Use the Competitor new connections signal to see when your competitors’ sales reps add new LinkedIn connections. This helps you spot who they’re actively prospecting so you can react quickly with timely, relevant outreach.
Learning objective
By the end of this tutorial, you’ll know how to set up a watchlist that monitors competitors’ new LinkedIn connections, control daily volume with a cap, and decide how identified signals should be processed in your workflow.
Why this matters
New connections are a strong intent signal: they often indicate active prospecting into new accounts, territories, or personas. Monitoring these connections helps you prioritize outreach while the competitor’s activity is still fresh.
Prerequisites
You have access to Signals and can create a new Watchlist.
You have the competitor’s LinkedIn company URL (required for setup).
You have enough credits available (billing is based on identified signals).
Core lesson — Step-by-step workflow
Phase 1: Choose the right signal
Go to Signals and create a New watchlist, then under Select a signal to monitor choose Competitor new connections.
This tells lemlist to track when competitor reps expand their LinkedIn network with new connections.
Phase 2: Configure the competitor(s) to monitor
Enter one or more LinkedIn company URLs (one per line), then click Add company URLs.
Adding the company page URL is required—this is how the signal knows which competitor organizations to track.
Phase 3: Control volume with a daily identification cap
Set the Maximum number of signals identified per day.
This cap helps you control both volume and spend. As signals are identified, costs are calculated based on your daily limit.
Phase 4: Decide what happens when signals are found
In Signals processing, choose how you want to handle identified signals:
Manually process signals (review and decide case-by-case)
Create a task for identified signals (recommended for sales workflows)
Push to campaign automatically (best for fully automated plays)
If you choose tasks, configure details like task type, owner logic, fallback owner, priority, and include clear instructions for your team.
Phase 5: Review and confirm
Review the Summary to confirm:
The selected signal type (Competitor new connections)
The competitor LinkedIn company URLs
Your daily identification limit and estimated cost
Your selected processing method (manual, task, or campaign push)
Use this step as a final check before proceeding.
How it works (behind the scenes)
You pick the Competitor new connections signal type.
You add the competitor’s LinkedIn company URL (required).
You set a daily cap to control volume.
lemlist ingests new connections and reconciles profiles with the People DB.
Billing:100 credits per identified signal.
Signal details (what you’ll receive)
Each identified signal can include:
Job title
Company
Headline (if available)
Location
LinkedIn URL of the new connection
Who they connected with (when available)
Practical application (example workflow)
If a competitor’s SDR connects with multiple heads of RevOps in one week, treat it as a persona focus shift:
Create a task for each identified connection.
Task instruction example: “Check if this contact is in our ICP. If yes, add to the ‘RevOps—Competitive’ campaign and personalize the opener referencing their role.”
Prioritize by seniority (e.g., Director+ first) and region (match your territory).
Troubleshooting & pitfalls
Issue: No signals are being identified
Root cause: Incorrect LinkedIn company URL format, or the competitor has low connection activity.
Fix: Ensure you’re using the company page URL (e.g., https://www.linkedin.com/company/companyname/) and try monitoring additional competitors.
Issue: Too many signals per day
Root cause: Daily cap is set too high for your team’s capacity or budget.
Fix: Lower the Maximum number of signals identified per day and use inclusion/exclusion targeting (if applicable in your segment step) to narrow scope.
Issue: Signals found but not acted on
Root cause: Processing is set to manual without a follow-up routine, or tasks aren’t assigned clearly.
Fix: Switch to Create a task, set Owner type (contact owner), and define a fallback owner so nothing is missed.