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Campaign steps reference

Every step you can add in the Flow Builder: what it does, its settings and its limits. The four conditions have their own article, Campaign conditions and branches.

Settings shared by every step

  • Delay before this step: the number of days to wait before the step runs, counted from the moment the previous step finished (from enrollment for the first step). 0 runs it as soon as possible. The card shows Wait N day(s), then or No delay.
  • A delay is a minimum. LinkedIn actions then still wait for your office hours, your daily limits and their turn in the queue.
  • If a LinkedIn action fails three times in a row, Connection Request and Send Message are marked as failed and the contact stops at that step. Like last post and Poke give up and let the contact continue.

LinkedIn actions

Connection Request

Sends a LinkedIn invitation, then waits to see whether it's accepted.

  • Connection Note (optional): the note sent with the invitation. You can insert variables. Leave it empty to invite without a note. LinkedIn caps the length of notes (200 characters on a free account, 300 on Premium) and Swimlane doesn't shorten yours, so keep it short.
  • Wait for acceptance: how many days to wait, 7 by default and at least 1. The contact follows Accepted as soon as Swimlane detects the new connection, or Not accepted when the period ends. The card reads Waits up to N day(s).
  • While an invitation waits, Swimlane refreshes the contact's profile about twice a day to spot the acceptance. These refreshes use your Daily Profile Scrapes.

Rules:

  • Only contacts Swimlane knows are not connected to you are invited. If the contact is already a connection, or if Swimlane doesn't know their connection degree yet, no invitation is sent and the contact leaves the campaign at this step, without taking either branch. To avoid this, use Enrich with LinkedIn on those contacts before they reach the step.
  • If Swimlane has already recorded an invitation sent to this contact, no new one is sent: the step waits for that invitation to be accepted.
  • Each invitation counts against Daily Invitations Sent. Invitations are spaced by a random pause of 5 seconds to 10 minutes.

Send Message

Sends a LinkedIn message: in your existing conversation with the contact if there is one, otherwise in a new conversation.

  • Template (optional): Custom message by default, or one of your saved templates, shown with an AI or Static badge. A static template is sent with its variables filled in. An AI template is rewritten for each contact, based on their name, headline and location and on your business context.
  • Message: the text that is sent. Choosing a template fills it in. Editing the text turns the step back into a custom message.

Rules:

  • A step with an empty message never sends anything.
  • A variable with no value for a contact is replaced with nothing, so write sentences that still read well without it.
  • Just before sending, Swimlane re-checks the conditions on the path that leads to this step. If one no longer holds, the message isn't sent and the contact moves to the other branch.
  • Each message counts against Daily Messages Sent, and against Daily Conversations if you've set that limit. Messages are spaced by a random pause of 5 seconds to 6 minutes.
  • LinkedIn can refuse a message to someone who isn't one of your connections. Place this step after Accepted or after If connected → Yes when you target people outside your network.
  • If the step uses a template, editing the template later changes the text of the messages the campaign sends from then on. See Create and use message templates.

Like last post

Likes the contact's most recent LinkedIn post. No setting besides the delay.

  • If the contact has never posted, the step completes and the flow moves on.
  • Likes aren't counted in any daily limit and aren't spaced by a random pause. Keep this step for the contacts you really care about.

Poke

Sends a very short message and withdraws it about a second and a half later, so the contact gets a LinkedIn notification without a message left in the thread. No setting besides the delay.

  • It needs an existing conversation with the contact. Without one, the step completes and the flow moves on.
  • The short text is Hey, do, or Salut, est-ce que if your Swimlane language is French. If the withdrawal fails, that text stays visible in the conversation.
  • Pokes aren't counted in your daily message limits.

See Nudge a contact with a poke for the manual version.

App actions

Add tag

Adds a tag to the contact inside Swimlane. Nothing happens on LinkedIn.

  • Tag name: type a name or pick one of your tags from the suggestions. A new tag is created automatically if it doesn't exist yet.
  • The contact moves on immediately.

Remove tag

Removes a tag from the contact inside Swimlane.

  • Tag name: the tag to remove. If no tag has that name, nothing happens.
  • The contact moves on immediately.

Tags added or removed by a campaign stay as they are if you pause or delete the campaign.

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