LinkedIn Outreach in 2025: Why Engagement Before Asking Gets 15-25% Reply Rates
Cold email went mainstream in 2012 when tools like Yesware made it scalable. By 2018, LinkedIn outreach exploded—InMail response rates hit 25% compared to email's 8%. Everyone thought they'd cracked the code.
Then the floor fell out.
Today, the average cold email response rate has collapsed to 1% (down from 8% in 2019). LinkedIn's algorithm now flags accounts sending 100+ connection requests weekly.
The infrastructure is crumbling because we confused automation with relationships.
Moving from email to LinkedIn doesn't fix the problem. It just changes the platform where you're getting ignored.
LinkedIn Automation Is Email Blasting in Disguise
Most LinkedIn tools are glorified email blasters. Same spray-and-pray playbook:
- Buy a list or scrape Sales Navigator
- Send generic connection requests
- Wait 48 hours
- Blast a message sequence
- Move to the next batch
Decision-makers don't respond to strangers who clearly pulled their profile from a database and plugged it into a template. Your prospects can smell automation from three clicks away.
The Psychology of Familiarity: Why Recognition Beats Interruption
What actually gets responses: showing up multiple times before asking for anything.
When someone sees your name for the first time in a cold DM, you're a stranger. When they've already seen your name three times—you viewed their profile, you liked their post, you left a thoughtful comment—you're familiar. Not a stranger anymore. Someone who's been paying attention to their world.
We take meetings with people who feel like they're already part of our network.
That's the relationship tax. You can't make a withdrawal—asking for a meeting—without first making deposits. Real deposits. Actual engagement that shows you're human and understand their world.
Two Independent Tracks: Engagement and Outreach Run Parallel
Here's what most people get wrong: they think engagement and DMs are sequential. Comment three times, then send a message.
That's not how it works.
Track 1: Profile Engagement (Profile Views, Likes, Comments) This happens whenever the prospect is active. They post? You like it. You have something substantive to add? You comment. You want to research their background? You view their profile. This track follows their activity, not your calendar.
Track 2: Hyper-Personalized DMs This happens based on signals—job changes, funding rounds, hiring activity, company growth. When a signal fires, you send a DM. You don't wait for engagement milestones.
Both tracks work together. The engagement makes your name familiar. The DM leverages a timely signal to start a conversation. Neither depends on the other's timeline.
Track 1: Profile Engagement That Actually Matters
Profile Views Visit their profile when there's a signal. They got promoted. They announced funding. They're hiring. The notification shows them your name. You're now on their radar.
Likes When they post content, like it. Simple. Consistent. Your name appears in their notifications again.
Comments When you have something substantive to say, comment. Not "Great post!" but something that proves you read it and understand their world.
Example: Kanika Parente (Growth @ Wisq)
She posts about AI HR tools and how Harper delivers 80% task resolution. You comment:
That comment shows up with context, understands her challenge, and adds value to the conversation. Your name is now recognizable on her feed.
This isn't a rigid sequence. It's authentic engagement—profile views, likes, comments—that makes your name familiar before you ever send a DM.
Track 2: Hyper-Personalized DMs Based on Signals
DMs don't wait for engagement milestones. They fire when signals appear.
Example 1: Brando Roche (GTM @ Linear, Ex-Webflow)
Signal detected: Linear scaling rapidly, new signups creating impossible manual workload for GTM team.
The DM:
"In 2025, more teams than ever are signing up and building with Linear" - that board meeting chart tells the whole story.
As Linear scales past that growth inflection point, keeping up with warm signals from all those new signups becomes impossible to do manually. We help high-growth B2B companies like Linear automate that signal monitoring and turn it into pipeline within 24 hours.
Worth exploring for your GTM team?"
Example 2: Funding Round Signal
Signal detected: Company just raised Series B, preparing to scale from 15 to 50 sales reps.
The DM:
"Congrats on the Series B ($25M, saw the announcement). Your post about scaling from 15 to 50 reps in Q1 is ambitious.
The part about 'finding warm pipeline without just throwing bodies at cold lists'—that's exactly what we solve. We helped [Similar Company] 3x their pipeline during their post-Series A scale without touching headcount.
Would love to show you how. Worth 15 min?"
Notice what's happening:
- Signal-specific: Each references the exact trigger (funding, scaling)
- Engagement callback: They reference posts you've already interacted with
- Context-rich: They show you understand their current challenge
- Relevant proof: Similar company, similar situation, specific outcome
LinkedIn's Algorithm Rewards This Approach (And Keeps Your Account Safe)
LinkedIn watches your behavior. And judges it.
The platform knows when you're blasting connection requests to hundreds of people. It knows when you're copy-pasting the same message 50 times per day. And it throttles you—or worse, restricts your account.
When you engage authentically—viewing profiles, liking posts, commenting with real insights, sending DMs that reference actual context—LinkedIn amplifies you. Your profile shows up more in search. Your messages land in primary inboxes. Your account stays in good standing.
Keeping your account safe is our top priority. That's why this approach isn't just more effective—it's also safer. Natural engagement patterns. Human-like behavior. No mass blasting that triggers LinkedIn's spam detection.
Most automation tools fight against the algorithm and put your account at risk. The smart approach works with it and protects your most valuable asset: your LinkedIn presence.
The Shift Is Already Happening
Companies engaging through authentic profile interactions—views, likes, comments—before sending hyper-personalized DMs are seeing 3x higher response rates than cold outreach alone.
At InGrow, we see reply rates as high as 15-25%.
It's slower. It's harder to scale. But it works.
The next decade isn't about better cold outreach. It's about building relationships before you ever hit send. Holistic engagement—profile views, likes, comments, hyper-personalized DMs based on real signals—is the new pipeline foundation.
Trust can't be automated and attention must be earned. Prospects respond to people who've already proven they care and who understand their world well enough to send a message that feels like it was written just for them. Because it was.
The Relationship Tax Is Non-Negotiable
You can try to skip it. Send cold DMs with {{FirstName}} tokens. Blast connection requests. Hope volume compensates for irrelevance.
Your 3% reply rate will remind you why that doesn't work.
Or you can pay the relationship tax up front. Show up before you ask. Build familiarity through engagement. Send hyper-personalized DMs that reference real context. Earn attention instead of demanding it.
LinkedIn isn't a cold outreach platform. It's a relationship-building platform that happens to have a messaging feature.
Use profile views to get noticed. Use likes and comments to build familiarity. Use hyper-personalized DMs to convert that familiarity into conversations.
The relationship tax isn't optional. It's the cost of doing business in 2025.
Pay it with engagement. Convert it with personalization. Or watch your competitors book the meetings you're missing.