider. To make a subject line and preview text work together, it is best to perceive a preview text as a collection of details that didn’t fit the subject line. Here is an example:

Subject line: ? A discount gift for you

Preview text: Happy Women’s Day! Up until the end of March, you get a discount of […]

Note: To convince a prospect to keep on reading the email and perform the desired action, make sure you get your opening paragraph and a Call To Action right.

Email subject lines best practices [and some worst ones to keep away]

Now that we’ve set the email subject lines and basic steps, let’s go through the best practices and what you need to avoid.

Subject lines best practices 

1. Personalization

Did you know that personalizing subject lines can increase the open rate by 22.2%? The increase in open rate happens because personalization creates a sense of familiarity in leads. Especially if you found those leads by prospecting on LinkedIn. Furthermore, it comes across as genuine and that you care for them. 

Personalize your email subject lines using the following demographic, psychographic, and firmographic data:

• Interaction with your brand
• Their location
• Years in the company
• Current company
• Interests and values

To gain a full understanding of how powerful personalization in outreach can be, check out our blogs on how to increase the level of personalization in outreach and how to personalize images and GIFs to improve response rate.

2. Use emojis in the email subject line

In modern-day times, emojis can be a nifty tool to spice up your subject line. They are a friend in need to get your point across, make your email stand out in the inbox, and they cost only one character (speaking of saving the space in the subject line :).

To back this up, take a look at the following statistics:

Emojis in subject lines had an open rate of 56% higher than those without them.

Not bad, ha ??

3. Include numbers

Catchy email subject lines that include numbers achieve 45% higher open rates. This way, prospects will perceive your subject line as more precise and attract their attention. Use numbers to state how many tips you send them, time stamps, or statistics to increase the value.

4. Email subject lines specifying time

Providing your prospects with the right information that is in correlation with time will attract their attention, as it represents information that is a “current trend”. A nicely timed subject line will increase the open rate, as well as the response rate, depending on the email body.

Example: 

Here is how to boost your April website performance

5. Hint at the valuable content

One of the perfect ways to increase the open rate is to give your prospects a sneak peek at the body of the email. This catchy email subject line’s teaser can be in the form of content that prospects will value, such as images, infographics, and guides with the top 5 tips.

Example:

Why Sales Needs To Get Out There And Use Social Selling More (Webinar)

6. Subject line testing

You need to test your email subject lines to be sure you got them just right, and there are a couple of ways you can do it.

A/B testing

Every audience is different, and in some cases, one subject line that worked previously won’t be that effective anymore. And then, there is the following fact:

A/B testing can increase email open rates by 49%.

That is why you need A/B tests as much as possible. In order to do this, take 3 to 5 subject lines and send out those cold outreach emails to check which one has the highest open rate.
For example, in Skylead, you can test different subject lines for your outreach campaigns on autopilot and see which one works best for you.

Online email subject line testers  

Online email subject line testers are nifty tools to have at hand if you are not sure about the effectiveness of your subject lines. Whether you wish to test the emotional tone of voice or the overall effectiveness of your subject lines, you can use tools such as Send Check It, EMV Headline Analyzer, or GradeMyEmail.

Email subject lines DON’Ts

1. Hi there

Avoid phrases such as Hi there, Greetings, or Hello. The reason is that they aren’t specific enough and do not show any hint of what the email message is all about. Instead, draw your prospect’s attention by clearly stating the purpose.

2. Misleading prospects

Being deceptive and promising your prospect one thing in the subject line and showing them another will annoy them. Consequently, you will lose trust and respect instantly. Not to mention, you will fail to close the deal with the prospect forever. Therefore, avoid clickbait, or RE: and FWD: entirely just to get them to open up an email.

3. DO NOT USE ALL CAPS OR A BUNCH OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!

See how that was unnerving and frenetic? Using letters in Caps Lock or with multiple exclamation points is a synonym for spammers these days. It also looks aggressive and distasteful, and you do not wish that for your brand, trust us. Furthermore, if you use this kind of email subject line, you risk getting your emails in the Spam folder. However, Caps Lock and exclamation points are not prohibited - you can always use one from time to time to emphasize your statement, but please do not go overboard.

4. Avoid spammy words

Similar to all-caps-lock words and multiple exclamation points, spam words can also ruin your outreach efforts. These words have been all over the internet for many, many years (not to mention billiards in the 80s) and are now considered repulsive and plain out pushy. 

Here are a couple of examples to watch out for:

• Act Now
• Cash 
• Cheap
• Credit
• Double your ROI
• Earn Extra cash
• Millionaires
• Free
• Fast money
• Get it today

Catchy email subject lines examples and templates

Follow-up email subject lines

1. Had a {{Topic}} idea for you since we last spoke 

Example:

Had a social selling idea for you since we last spoke

2. Been thinking about what you said 

3. Should I give up on you and close the file? 

4. I forgot to mention in our meeting that…

5. The final and easy step…

6. Tuesday meeting at 10 PM

7. Sending info I promised ?

8. I spoke with {{ReferredName}} and they said…

Example:

I spoke with Mark, and he said…

9. Down to business - How we can help

10. Need any help?

11. {{firstName}} I need your advice

12. Have 5 minutes for a quick call?

13. I don't expect you to open this email, but…

General cold outreach email subject lines

1. ❤️ how you contribute to {{DesiredResult}}

Example:

❤️ How you contribute to closing the deals faster

2. {{firstName}} let’s connect

3. Are you completely happy with {{CompetitorName}}?

4. Get lifetime access to {{SoftwareName}}

5. What are your insights from {{Event}}?

6. The most exciting opportunity for {{Industry}} companies in 2024

Example:

The most exciting opportunity for insurance companies in 2024

7. Saw your amazing post - Interested in creating shared content?

8. Exclusive for {{CompanyName}}: 3 tips to get conversion faster 

9. Congrats on {{Achievement}} ?

Example:

Congrats on becoming CEO ?

10.  Join forces? ?

Urgent email subject lines 

1. Do you have these numbers and analytics yet?

2. Hot conversion data insight for {{CurrentMonth}}, 2024

3. Resource on {{Topic}} that’d go great in your {{Topic}} post

Example:

Resource on Email Statistics that’d go great in your Outreach post

4. Omg {{firstName}}...

5. It doesn’t look good

6. 10 must-know trends to keep up with the market

7. Your Free Trial is ending!

8. Save 30% before the New Year

Email subject lines that entice curiosity

1. Everyone’s favorite {{Occupation}} trick is…

Example:

Everyone’s favorite Sales trick is…

2. ? Real secret to {{Task}} or {{Benefit}} is…

Example:

? Real secret to outperform outreach is…

3. About your approach…

4. I have a question about how {{DoingRelevantTask}}

Example:

I have a question about how you handle budgeting

5. Does Thursday work for you? 

6. New year, a new strategy to {{Goal}}

Example:

New year, a new strategy to achieve 50+ conversions a month

7. Are you taking advantage of your detailed reporting?

8. How we accomplished {{DesiredResult}} in 2 months

Example:

How we accomplished 6x more sales in 2 months

9. {{RelevantTopic}} trends that are the talk of the town

Example:

Sales strategy trends that are the talk of the town

10. Save 5 hours a week with {{Task}} on autopilot 

Example:

Save 5 hours a week with outreach on autopilot

11. 56% of {{JobPosition}} use this trick to improve conversion

12. A cheat-sheet for better conversion — Interested?

13. {{Topic}} resources that can help you at this time

Example:

Cold outreach resources that can help you at this time

14. 4 tips to help increase sales during hard times ?

15. It’s that simple ?

16. Few in the {{IndustryType}} know about these hacks

17. Pick one of these 2 strategies

Email subject lines that address pain points

1. How to survive {{PainPoint}}

Example:

How to survive working 10 hours a day

2. 5 easy steps to beat {{PainPoint}}

3. How to deal with {{PainPoint}} 

Example:

How to deal with the LinkedIn algorithm

4. 5 Ideas for {{PainPoint}}

5. A resource to help you with {{PainPoint}}

6. How happy are you with {{Department}} performance?

Example:

How happy are you with the sales performance?

7. Steal this strategy from us - It will work for {{PainPoint}} ?

8. 7 tips for turning {{PainPoint}} around 

9. Proven solution to {{PainPoint}}

10. Tired of {{PainPoint}}? Let’s have a chat

Subject lines that relieve pain and offer a solution 

1. The fastest way to reach your Q2 target ?

2. Here is the shortcut to {{Benefit}} ?

Example:

Here is the shortcut to tracking performance easier ?

3. Help is on the way - best strategies for LinkedIn lead generation

4. Problem with closing the deals? Here is how to fix it easily

5. Save up 5 hours of work per week

6. {{ProductOrSolution}} empowers companies such as {{CompanyName}} 

7. Ready to implement {{Tool}} to eliminate {{PainPoint}}?

Example:

Ready to implement Skylead to eliminate wasting time on manual outreach?

Personalized email subject lines

1. {{firstName}}, I was researching {{CompanyName}} and…

2. {{ReferredName}} said to reach out to you… 

Example:

Your colleague Steve said to reach out to you…

3. {{ReferredName}} thinks you’ll love us too

4. {{firstName}} I loved your post on LinkedIn about {{Topic}}

Example:

Sandy, I loved your post on LinkedIn about how to modernize sales

5. Does this work for you {{firstName}}?

6. {{firstName}}, a quick question regarding your performance

7. {{firstName}}, I notice you try to achieve a 50% increase in sales

8. Opportunity for {{CompanyName}}

9. Partner up with {{CompanyName}}

10. {{firstName}}, I have a story for you

11. {{TheirCompetitorName}} VS {{CompanyName}}

12. {{firstName}} perform {{Task}} better from Now on ?

Example:

Andy performs outreach better from now on ?

13. New managing employees strategy for {{CompanyName}}

14. Loved the blog you wrote for {{CompanyName}}?

15. {{firstName}} I missed you at {{Event}}

16. What is your expert opinion on {{Topic}}, {{firstName}}?

Example:

What is your expert opinion on social selling, {{firstName}}?

17. {{firstName}} is there a lot on your plate r/n?

Humorous email subject lines

1. ? Can we Taco ‘bout your growth?

2. ⚽ I wondered why the ball was in my court, then it hit me

3. I tried an elevator pitch - it was great on so many levels ?

4. ? You are likely an indecisive bee. Might I call you maybee?

5. ? Connect with you in the present or the future? It’s kinda tense

6. ? Should I organize a space for our meeting and planet?

7. ⛵ Need a {{Topic}} strategy arc? I Noah guy.

Example:

⛵ Need a Sales strategy arc? I Noah guy.

8. My coffee is mugged and waiting for your call ?

9. I'm gonna make him an offer you can't refuse…

10. May the Force be with you, and {{YourCompanyName}}?

11. {{ReferredName}} said to say hello to his little friend ?

12. “You can’t handle the truth!” Or can you?

13. Shaken, not stirred. ? A {{Resource}} you asked for.

Example:

Shaken, not stirred. ? A Guide To Outreach you asked for.

14. I like {{ProductOrAService}} as my wine - sweet and victorious. Do you? ?

Frequently asked questions

How can one effectively A/B test different subject lines to find the most effective one for their audience?

A/B testing for email subject lines involves sending two variants to a small segment of your audience to see which performs better, then using the more successful one for the broader audience. Monitoring open rates for each variant provides actionable insights. You can automate A/B testing by using the LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software with such a feature, like Skylead.

Are there specific strategies for crafting subject lines that improve click-through rates, not just open rates?

To improve click-through rates, subject lines should create curiosity or offer value that compels the recipient to discover more inside the email. Personalization and urgency can also encourage clicks by making the email feel more relevant and time-sensitive to the reader.

How do the recommended subject lines perform across different industries, such as tech versus creative fields?

The performance of subject lines can vary by industry due to different audience expectations and content relevance. Customizing subject lines to reflect the specific interests and language of your target industry is crucial for maximizing engagement.

Summary 

Strong and catchy email subject lines are mesmerizing and alluring to your prospects. They are links between your leads and your message. For this reason, it is important to make it as perfect as you can so you can increase the open rate, nurture the prospect, and ultimately close the deal. And when you pass through the importance of it all, creating email subject lines and testing them can be fun indeed. 

Here is a quick throwback of what you should and shouldn’t do when writing the email subject lines.

Now it’s your turn. Go and rock out those subject lines! 

Wish to use Skylead for your outreach campaigns and A/B test your emails? You can also add LinkedIn outreach into the mix, given that this cold email software also doubles as one of the best LinkedIn automation tools!

Is that a yes we hear? If so, we would be glad to hear from you and chat. Say hi by scheduling a demo with us or start your 7-day free trial now!

Updated on: September 15th, 2026

Disclaimer: Skylead is not affiliated, endorsed by, or connected with LinkedIn in any way.

The topic of how to cancel a LinkedIn invitation is rarely discussed, simply because people tend to leave invites pending for… Well, forever.

However, everyone should monitor their pending invites, especially if you are in sales or a recruiting business, as the integrity of your LinkedIn profile can get damaged. Yes, it’s that serious.

So to keep your integrity intact and help you reduce the number of pending invites in the first place, in this article, we’ll cover:

• Why do you need to cancel your LinkedIn invite;
• What you need to know about the cancellation process;
• How to cancel LinkedIn invitations that are pending for a long time;
• Why your LinkedIn invites aren’t getting accepted;
• How to create engaging invitations that will increase your acceptance rate.

Why should you cancel your pending invitations?

You should cancel LinkedIn invite because of 3 reasons:

• There’s a risk of getting your account restricted;
• Your LinkedIn experience can get damaged;
• LinkedIn won’t allow you to send new ones unless you clear the list.

Let’s clarify these statements.

Firstly, and most importantly, if you do not cancel your LinkedIn invite for a long time, you risk piling them up. It would be fine if LinkedIn didn’t have an eye out for suspicious activities. And, yes, LinkedIn does consider this suspicious. 

In other words, if you do not withdraw your pending invites after a month or two and leave them piling up, LinkedIn can restrict your account. Moreover, you won’t be able to send any other connections until you clean out your pending invite list. 

Secondly, if the connection doesn’t accept the invite for a while, the chances are they either are not interested, or they aren’t within your business industry. 

To clarify. The quality of your network on LinkedIn plays a significant role in experiencing benefits while using this platform. So, one of the things that will boost your career is taking the effort and making a strategy to connect only with people related to you and your business, and cancel LinkedIn invites sent to those who are not.

Lastly, a word on the street is that if you have too many pending requests, LinkedIn won’t allow you to send new ones. Some people say they reached a whopping 3000 pending invites before LinkedIn restricted them from sending more invites. LinkedIn didn’t publish the precise number of how many pending requests you can have officially. However, to avoid this scenario some people experienced in the past, be sure to clean your list regularly.

What you need to know before proceeding to cancel LinkedIn invite?

Before you withdraw any of your LinkedIn invites, you should know a couple of things first.

First of all, you can’t cancel LinkedIn invites in bulk.

Also, if you send a LinkedIn connection request to a person, they will see the notification as soon as they log into their account. However, in case you cancel the LinkedIn invite before the user sees it, they wouldn’t even know that you’ve sent it.

In addition, canceling an invite will stop the recipient from receiving further LinkedIn notifications or emails to remind them of the request.

When can you cancel your LinkedIn invite?

You can cancel LinkedIn invite you’ve sent accidentally or that you regret sending, as long as the LinkedIn member hasn’t accepted your invitation.

In case the LinkedIn user accepts your connection request, there is always an option to remove them from your connections.

If you withdraw your request, you will have a tiny restriction.

After you cancel your invite, you won’t be able to resend it to the same recipient for up to 3 weeks.

How to cancel LinkedIn invite in 5 simple steps?

In case you’ve sent the requests you wish to withdraw or are pending too long, here’s how you can do it.

Cancel LinkedIn invite via desktop

First, go to Linkedin, and click on My Network in the header bar.

Once you do, you will see the list of invites other people sent you. Hit See all # in the top right corner. 

If you don't have any invites you need to approve on this page, the section will look slightly different. In this case, just click the Manage button.

Here, you can see all the invites people sent you. To find the ones you sent out, go to the Sent tab and click the Withdraw button to cancel the LinkedIn invite.

Lastly, LinkedIn will double-check if you wish to withdraw your invite with the notification. Continue the cancellation process, and you will be done.

Canceling invites via Android 

You can withdraw invitations using your android phone too, and the process is not that different than the one using your PC. 

First, go to your Network page, and click the Invitations button.

Next, click the Sent tab, and withdraw the invites you wish.

How to cancel LinkedIn invite on iOS

The process is somewhat different on iOS devices. So if, for example, you have an Apple phone, here is how you can cancel LinkedIn invite.

First, go to Notifications at the bottom of the screen. Then, click the Invitations button at the top. After the pop-up opens up, click View invitations you sent.

From there, choose the LinkedIn invites to withdraw and cancel them one by one.

Let Skylead do the withdrawal for you

Canceling LinkedIn invites, one by one, can work if you have just a few pending. However, what should sales managers or recruiters do when they have thousands of invites pending? Should they all cancel the thousands of invites manually? No.

Remember when we said you could not cancel LinkedIn invites in bulk on LinkedIn? The point still stands - you cannot withdraw them all at once… Within the LinkedIn platform, that is.

However, you can use an automation tool for LinkedIn and Email outreach, such as Skylead, to do it for you.

In other words, you can use our LinkedIn outreach tool and set how many pending connections you wish to have before Skylead starts removing them automatically to keep your account safe and healthy. 

Why your LinkedIn invitations aren’t getting accepted

Speaking of connecting on LinkedIn, the best case practice is to connect with people related to you, your position, and your business industry. Naturally, if you are a salesperson or a recruiter using LinkedIn for lead generation, you’d go with your target group.

In the end, no matter who you wish to connect to and why, the goal is the same – to get the right message across and be accepted. However, there are numerous reasons why your LinkedIn invitations aren’t getting accepted or stay pending for a long time. So, to help you increase your acceptance rate, let’s first cover the possible reasons why this metric is not high at the moment.

1. Incomplete LinkedIn profile

Sending invitations actively to users without previously setting up your profile is a huge mistake.

There are many profiles on LinkedIn that look like this, and you don’t want yours to be one of them. 

Start from yourself - would you accept an invite from this kind of profile? No, you wouldn’t. 

If you have no photo, no description of any kind, and no experience details, no one on LinkedIn will take you seriously. Why would they want to connect with you without knowing who you are, right?

So if you send a request to someone with a profile like the one above, go back and cancel LinkedIn invite yourself. Then focus on setting up your LinkedIn profile first.

2. Someone is really not interested in accepting the invite

One reason may be that the user does not wish to connect with you and just prolongs declining your invite. I know - it’s like ripping off the band aid, but it had to be said. 

3. Outreaching unknown people without context or common connections

This depends on the person, but some LinkedIn users don’t accept unfamiliar people. To clarify, those people sometimes see nothing they have in common with you, which makes them skeptical.

In this case, it’s good to have or reference a mutual connection, so they do not ignore your request.

4. Sending generic message requests 

This mistake is the one that most LinkedIn users make. They think that writing something generic like “Hey, I’d like to connect with you” is enough to have their request accepted. Yeah, right!

These requests may be accepted in some cases, but not by a person who gets a lot of invites daily. Such people tend to get tons of messages that resemble yours and mostly ignore them. So, why would they make an exception for you?

What’s more, with this kind of message or no message at all, there is a chance the recipient can click the Ignore button and then the I don’t know this person option. With too many “I don’t know this person clicked“, you risk getting your account restricted by LinkedIn.

5. First touch selling 

The chances of successfully selling something via the LinkedIn invitation request are close to zero. 

You have probably received tons of invitation messages where someone is trying to sell insurance to you.

It is not the way sales work. Nowadays, it’s all about social selling and sales engagement, where building trust and delivering value come before the pitch.

In your invitation message, you should explain why you want to connect with the user you’re reaching out to, but not by trying to sell something. First, focus on personalizing, building normal human connections, and providing value before they buy anything you’re selling.

How to create engaging LinkedIn invites and boost acceptance rate

We cannot stress this enough. Before you even start creating and sending out your invitations, you need to optimize your LinkedIn profile first.

Almost every LinkedIn user will check your profile before they decide whether they should accept or ignore your invitation. That’s why it’s in your interest to give them a strong reason to accept your invitation, get value from you, and create a relationship.

After you’ve taken care of your profile, you’re ready to start inviting other users to connect. Here is our advice on how to do it more efficiently.

Prepare the ground for an invitation

It’s easy to connect with your colleagues or someone you know because those people know you personally.

However, even if you don’t know someone, you can try to remove that obstacle by becoming more familiar with that person. In other words, it’s good to start engaging with the posts of those potential connections. 

Start liking their posts, create meaningful comments, and try to make a connection with them before sending an invite. 

This will pave the way for you to build a relationship, and those users will start to perceive you as someone who is a valuable connection. Consequently, you won’t get in a position to cancel a LinkedIn invite that has been pending for a long time.

Personalize your invite messages

Before sending an invitation, make your messages as personalized as you can. It is a must if you want to improve your acceptance rate.

Sending personalized messages helps you leave a good first impression. Also: 

• Addressing users by their names, 
• Referencing something familiar to them, 
• And avoiding generic phrases 

play an important role in creating a strong relationship between you two.

Start by answering how you came across their profile and what made you want to connect. Don’t worry - the time you invest in LinkedIn prospecting your potential connection always pays off here.

Since you’re limited to 300 characters, you can use it to be more direct and honest. 

Discover 20 ready-to-use connection invite templates with up to 78% acceptance rate.

Mention common interests

Adding many LinkedIn users who aren’t from your niche can decrease the quality of your LinkedIn feed and make it full of irrelevant content. That’s why connecting with someone that you share interests with is a great approach.

Mentioning the shared interests in your invite will show those users that you’ve invested some time into getting to know about them and their work. Moreover, you can mention the topic you wish to discuss with them. A message with these two elements will skyrocket your acceptance rate for sure. So, you won’t have to be in a position to cancel LinkedIn invite that has been pending for a long time. 😉

For example, start your message by commenting on your mutual job position, an event you both attended, or a post you both liked a while back. 

Involve a little humor 

It’s essential to have a professional tone of voice when you write your connection invite. However, “professional” doesn’t mean not having some sense of humor. You can always add a subtle joke here and there to make your invite stand out.

Moreover, using humor in your outreach is a nice pattern interrupt and has an immediate effect. Here is our example.

Check out our list of 35 position-related jokes ready to use in your outreach. 

At the end of the day

We hope this article helped you understand why your requests have been pending for a long time and learn the tricks to improve the acceptance rate. 

Remember: you must keep track of the requests you sent and clear the list on time. This is just so you don’t land on the LinkedIn radar for suspicious activity and get restricted.

That said, we recommend you invest time in your connection messages and your LinkedIn profile because, that way, you'll likely not be in the situation where you have to cancel a LinkedIn invite.

And if you wish to save 11+ hours a week, hours that you can better spend crafting winning messages and optimizing your profile, Skylead is here to help! It's the #1 LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software to use if you wish to optimize your sales processes.

Sounds good? Sign up for our 7-day free trial & take a glimpse at what it can do for you!

Updated on: October 29th, 2026

Have you spent hours crafting those perfect emails for them to finally land…in SPAM? We know how frustrating that can be! Email service providers nowadays are stricter than ever about what they let through, and if your email accounts aren't warmed up properly, chances are, your emails will never see the light of day. Worse yet, when your deliverability is affected, so is your sender reputation and, ultimately, your entire success in cold outreach. But that's what you've got email warm up tools for!

Think of them as personal trainers, but for your email. They exist to gradually build up your sender reputation, helping you avoid those dreaded spam filters so your emails land directly where they belong: in your recipients' primary inboxes.

But with dozens of options on the market in 2027, how do you know which one actually works?

To save you time (and your domain), we tested and compared the best email warm-up tools, looking at their features, pros, cons, pricing, and overall impact on deliverability.

You’ll also learn:

• What email warm-up is and why it matters
• How email warm up tools work
• How to choose your ideal tool
• Our top recommendations for different use cases

Let’s dive in and find the right warm-up tool to boost your deliverability in 2027.

TL;DR: Best email warm up tools by use case

Our testing process: How we evaluated each tool

Before moving on, let’s make one thing clear: we are not going to provide you with another feature-analysis type of blog.

In fact, our goal was to put each email warm up tool to the test to see how it performs in real life, so we:

• Connected each tool to a new or low-activity email account and sent approximately 200 warm-up emails per tool over a consistent time frame.
• Tracked where those emails landed (Inbox, Spam, or Promotions) to measure real-world deliverability performance.
• Monitored whether emails were opened, replied to, and how the tool engaged with them.

Each tool’s performance was then rated based on its inbox deliverability rate, spam rate, ease of setup, customization options, and overall value for money.

Overview of the 11 best email warm up tools

Here’s a quick comparison table of the best email warm up tools on the market, along with information on:

• How many of our emails landed in the primary inbox,
• How many went to spam,
• The overall deliverability rate for each tool,
• And their pricing.

11 best email warm up tools to boost deliverability and stay away from spam

So, you know what email warm-up is all about. But now it's time to find the right tool for the job.

Lucky for you, we’ve curated a list of 11 email warm up tools, all so we can help you improve deliverability, reduce bounce rates, and stay clear of those pesky spam filters.

1. Mailivery (built into Skylead)

Deliverability rate: 99%

Best for: Infinite email warm-up

Mailivery is an email warm-up tool that powers the infinite email warm-up feature in Skylead. As a result, you get everything you need for outreach without paying extra!

Skylead has long been your ultimate LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software for agencies and sales teams.

In fact, we were the 1st tool on the market to introduce Smart sequences—a groundbreaking algorithm that combines LinkedIn and email outreach actions with if/else conditions. As a result, you get coherent outreach flows that help you unfold outreach according to the way your prospects behave.

Now, thanks to our partnership with Mailivery, we’ve taken Skylead to a whole new level! 

We've become a real one-stop-shop solution that lets you:

• Find your target companies and contacts, courtesy of account-based prospecting and a B2B database
• Enrich their details with AI
• Harness the full power of unlimited email outreach,
• Discover & double-verify leads' emails to reduce bounce rates and protect your domain,
• Hyper-personalize GIFs and images to increase your response rate to over 76%,
• Reply to leads automatically and book 3x the meetings with AI SDR

...but also warm up infinite email accounts to keep your emails away from spam—forever!

That's right! You get all of this at one cost!

Mailivery is built straight into Skylead and designed to boost deliverability by interacting with real emails behind the scenes. 

It removes emails from spam, generates positive replies, and works with a network of over 20,000 real users to simulate authentic engagement.

In addition to building a reputation, you can use Mailivery to monitor your email health.

Pros

• Supports major email providers and custom SMTP
• Easy setup in just a few minutes
• Gradual ramp-up
• Built-in domain health checks (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and blocklist status)
• Daily sending volume control
• Warm-up status tracking for every account

Cons

• Since the warm-up is built into Skylead, there's no tool analytics dashboard you can access.

Pricing

The All-in-one plan costs $100 per seat/month and includes infinite mailbox warm-up. For agencies, the priicng is $999/month for 25 seats and $1,999/month for unlimited seats on Agency Unlimited. A 7-day free trial is available.

That means full power to boost your deliverability, use multichannel outreach, and manage leads in one package.

2. Lemwarm by Lemlist

Deliverability rate: 96%

Best for: Detailed deliverability insights

Lemwarm is an email warm up tool developed by Lemlist. But since it’s an add-on rather than integrated into the platform, it’s available for standalone usage.

It works by sending automated emails to a network of over 20,000 users, gradually boosting your deliverability. 

The tool also offers alerts on your deliverability score, spam risk detection based on your email content, and daily insights with expert tips to optimize performance. 

Moreover, detailed deliverability reports help you stay on track and keep your emails landing in the right place.

However, the pricing structure is based on the number of emails you warm up, meaning costs can quickly add up. 

Not to mention, while our testing ran smoothly, one reviewer, Vinayak G., noted:

‘’All our warm-up emails were going to the spam and categories section, which was really frustrating.’’

So, while Lemwarm proved effective to us, specific cases suggest it’s not ideal.

Pros

• Provides daily deliverability reports and spam risk alerts
• Large sending network (20,000+ users) for simulated sales engagement
• Can be used standalone or as part of Lemlist

Cons

• Cost scales with the number of email accounts
• Some users report that warm-up emails still land in spam

Pricing

Lemwarm is free for Lemlist users.

If you’d like to use it alone, you can, but expect to pay the following amount:

3. Warmbox

Deliverability rate: 90%

Best for: Simple self-setup

Warmbox is one of the easiest email warm up tools to use and is great for those who want a simple, self-setup experience.

The software automates the whole email-warm-up process using inboxes from real users and doesn’t interfere with your email routine.

Beyond improving deliverability, Warmbox also calculates your Reputation Score, compares it against a community benchmark, and suggests ways to improve. It even sends you alerts if your score drops below a certain percentage, so you can pause campaigns before things get worse.

However, it can get pricey, especially since you’re charged per inbox, and there’s no free trial available. 

Pros

• Easy to set up and fully automated
• Uses real inboxes for more natural interaction
• Reputation Score tracking with benchmark comparisons
• Alert system to warn you of deliverability issues

Cons

• Pricing can get expensive per inbox
• Limited reporting features compared to others

Pricing

4. Mailwarm

Deliverability rate: 93%

Best for: Flexibility in warm-up intensity

Mailwarm helps raise your sender reputation by interacting with your emails daily.

It automatically sends dozens of emails to over 1,000 Mailwarm accounts, where they get opened, marked as important, replied to, and pulled out of spam.

You can track everything through a dashboard that gives you insights into your email activity. You also have the flexibility to adjust Mailwarm’s intensity or pause the warm-up process if and when necessary.

Nevertheless, the major limitation we found is that even with the highest subscription plan, you’re capped at warming up a maximum of 10 inboxes. And considering its hefty price, you may be better off choosing a different email warm-up software.

Pros

• You control how aggressive the warm-up process is
• Daily interactions with 1,000+ internal accounts
• Clean interface and basic tracking features

Cons

• Pricey for the number of inboxes supported
• Maxes out at 10 inboxes, even on the highest plan

Pricing

5. Folderly by Belkins

Deliverability rate: 95%

Best for: Domain reputation analytics

Folderly is developed by Belkins, a company known for its B2B lead generation and outreach services. 

Its main promise is to keep your emails out of spam and promotions folders with an impressive 99% inbox placement rate. It offers insights on why emails end up in spam, helps you optimize templates, checks your DNS records, and integrates with the most popular ESPs like Gmail and Outlook.

We haven't experienced major issues while testing Folderly, but multiple users have complained about it doing more harm than good.

And after reading this review left by Oguzhan U., in particular, we are seriously starting to question the tool’s reliability:

‘’Folderly sent 42,000 undelivered emails in 2 days (Saturday and Sunday) using 8 email addresses in our domain. Our team didn't realize the issue until Monday. Our email domain reputation is completely destroyed. That is completely the opposite of why we wanted to use Folderly.’’

Pros

• Offers diagnostics for email content, DNS, and spam triggers
• Supports Gmail, Outlook, and custom SMTP

Cons

• Expensive compared to most tools
• Reports of deliverability issues or oversending bugs

Pricing

Folderly doesn’t have pricing plans, per se.

Instead, their rates depend on the number of mailboxes you’re warming up and are structured like this:

6. Instantly

Deliverability rate: 95%

Best for: Automated cold emailing with the built-in warm-up

Instantly isn't a standard email warm up too, but one of the best cold email software with built-in warm-up functionality that can be activated with a click.

The software allows you to monitor your deliverability score, showing exactly how many emails land in the inbox or spam. You can also emulate human-like reading by enabling the read emulation feature, which scrolls through emails to simulate authentic interaction.

The tool sends a random number of warm-up emails daily, and you can choose specific open and response rates. 

Moreover, with a pool of over 550,000 real email accounts for warm-up, Instantly.ai's coverage is vast.

The price is reasonable, considering that, starting at $37, you can warm up unlimited emails. 

Nonetheless, some users have reported that its warm-up can blacklist your domain with certain ESPs, so exercise caution if you decide to use it.

Pros

• Warm-up for unlimited inboxes
• Offers deliverability score monitoring and read emulation
• Massive warm-up pool (550K+ inboxes)

Cons

• Reports of blacklisting issues with some ESPs
• Limited control over message content

Pricing

Instantly doesn’t have a dedicated email warm-up plan. 

Nonetheless, unlimited email warm-up is included in their following Outreach plans, along with email outreach.

7. Warm Up Your Email by Mailshake

Mailshake, a popular cold email software, acquired the email warm up tool ‘’Warm Up Your Email’’ in 2024 to ensure its customers' emails hit the inbox, not the spam folder. 

The team at Warm Up Your Email manually interacts with your emails by opening them, replying, and pulling them out of spam. This interaction helps signal ESPs that you’re a trusted sender.

All you have to do is connect your email account and set your daily send volume while they handle the rest. You’ll get insights on how many of your emails land in spam and track your progress with a 10-day spam pattern report that shows your account’s improvement over time.

The downside? The process isn’t fully automated—it’s done manually by the Warm Up Your Email team. This can feel a bit counterproductive if you’re looking for full automation.

Additionally, their top plan caps the number of email accounts you can warm up at 8. 

Not to mention, replies are sent as separate messages, not within the same thread, which might limit the natural conversation flow.

Pros

• Managed manually by a dedicated team
• Offers spam pattern tracking over time

Cons

• Not fully automated and, thus, slower to scale
• Replies are sent in new threads, not existing ones
• Limited to 8 inboxes, even on the top plan

Pricing

Mailshake users can use Warm Up Your Email free of charge. 

As for those who’d like to use it separately, the available plans are as follows:

8. MailReach

Deliverability rate: 93%

Best for: Real-time reputation tracking

MailReach is an email warm up tool designed to enhance your email deliverability, helping you hit more inboxes and land more deals. 

It automatically repairs, improves, and maintains your sender reputation by facilitating genuine, positive interactions with a network of high-reputation accounts.

Its main feature is consistent spam checking, which allows you to track inbox placement and measure deliverability performance. You can run these tests manually or automate them based on your preferred frequency.

MailReach comes with a Smart AI warming algorithm that makes sure your account is properly warmed up before hitting full-scale outreach. At the same time, the Reputation Tracking Dashboard gives you real-time insights into your email performance, allowing you to fine-tune your campaigns as needed.

MailReach works with any email service provider that supports SMTP. However, the setup process can be tricky, especially when connecting emails for the first time. 

Downsides-wise, since pricing is inbox-based and spam checker credits aren’t included in the base cost, you’ll need to account for those extras when budgeting.

Pros

• Smart AI algorithm adapts warm-up strategy
• Real-time reputation and deliverability dashboard
• Frequent spam placement checks
• Compatible with all SMTP-based ESPs

Cons

• Setup can be tricky for first-time users
• Spam test credits are not included in base pricing
• Costs increase with the number of mailboxes

Pricing

MailReach prices are based on the number of mailboxes you’re warming up, starting at $25 per mailbox. 

Spam credits are sold separately, starting at $28 for 100, though you get 20 free credits to start you off.

9. Smartlead

Deliverability rate: 97%

Best for: Email provider matching

Smartlead is another tool that bundles email warm-up into its larger cold outreach infrastructure. 

Its AI-powered warm-up emulates human conversations, allowing emails to appear natural and avoid automation detection. In addition to authentic AI conversations, the system delivers a gradual ramp-up for safe email sending.

One feature we really liked is how Smartlead automatically matches your email provider with that of your recipient. So, for instance, if you have both Gmail and Outlook accounts, and your recipient is using Gmail, Smartlead will use your Gmail account for optimal deliverability.

One downside, however, is the lack of customization—you can’t choose the topics or content for the warm-up messages. For this reason, and the fact that other warm-up tools offer more functionalities, you may be better off opting for one of the Smartlead alternatives.

Pros

• AI-generated warm-up conversations
• Matches sender and recipient ESPs for better deliverability
• Unlimited warm-up included in all plans
• Built-in outreach capabilities

Cons

• No control over warm-up content or topics
• Fewer warm-up-specific features than standalone tools
• May be overkill if you only need a warm-up

Pricing

Much like Skylead and Instantly, Smartlead doesn’t have a sole email warm-up plan. 

Instead, this functionality is included in their standard plans, which also give you access to email outreach.

10. Mailflow by QuickMail

Deliverability rate: 94%

Best for: Blacklist tracking

Mailflow is QuickMail's email warm up tool, primarily aimed at its users. Nevertheless, it can also be used separately.

The tool is designed to improve your email deliverability with features like a real-time auto-warmer score for each inbox, SPF and DKIM monitoring, and blacklist tracking across nearly 100 lists. The latter makes it easy to act quickly if any blacklist flags your domain.

Unfortunately, its analytics are somewhat limited for our taste. In addition, the support team is only accessible via email, which can delay issue resolution.

Pros

• Built-in SPF, DKIM, and blacklist monitoring
• Tracks warm-up progress through an auto-warmer score
• Offers a free plan with basic functionality
• Supports up to 100 inboxes

Cons

• Limited analytics compared to other tools
• Customer support only available via email

Pricing

The tool is free for all QuickMail users. 

Nevertheless, those who’d like to use it separately can expect to pay the following amounts:

11. Allegrow

Deliverability rate: 94%

Best for: Integrating with CRM and outreach platforms

Allegrow is an email warm up tool focused on delivering in-depth insights to help optimize your deliverability. 

It offers unique features like Spam Rate Analysis, allowing you to see exactly how much of your email traffic ends up in spam. Also, there’s the Safety Net™, which automatically stops emails that could damage your sender's reputation. 

With continuous DKIM, SPF, and DMARC testing, you’re also covered in authentication. At the same time, the Deliverability Leaderboard ranks users by spam rate to prevent one bad sender from affecting the whole team.

Another plus is that Allegrow natively integrates with popular CRM and outreach tools like Outreach.io and SalesLoft.

Not everything is ideal about Allegrow, though. For example, the customization of warm-up messages is rather limited.

Pros

• Spam Rate Analysis and Safety Net™ features protect domain reputation
• Native integrations with tools like Outreach.io and SalesLoft
• Ongoing DNS and authentication checks (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)

Cons

• Higher pricing compared to most warm-up tools
• Limited customization of warm-up message content

Pricing

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Your search for effective email warm up tools ends here!

By now, you should understand just why you should warm up your emails.

And sure, there are plenty of email warm up tools out there. But here’s the bottom line: your emails deserve to be seen. So, why mess around testing each tool when there’s already one that does it all—Skylead?

Skylead combines account-based prospecting, AI data enrichment, LinkedIn and email outreach, and AI SDR into one platform.

Sounds too good to be true? 

Take it for a spin with our 7-day free trial to see the results yourself and start getting your emails exactly where they belong: in front of your audience!

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

What are email warm up tools

Email warm up tools are automation tools designed to simulate natural activity from an email account. They gradually send and receive emails, open them, mark them as important, and sometimes reply, all to show email service providers (ESPs) that the account is active and trustworthy. They are commonly used during the sales process to improve sender reputation and increase deliverability prior to launching outreach campaigns.

How do email warm up tools work?

Most email warm up tools operate by sending emails from your account to a network of engaged contacts—often other users within the tool’s ecosystem. They also handle recipient interaction by opening emails, replying, and sometimes even marking them as ‘’Not spam.’’ This simulated engagement is what ESPs look for in trusted senders, making email warm up tools a fast and reliable way to build credibility.

What are the features of email warm up tools?

Common features of email warm up tools include:

• Automated sending and replying: The tool sends a controlled number of emails each day, gradually scaling up. They also engage with these emails from the recipients’ side, mimicking real interactions that ESPs expect from reputable senders.
• Spam recovery: If any of your emails end up in spam, many tools can help pull them out to reinforce your sender's reputation.
• Customizable settings: Most tools offer flexibility, allowing you to adjust daily limits, warm-up duration, and engagement targets to align with your sales outreach goals.

What is the best email warm up tool

We recommend Skylead for teams that combine LinkedIn and email outreach and want infinite mailbox warm-up included. For standalone needs, compare lemwarm, MailReach and Warmup Inbox. The best choice depends on your provider, mailbox count, and diagnostic requirements.

Is Skylead email warm-up free

Skylead's Mailivery-powered warm-up is included in the subscription. That means users can warm up infinite mailboxes without an additional warm-up charge.

What should I check before starting warm-up

Check SPF, DKIM and DMARC, mailbox connection permissions and domain health. Set a controlled schedule, then record a baseline with representative content. Keep provider mix and sample size visible when comparing tests, and measure initial placement before automated recovery. Our guide on how to warm up a new domain covers the broader setup process.

Updated on: October 19th, 2026

Choosing a B2B prospecting tool means looking beyond lead lists. The right platform should fit the way your team finds target accounts, enriches contact data, reaches prospects, and manages follow-up. In this guide, we compare 18 tools across that full outbound workflow - from data providers and CRMs to LinkedIn and email outreach platforms - so you can shortlist the options that fit your team.

TL;DR

• Need prospecting, LinkedIn and email outreach, and reply-handling in one workflow? Skylead combines LinkedIn actions, email automation, Smart Sequences, a Smart Inbox, B2B database, account-based prospecting, optional AI data enrichment and AI SDR features.
• Need CRM-first prospecting and sales operations? HubSpot Sales Hub keeps prospecting, sequences, tasks, meetings, and deal management in the CRM. Its LinkedIn Sales Navigator actions are reminders for reps to complete manually.
• Need to identify companies visiting your website? Leadfeeder focuses on website visitor company identification and account activation.
• Only need contact data rather than an outreach platform? Compare tools such as Lusha, RocketReach, ContactOut, SalesIntel, ZoomInfo, and GetProspect. Check coverage and credit rules against your target market before buying.
• Need to export Sales Navigator results? Evaboot prepares and enriches lead lists; it does not replace a sales engagement platform.
• Need simple LinkedIn campaign actions? Octopus CRM supports LinkedIn prospecting workflows, but it does not provide a shared team workspace or native email outreach.
• Need a low-cost email-finding tool? Hunter, Voila Norbert, AeroLeads, and Clearout cover different combinations of email discovery, verification, and outbound email.

There is no single best B2B prospecting tool for every team. Start with the job you need to do: identify accounts, find contacts, enrich records, run outreach, or manage sales conversations. Then compare the data sources, channels, workflow limits, and total cost.

How we evaluated these tools

We analyzed the tools in this list ourselves, focusing on the full outbound workflow - not only finding prospects. We looked at how each product supports prospecting and account-based prospecting, data enrichment, outreach, and AI SDR workflows. We also considered how those capabilities fit together, where a tool’s workflow stops, and what other products may be needed to complete it.

We reviewed each tool’s current product and pricing information on October 19, 2026, and used our hands-on evaluations to describe its workflows. Feature availability and pricing can vary by region, billing term, seat count, and usage, so check the linked vendor page before purchasing.

In this comparison, AI data enrichment means AI-assisted research or adding context to account or contact records. AI SDR refers to an agent designed to carry out parts of prospecting and sales engagement; AI-written copy alone does not qualify.

B2B prospecting tools at a glance

How to choose a B2B prospecting tool

1. Decide what “prospecting” means for your team

The term can describe several different jobs:

• Account discovery: finding companies that match your ideal customer profile.
• Contact discovery: finding decision-makers and their business contact details.
• Enrichment: filling gaps in CRM records with firmographic, contact, or intent data.
• Engagement: contacting prospects and managing follow-ups.
• Website visitor identification: identifying companies visiting your website.
• Sales workflow management: tracking tasks, conversations, meetings, and deals.

A contact database will not necessarily help you run outreach. An outreach platform may not include a large prospect database. A CRM may organize your process but require other sources for net-new contacts. Compare the workflow you need, not just the feature count.

2. Compare data coverage in your target market

Before choosing a contact-data provider, test it against a small, representative sample of companies and roles in the countries you sell to. Check whether it returns the right people, whether contact fields are available, how credits are charged, and what happens when a result is missing.

A vendor’s claim about database size does not establish how well it covers your industry, geography, or target job titles.

3. Map the actual outreach steps

Check whether the product sends messages, creates tasks for a rep, or only exports data for another tool. That distinction matters for LinkedIn Sales Navigator integrations, email sequences, and LinkedIn automation tools.

For example, HubSpot Sales Hub can add LinkedIn connection-request and InMail tasks to a sequence when Sales Navigator is connected. HubSpot creates a reminder; the rep completes the action in LinkedIn, meaning it is not automated.

4. Calculate the full cost

The subscription price may not include the full prospecting workflow. Add up the CRM or Sales Navigator seat, data credits, contact enrichment, email-sending capacity, automation seats, and any connectors such as Zapier. Check whether unused credits roll over and whether you pay for a search, a saved contact, or only a result returned.

5. Review platform rules before automating

LinkedIn automation tools generally use one of three deployment models:

• Cloud-based tools run their workflows on remote infrastructure, use human-type behavior, and you get a dedicated IP address. Your computer does not need to stay on for campaigns to run. This can be more convenient operationally.
• Chrome extensions run in the browser and are not the safest option out there. Extensions inject code in LinkedIn and may be detectable by LinkedIn, and can cause restriction.
• Desktop apps run on your computer. The computer generally needs to remain on and connected for local workflows to continue.

18 B2B prospecting tools

1. Skylead

Best for: Agencies and sales teams that want all-in-one outbound solution.

That’s us! But despite that, Skylead is truly one of the best cloud-based prospecting and sales outreach tools on the market.  It’s a LinkedIn automation and cold email software that helps you find your B2B leads’ data, maximize touchpoints with your leads, and, therefore, reach them faster.

Prospecting

Firstly, Skylead connects to LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator. This means individuals can search for prospects via these platforms and import them directly into a Skylead outreach campaign.

Secondly, Skylead offers - account based prospecting. With it you can:

• Create account lists directly in Skylead
• And discover contacts by company to reach them out.

In other words, once you added your companies, Skylead can help you find and match contacts within those selected companies so your pipeline stays aligned to your ICP. This way you can really zero in on your target companies that are most likely to convert, are your true partner, and have greater lifetime value.

Moreover, Skylead has its B2B database as another lead source. You can search the database for your companies, and matching buyer persona and apply additional filters to hone the search.

Lastly, a major Skylead update brought also another lead source - Post signals - the best way to find your perfect, active ICPs. With Post signals, you can automatically discover leads based on posts around the topics, keywords, or problems you care about. Instead of manually finding individual post URLs, simply define what keywords you want to monitor, and let Skylead continuously find relevant conversations and the people creating or engaging with them.

This means you can identify people who are actively interested in a topic (problem) your product solves, then filter those people down to your exact ICP and get them into the campaign.

AI data enrichment

Apart from account-based prospecting and post signals, we introduced a game-changing feature - AI data enrichment which you can use to:

1. Leverage 20+ signals to enrich contact & company data
2. Prompt AI to get specified info or generate personalized icebreakers for each contact
3. Use all gathered info directly inside your sequences as variables.

Outreach

Regarding outreach, Skylead brings LinkedIn actions and email outreach into Smart Sequences. With this multichannel outreach approach, you can maximize getting in touch with every lead. Luckily, you can do just that with our Smart sequences.

Smart sequences are a type of outreach sequences that combine LinkedIn and email actions with if/else conditions to form coherent outreach flows that unfold according to leads’ behavior.

What's more, Skylead allows you to connect and warm up an unlimited number of email accounts at no extra cost.

There’s no right or wrong way to build your Smart sequence; you can build it any way you like! But if you’re doing it for the first time, we advise you to take a look at some of our in-app, proven-to-work Smart sequence templates for guaranteed results!

AI SDR

Skylead's AI SDR extend automation beyond outreach by handling personalized replies, and keeping conversations moving without constant manual effort. By combining LinkedIn and email outreach with AI-powered conversation management, teams can respond faster, stay consistent, and spend more time focusing on building trust and closing more deals.

Pricing

Skylead has an All-in-one pricing plan of $100 per seat/month. In other words, you get all the features we offer, plus email warm-up powered by Mailivery, at a single price. AI usage demonstrates real provider's cost and is $1 per 100 credits.

Curious to see how it all works? Sign up for our 7-day free trial to test out all of Skylead’s features and then some!

2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Best for: Sales teams that source and research prospects manually on LinkedIn.

Sales Navigator provides LinkedIn-specific lead and account search, saved searches, lead recommendations, and InMail. It can be paired with a CRM or a separate outreach tool. It is a source and research environment, not a general-purpose multichannel engagement platform.

• Prospecting: Search and account insights are centered on LinkedIn’s professional network.
• AI data enrichment: Not established as a standalone data-enrichment platform.
• Outreach: InMail and LinkedIn connection workflows; automation is not the same as a Sales Navigator task reminder.
• AI SDR: No.
• Limitations: Search results and data are tied to LinkedIn; advanced CRM sync features depend on plan.

Pricing

Sales Navigator Core starts at $119.99 per month or $1,079.88 per year; Advanced starts at $159.99 per month or $1,799.88 per year. Advanced Plus pricing is quote-based.

3. Clearout

Best for: Teams that need email discovery, verification, and contact-data workflows.

Clearout offers email verification and finder tools, prospecting features, enrichment, and integrations. Its credit model charges differently by action: the vendor’s pricing guide lists different credit rates for finding emails, verifying them, and enriching contact data. New accounts receive 100 free credits.

• Prospecting: Contact discovery and enrichment are available.
• AI data enrichment: Data-enrichment features are offered; a dedicated AI SDR was not established in the materials reviewed.
• Outreach: It is not positioned as a complete sales engagement platform.
• AI SDR: No dedicated AI SDR established.
• Limitations: Model total credit use based on the actions you plan to run, not just the free-credit balance.
• Pricing: Free credits plus paid subscription and credit options; check current plans.

Pricing

Clearout has 5 pricing plans for both email verification and email finding:

4. HubSpot

Best for: Teams that want CRM records, sales tasks, sequences, calls, meetings, and deals in one sales workspace.

HubSpot Sales Hub is CRM-first. Its prospecting database is primarily the HubSpot CRM; Sales Workspace brings tasks, leads, sequence activity, meetings, and guided actions together. The Prospecting Agent can research accounts and contacts and carry out configured plays. A first-time eligible user can opt into 14 days of free access from the first published play, after which the agent can use HubSpot Credits. See HubSpot’s Prospecting Agent terms.

• Prospecting: CRM records, Sales Workspace, and Prospecting Agent.
• AI data enrichment: The Prospecting Agent researches accounts and contacts; credit use and eligibility apply.
• Outreach: Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise include sequences. Sequences can combine automated email with manual LinkedIn tasks. With Sales Navigator, connection-request and InMail steps are reminders for a rep to complete manually.
• AI SDR: Prospecting Agent supports message personalization, however can't respond to messages like Skylead's AI SDR can.
• Limitations: Sales Navigator integration does not turn LinkedIn actions into automated sequence steps. The rep completes those actions in LinkedIn. HubSpot also notes that LinkedIn InMail conversations are not automatically saved to the record timeline.

HubSpot can suit a team that wants a CRM-centered workflow. Skylead is a more direct fit when the decision is specifically about coordinating LinkedIn and email outreach actions in Smart Sequences.

Pricing

On top of the free option, HubSpot also has a paid version within its Sales Hub product, a.k.a. all-in-one sales software.

They offer 2 plans:

5. ZoomInfo

Best for: Organizations that need broad B2B company and contact intelligence, intent signals, and sales-data workflows.

ZoomInfo offers contact and company data, firmographic and technographic information, intent, and other sales intelligence capabilities. Product and data access depend on the package and contract.

Pricing: Generally quote-based. ZoomInfo’s public filings describe subscriptions based on product, function, users, and record counts; request a quote and confirm the specific scope. ZoomInfo investor filing.

• Prospecting: Contact and account research, including data and signals.
• AI data enrichment: The platform offers data and intelligence features; exact AI functionality depends on product and package.
• Outreach: Sales workflow and integrations can support prospect activation.
• AI SDR: A standalone autonomous AI SDR was not established in the reviewed materials.
• Limitations: Enterprise packaging and data availability should be validated against your target market and CRM workflow.

Pricing

To get pricing for each plan, you must leave your contact information and jump on a call with their sales representative. 

In addition, the word on the street is that ZoomInfo makes contracts with companies, not single users, which implies the pricing is high. So, if a minimum of 3 seats per contract is not for you, you should consider using other solutions.

6. ContactOut - Best B2B prospecting tool for quick LinkedIn contact extraction on a free plan

Best for: Finding professional contact details while researching people and companies.

ContactOut provides a database and browser extension for finding contact information, with team and API options. It can support list building, but teams should confirm how its data coverage matches their target roles and regions.

• Prospecting: Contact search and browser-based lookup.
• AI data enrichment: Contact enrichment is available; a dedicated AI SDR was not established.
• Outreach: Plan for a separate engagement tool if you need multichannel sequences and conversation management.
• AI SDR: No.
• Limitations: Confirm the team/API package and credits with the vendor before comparing cost.

Pricing

Speaking of pricing, ContactOut has 3 paid plans, billed monthly:

• Email plan costs $49 per user a month. It offers unlimited email searches and up to 300 contact exports. In addition, it gives you access to their email campaign features, which lets you use the platform for outreach as well.
• Email + Phone plan goes for $99 per user a month. This plan offers unlimited email and phone searches. In addition, with this plan, you can verify your prospects’ emails and use its AI email writer for email campaigns.
• Lastly, a customized plan, Team/API provides you with API access, allows for team collaboration, and connects with Recruiter Pro accounts. However, you need to contact their sales reps to get a quote on this one. 
  Team and API pricing may require a sales quote.

7. Lusha

Best for: Finding contact and company data through a database, browser extension, or CRM workflow.

Lusha supports contact and company data discovery, bulk enrichment, and buying-intent features on eligible plans. Its credit model assigns different costs to contact fields; the Lusha FAQ says a verified email reveal costs one credit and a phone number reveal costs five.

• Prospecting: Database, extension, lookalikes, and enrichment.
• AI data enrichment: AI assistant and related data features are listed on paid plans.
• Outreach: Email-sequence automation is included in the plan comparison; review the exact limits and available channels.
• AI SDR: Not established as an autonomous AI SDR.
• Limitations: Credit use can vary considerably depending on whether you reveal email, phone, or company data.

Pricing

Lusha has a permanent free plan with 40 credits per month. Annual-billed plans currently start at $37.45 per month for Starter, $52.45 for Pro, and $299.95 for Premium.

8. SalesIntel

Best for: Sales teams looking for B2B contact and company data, intent, and CRM or engagement-tool integrations.

SalesIntel offers contact and company records, its RevDriver browser extension, intent capabilities, and integrations. Its packages and data scope should be reviewed with the sales team for your market.

• Prospecting: Contact, company, firmographic, and intent data.
• AI data enrichment: Research and signal capabilities are available; a dedicated AI SDR was not established in the reviewed materials.
• Outreach: Integrations can feed other engagement platforms.
• AI SDR: No standalone AI SDR established.
• Limitations: Distinguish data access from actual outreach execution when comparing it with all-in-one platforms.

Pricing

SalesIntel has one standard plan that offers:

• Unlimited emails and phone exports if you prefer cold calling; 
• Account and contact enrichments;
• Unlimited saved searches;
• Sales intelligence Account firmographic and technographic filters;
• Buyer intent signals;
• Integrations with popular CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce).

However, you’d need to contact their sales reps for a custom quote. 

9. Seamless AI

Best for: Finding and enriching B2B contacts, with sales workflows available through its product lineup.

Seamless.AI offers contact search and data services. Its Connect product supports sales activity such as email, calls, and tasks, while additional AI and intent capabilities may be packaged separately. 

• Prospecting: Contact discovery and enrichment.
• AI data enrichment: AI-related features and add-ons are available; confirm exact functions and costs.
• Outreach: Supports email and LinkedIn outreach, however sequences are simple - they do not provide if/else conditions like Skylead does.
• AI SDR: Seamless AI doesn't offer AI SDR.
• Limitations: Confirm credits, plan limits, and which features are included rather than assuming they come with the base plan.

Pricing

Seamless AI has 3 plans:

• Free - Up to 50 credits for email or phone number search and a real-time search engine for 1 user.
• Pro - A pay-by-user plan that provides everything in Basic plus daily credit refresh, integrations, job changes, buyer intent data, live training webinars, priority support, and a dedicated success manager.
• Enterprise - Everything in Pro plus custom credits per user and phone support. 

They don’t reveal pricing details on their website. This means you need to reach out to their team for precise information.

10. Leadfeeder

Best for: Identifying companies that visit your website and routing those accounts to sales.

Leadfeeder focuses on website visitor company identification. It can help teams prioritize account activity and sync company records to a CRM. Identification is at the company level; it does not mean the platform has identified every individual visitor.

• Prospecting: Website visitor company identification and account lists.
• AI data enrichment: Higher plans include contact enrichment; Activate lists AI prospect-list building.
• Outreach: CRM sync and activation workflows support follow-up through connected systems.
• AI SDR: No.
• Limitations: It is not a general-purpose contact database for finding any company or person on the market.