Learn how to track likes and comments on posts from specific LinkedIn profiles so you can spot engaged contacts, monitor thought leaders or competitors, and turn engagement into outreach opportunities.
By the end of this tutorial, you’ll know how to create a watchlist for LinkedIn profile engagement, choose what activity to track, narrow the audience you care about, exclude companies you don’t want to monitor when using All segments, and decide how signals should be processed in your workflow.
What’s updated for watchlists
Watchlists have been updated, and there are a few important changes to keep in mind when creating or reviewing them.
A default limit of 10 signals per day per watchlist is now set for updated watchlists.
You can adjust this limit in your watchlist settings under Edit watchlist → Segment to monitor → Daily signal limit.
When monitoring All segments, you can now exclude companies dynamically by adding company LinkedIn page URLs and selecting company lists in the exclusion settings.
Billing now uses a pay-per-success model: you pay 50 credits per signal detected, instead of a flat monthly cost per monitored profile.
Some older watchlist setups are no longer supported in the updated experience:
Sales Navigator URLs are no longer supported
Use standard LinkedIn profile URLs instead, in the format linkedin.com/in/..., and create a new watchlist if needed.Profile exclusion filters have been removed
Watchlists stay preserved, but you should review them and use company exclusions as an alternative where relevant.Company name filters have been removed
Watchlists stay preserved, and you can use company LinkedIn page URLs as an alternative for exclusions.Contact monitoring is no longer supported
These watchlists are set to inactive rather than deleted, and you can reactivate them if needed.
Why this matters
This workflow is ideal when you want to identify people already interacting with content from industry voices, competitors, or influential profiles in your space. Instead of prospecting cold, you can focus on contacts who are already showing intent through likes and comments.
It’s especially useful if you monitor All segments and want to avoid getting signals from companies you already work with, such as existing customers, partners, or blocked accounts. With company list exclusions, your watchlist can stay focused on net-new opportunities instead of surfacing irrelevant signals.
It also makes billing more predictable for results-driven teams: instead of paying upfront to monitor profiles, you’re only charged when a signal is actually detected.
Prerequisites
You should already have access to Signals in lemlist.
You should already know which LinkedIn profiles you want to monitor.
You should already have a plan for how to handle identified contacts, such as reviewing them manually, creating tasks, or pushing them into a campaign.
Core lesson — step-by-step workflow
Phase 1: Start a new watchlist
Go to Signals from the left sidebar, then click New watchlist. This opens the watchlist builder where you’ll define what engagement to monitor and how to act on it.
In the signal selection step, choose Engaged with a profile on LinkedIn, then click Next. This signal is designed for tracking people who react to or comment on posts from specific LinkedIn profiles.
Phase 2: Configure the profiles and engagement you want to track
Enter a clear watchlist name, add the LinkedIn profile URLs you want to monitor, and click Add profiles. Add one profile per line so lemlist can validate them correctly. With the current billing model, you’re charged 50 credits only when a signal is detected, not for simply monitoring a profile.
After your profiles are validated, choose the type of engagement to track:
Likes on their posts if you want broader engagement signals.
Comments on their posts if you want stronger buying intent or more thoughtful engagement.
Likes & Comments if you only want people who do both.
This choice defines how narrow or broad your watchlist will be.
Best practice: If you’re targeting warm outreach, start with Comments on their posts or Likes & Comments. These signals usually indicate stronger interest than a simple like.
Phase 3: Choose which contacts to monitor
Select the segment scope for the watchlist. You can monitor:
All segments to capture every matching contact.
Contact list to limit tracking to an existing list in lemlist.
Specific segment to restrict tracking using a more targeted audience definition.
Choose the option that matches how tightly you want to control lead intake.
Refine your segment using criteria such as job titles, companies, locations, industries, and company sizes, then click Next. Use these filters when you only want engagement from a specific ICP rather than everyone interacting with the monitored profiles.
If needed, add profiles or company pages to the Exclusion list and click Next. This is useful when you want to ignore internal team members, known partners, irrelevant companies, or any engagement you don’t want included in results.
If you selected All segments, you can also exclude companies dynamically in the segment settings. Add one or more company LinkedIn page URLs, then select the company lists you want to exclude. Signals from companies in those excluded lists will no longer appear in results, which is ideal for removing existing customers, partners, or do-not-contact accounts from broad monitoring.
Phase 4: Decide how signals should be processed
Choose how lemlist should handle identified signals:
Manually process the identified signals if you want full control before taking action.
Create a task for the identified signals if your team works from a task queue.
Push to campaign automatically if you want immediate automation.
If you choose campaign automation, select the destination campaign and review the duplicate-handling options carefully so leads aren’t re-added where they shouldn’t be.
Note: Campaign processing settings apply at the campaign level. If multiple watchlists are linked to the same campaign, they can share these settings.
Phase 5: Review and launch the watchlist
Review the Watchlist summary to confirm the monitored profiles, engagement type, billing, signal processing method, and segment rules. With the updated billing model, the summary reflects that you only pay 50 credits when a signal is detected. Once everything looks correct, click Next to finalize the watchlist.
Practical application
Here’s one simple way to use this watchlist in a real workflow:
Monitor posts from 3 to 10 thought leaders, competitors, or recognized experts in your niche.
Track comments first if you want stronger engagement signals.
Filter the audience to your ICP using job title, industry, location, and company size.
If you use All segments, exclude a company list such as Current Customers or Do Not Contact so reps only see actionable, net-new signals.
Automatically push matched contacts into a campaign or send them to a rep for manual review.
Example: A sales team selling to B2B SaaS companies could monitor posts from well-known GTM influencers and competitor founders, then only capture contacts with titles like Head of Sales, VP Sales, or SDR Manager in companies with 50 to 500 employees while excluding a Current Customers company list from the signal feed. Because billing is tied to detected signals, the team only spends credits when real engagement is found.
Troubleshooting & pitfalls
Issue: No signals appear right away
Root cause: New watchlists can take some time to start collecting data.
Fix:
Wait a few days for the first signals to populate.
Double-check that the monitored profiles are active on LinkedIn.
Make sure your audience filters are not too restrictive.
Issue: Too many irrelevant contacts are being captured
Root cause: The segment is too broad, or you selected a wide engagement type such as likes only.
Fix:
Add criteria like job title, company, location, or industry.
Switch from Likes on their posts to Comments on their posts.
Use the exclusion list to remove unwanted profiles or companies.
If you monitor All segments, exclude company lists such as existing customers or blocked accounts so your watchlist stays focused on net-new opportunities.
Issue: Expected profiles are not being added
Root cause: The LinkedIn URLs may be formatted incorrectly, not validated, or may use an unsupported Sales Navigator format.
Fix:
Add one standard LinkedIn profile URL per line.
Use profile links in the format linkedin.com/in/....
Click Add profiles and confirm they appear as valid.
Remove broken, incomplete, or Sales Navigator URLs and try again.
Issue: Leads are not entering the campaign as expected
Root cause: Signal processing is set to manual handling, task creation, or duplicate protections are blocking import.
Fix:
Open the watchlist and review the Signals processing settings.
Confirm the correct campaign is selected.
Check whether the option to avoid importing leads already in another campaign is preventing entry.
Issue: A filter or older watchlist setup is no longer available
Root cause: Some watchlist options were removed in the updated watchlist experience.
Fix:
If you previously used profile exclusion filters, review the watchlist and use company exclusions where appropriate.
If you previously used company name filters, switch to company LinkedIn page URLs where relevant.
If you monitor All segments, use the new company list exclusion option to dynamically filter out companies you don’t want to track.
If a watchlist based on contact monitoring is inactive, reactivate it only if you still want to keep using it.
Issue: I expected to be charged when I added profiles, but no credits were used
Root cause: Watchlists no longer charge a flat monitoring fee when you add profiles.
Fix:
No action is needed—billing now happens only when a signal is actually detected.
Expect a charge of 50 credits per detected signal.
If no signals are found, no credits are consumed for monitoring alone.
Key takeaway
A LinkedIn profile engagement watchlist helps you find warm contacts based on real activity around profiles that matter to your market. When you combine the right monitored profiles, the right engagement type, focused segmentation, and company exclusions for All segments, you can turn public engagement into a highly relevant outbound motion while keeping signals centered on net-new opportunities. And with the updated 50 credits per detected signal billing model, you only pay when the watchlist actually finds something useful.