Use Follow Lead to add a soft, low-friction LinkedIn touchpoint to your outreach. Instead of relying only on connection requests, you can warm up prospects naturally, stay visible on LinkedIn, and create a more progressive multi-touch sequence inside lemlist.
By the end of this tutorial, you’ll know how to add a Follow Lead step to a sequence, understand how it behaves during execution, and manage its dedicated daily sending limit as part of a stronger LinkedIn outreach strategy.
Why this matters
Follow Lead helps you engage prospects without asking for too much too soon. It creates passive visibility on LinkedIn, reduces over-reliance on connection requests, and lets you build more natural outreach sequences with steps like Visit profile, Follow, Invitation, and messages.
Before this feature, users had to follow prospects manually outside lemlist. That broke the workflow and made it harder to build a complete LinkedIn strategy in one place. Now, LinkedIn follow actions also have a dedicated daily sending limit, so you can control them separately from your other LinkedIn steps.
Prerequisites
You should already have a campaign or sequence created in lemlist.
You should already have a connected LinkedIn account.
You should already know the basics of editing steps inside the sequence builder.
You are on Multichannel Expert or Enterprise plan
Core lesson
Phase 1: Understand when to use Follow Lead
The Follow Lead action is best used when you want to build familiarity before sending a connection request or message. It works especially well in multi-touch LinkedIn sequences where you want to gradually increase engagement instead of starting with a more intrusive action.
Good use case: Visit a profile first, then follow the prospect, then send a connection request or LinkedIn message later. This creates a more natural progression and helps your outreach feel less abrupt.
Phase 2: Add the Follow Lead step to your sequence
Open your sequence in the campaign builder.
Go to the sequence where you want to add a new LinkedIn touchpoint.Click the plus button where you want the new step to appear.
Add the step at the point in your sequence where following the prospect makes the most sense, such as after a profile visit or before an invitation.
Select Follow from the list of available steps.
In the step picker, choose the LinkedIn action labeled Follow. This adds an automatic follow action to your workflow.
This is a simple one-click step, so there’s no message or advanced configuration required. Once added, it behaves like other LinkedIn actions in your sequence and runs automatically when that step is reached.
Phase 3: Manage the daily Follow limit
LinkedIn follow actions now have their own dedicated daily sending limit in lemlist settings. This helps you control follow activity separately from visits, invitations, messages, and other LinkedIn actions.
Open Settings from your workspace menu.
Click your profile in the bottom-left corner, then select Settings.
Go to Sending limits and review the Follow limit.
In Sending limits, find Maximum number of LinkedIn follows made by lemlist in 24h and adjust it based on your preferred activity level.
Use this setting if you want tighter control over how many follow actions lemlist can perform each day.
Phase 4: Let lemlist handle execution automatically
After the Follow Lead step is added, lemlist executes it automatically when the lead reaches that point in the sequence. You don’t need to manually confirm or configure anything else for the action itself.
If the prospect is not yet followed: lemlist follows them on LinkedIn.
If the prospect is already followed: the step is skipped automatically.
If limits apply: the action respects LinkedIn daily limits, including the dedicated follow limit, and your ramp-up rules.
This makes the step easy to scale while keeping your workflow safe and consistent.
Phase 5: Track the action in your campaign flow
Once executed, the follow action appears in the lead activity timeline and sequence logs. This gives you visibility into what happened for each prospect and helps you understand whether the step was completed or skipped.
This is especially useful when you’re combining multiple LinkedIn actions in one campaign and want a clear record of each touchpoint.
How Follow Lead works
No configuration needed: add the step and let it run automatically.
Smart duplicate detection: already-followed leads are skipped.
Fully integrated: the step appears in your sequence timeline and execution history.
LinkedIn-safe behavior: the action follows your daily limits, including the dedicated LinkedIn follow limit, and your ramp-up rules.
Practical application
Here’s a simple example of how to use Follow Lead in a modern LinkedIn sequence:
Visit profile to create a first signal of interest.
Follow Lead to stay visible without asking for a connection.
Wait 1–2 days to space out actions naturally.
Send an invitation once the prospect has had time to recognize your name.
Send a follow-up message if they accept.
This approach works well for users who want to replace aggressive outreach with a more progressive sequence.
Best practice: Use Follow Lead before a connection request when you want to build familiarity first. Use it instead of a connection request when your goal is passive visibility rather than immediate direct engagement.
Troubleshooting & pitfalls
Issue: The Follow Lead step was skipped
Root cause: The lead was likely already followed on LinkedIn.
Fix:
Check the lead activity timeline for the step result.
Confirm whether the prospect was already followed before the sequence reached that step.
No further action is needed if the skip was expected.
Issue: The step does not execute immediately
Root cause: The lead has not reached that step yet, or the action is being paced according to daily limits and ramp-up rules.
Fix:
Review the lead’s current position in the sequence.
Check whether there is a wait step before the follow action.
Verify your LinkedIn action limits, including the dedicated daily follow limit, and ramp-up settings.
Issue: You can’t use the step as expected
Root cause: Your LinkedIn account may not be properly connected or available for the campaign.
Fix:
Confirm your LinkedIn account is connected in lemlist.
Check that the campaign is using the correct LinkedIn sender.
Reconnect the account if LinkedIn actions are unavailable.
Issue: The sequence feels too aggressive
Root cause: Too many direct LinkedIn actions may be grouped too closely together.
Fix:
Add wait steps between LinkedIn touches.
Use Follow Lead earlier in the sequence as a softer interaction.
Spread out invitations and messages to keep the sequence natural.
Lower your dedicated LinkedIn follow limit if you want to reduce daily follow volume.
Knowledge check
Where in your LinkedIn sequence would a soft touchpoint like Follow Lead be most effective?
How is Follow Lead different from sending a connection request?
What happens if the prospect is already followed when the step runs?
How could you combine Visit profile, Follow Lead, and Invitation into a more natural outreach flow?
Key takeaway
Follow Lead gives you a lighter, more flexible way to engage prospects on LinkedIn. By adding it to your lemlist sequences, you can create smarter multi-touch campaigns, increase visibility, warm up leads before moving to more direct outreach, and control daily follow volume with its dedicated sending limit.