{"id":14487,"date":"2022-02-15T18:21:40","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T15:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/?p=14487"},"modified":"2025-11-26T16:03:59","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T13:03:59","slug":"linkedin-inmail-vs-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/linkedin-inmail-vs-email\/","title":{"rendered":"LinkedIn InMail Vs. Email: What Channel Is Better For Your Outreach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let&#8217;s take it: LinkedIn has become the B2B prospecting champion, as around <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/business.linkedin.com\/content\/dam\/me\/business\/en-us\/marketing-solutions\/cx\/2017\/pdfs\/Sophisticated-Marketers-Guide-to-LinkedIn-v03.12.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">80%<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of B2B leads come directly from this platform. Yet, when it comes to outreach, businesses don&#8217;t hurry to claim LinkedIn InMail has outperformed its predecessor \u2013 Email.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So which of them should <\/span><b>YOU<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> use?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this post, we&#8217;ll compare both outreach channels against eight parameters, share some LinkedIn InMail examples, and help you find the best solution for pitching your offering to potential customers. But first, let&#8217;s make sure you&#8217;re familiar enough with LinkedIn InMail.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"table-of-contents\">\n<p class=\"table-of-contents__title\">Outline:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#what\">What is LinkedIn InMail?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#comparison\">InMail vs. Email: Which is more effective?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#practices\">LinkedIn InMail best practices<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<h2 id=\"what\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is LinkedIn InMail?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you&#8217;ve ever tried <a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/linkedin-automation-tools\">LinkedIn prospecting<\/a>, you know how tough it is sometimes to reach <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2nd or 3rd connections<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> even though you&#8217;re sure your communication will bring benefits to both parties.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under normal circumstances, you can&#8217;t send someone a message unless you&#8217;re connected to them. But LinkedIn InMail makes communication outside of the network possible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>InMail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a premium LinkedIn feature that allows you to directly contact other LinkedIn members who are not among your connections.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From the point of convenience, contacting a potential prospect you&#8217;ve just found on LinkedIn right from the same platform sounds like a real time-saving option. But does it mean you should switch from an old buddy email to LinkedIn InMail? Let&#8217;s find out the answer.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class='posts-into__content'>\r\n<div class=\"post\">\r\n    <div class=\"post__img\">\r\n        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"320\" height=\"160\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Beginners-Guide-to-LinkedIn-Outreach.png\" class=\"attachment-327x160 size-327x160 wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Beginners-Guide-to-LinkedIn-Outreach.png 1500w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Beginners-Guide-to-LinkedIn-Outreach-300x150.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Beginners-Guide-to-LinkedIn-Outreach-1024x512.png 1024w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Beginners-Guide-to-LinkedIn-Outreach-768x384.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/>    <\/div>\r\n    <div class=\"post__content\">\r\n        <p class=\"post__content-title\">\r\n            <a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/linkedin-outreach\/\">LinkedIn Outreach Strategy (Ultimate Guide for 2026)<\/a>\r\n        <\/p>\r\n        <p class=\"post__content-date\">3\/04\/2026<\/p>    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"post\">\r\n    <div class=\"post__img\">\r\n        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"320\" height=\"160\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/LinkedIn-email-finder.png\" class=\"attachment-327x160 size-327x160 wp-post-image\" alt=\"LinkedIn Email Extractor\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/LinkedIn-email-finder.png 1500w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/LinkedIn-email-finder-300x150.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/LinkedIn-email-finder-1024x512.png 1024w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/LinkedIn-email-finder-768x384.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/>    <\/div>\r\n    <div class=\"post__content\">\r\n        <p class=\"post__content-title\">\r\n            <a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/linkedin-email-extractor-tools\/\">10 Best LinkedIn Email Extractors In 2026 Tested &#038; Compared<\/a>\r\n        <\/p>\r\n        <p class=\"post__content-date\">25\/03\/2026<\/p>    <\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<h2 id=\"comparison\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">InMail vs. Email: Which is more effective?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Without a doubt, both LinkedIn and Email have advantages and disadvantages over each other. So rather than restating this truth, it&#8217;s time we compare these two channels against parameters that matter the most for B2B cold outreach.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1. Price<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first aspect you should consider before making a decision is how costly it is for your business, right? Whereas <\/span><b>Email<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a free channel of communication with your leads, <\/span><b>LinkedIn InMail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, as mentioned above, is a premium feature, so it will definitely cost you a pretty penny.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The cheapest option is to buy the annual <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/snovio-linkedin-sales-navigator-integration\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sales Navigator<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> account. It will cost you $79.99\/month for 50 InMail credits (so for each InMail, you&#8217;ll pay $1.6).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Good news: according to <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn policy<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you can get credits back for those messages that have received a response within 90 days of the send date. What&#8217;s more, you can accumulate InMail credits from month to month. However, there are limits on the total number of InMail credits \u2013 the maximum you can accumulate is 150 InMail credits.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2. Following up<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Building meaningful relationships and leading your prospects to conversion is impossible without follow-ups. As a rule, 50% of all sales happen only after the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/zety.com\/blog\/sales-statistics?utm_source=google&amp;utm_medium=sem&amp;utm_campaign=6482925024&amp;utm_term=follow%20up%20statistics&amp;network=g&amp;device=c&amp;adposition=&amp;adgroupid=78188145552&amp;placement=&amp;gclid=CjwKCAiAxJSPBhAoEiwAeO_fP4BcYInHEq8JxzI0KLEphVcl7yo2dKxrU6AVIVlXsVa8NI5Zosm5lRoCfRgQAvD_BwE#followup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">5th<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> contact!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Say, if your prospect hasn&#8217;t responded to your previous message, you can send them as many follow-ups as you&#8217;d like free of charge with <\/span><b>Email<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> messaging, unlike with InMail. Unfortunately, if you want to send an <\/span><b>InMail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to a prospect you&#8217;ve contacted before, who still hasn\u2019t responded to your initial message, this will result in another credit being used.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">3. Analytics<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No matter what sales and marketing outreach strategy you choose, your actions should be data-driven. You need to track all your messaging with prospects to always stay in sync with your team, analyze your performance results, and improve your communication and outreach approach for future campaigns.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With <\/span><b>Email<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you can always measure the effectiveness of your campaigns \u2013 there are many tools that will furnish valuable data on your email outreach. For example, with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/email-tracker\"><b>Snov.io Email Tracker<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you can track email opens and link clicks right in your Gmail, see the full history of email opens, and get reminded to follow up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-14490\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background405.png\" alt=\"Email Tracker analytics\" width=\"686\" height=\"446\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background405.png 686w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background405-300x195.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 686px) 100vw, 686px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And with the <span data-sheets-root=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/cold-email\">Snov.io cold email software<\/a>,<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0you can always derive important data by checking the detailed statistics of your emails.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-14491\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background406.png\" alt=\"Email Drip Campaign analytics\" width=\"846\" height=\"393\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background406.png 846w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background406-300x139.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background406-768x357.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 846px) 100vw, 846px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With <\/span><b>LinkedIn InMails<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, it&#8217;s also possible to derive data. You can check response and acceptance rates for your InMails, see how many messages have been declined or received no response. But again, unlike free email tracking tools, InMail analytics is a paid feature.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14492\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14492\" style=\"width: 832px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-14492 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background407.png\" alt=\"InMail analytics\" width=\"832\" height=\"499\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background407.png 832w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background407-300x180.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background407-768x461.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 832px) 100vw, 832px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14492\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Source: LinkedIn<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">4. Timing<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The success of any cold outreach campaign depends on whether you&#8217;re contacting a potential prospect at the right time. And that&#8217;s where <\/span><b>InMail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has its indisputable merits. On LinkedIn, you can see who among your connections is active at the moment, so you can send them your InMail message immediately.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By contrast, with <\/span><b>Email<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you have no guarantees you&#8217;re catching your prospect when they are just looking through their Inbox. It&#8217;s no surprise <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/best-time-to-send-email-according-to-science\/#:~:text=50%25%2C%20however%2C%20said%20that,time%20between%208am%20and%204pm.\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the perfect timing<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and frequency for sending emails have been a subject of many studies. Marketers and sales specialists are trying to find the right day and time when their emails can get the best open and response rates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">5. Open and response rates<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it comes to statistics, <\/span><b>LinkedIn InMail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> looks more promising than <\/span><b>Email<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The average email open rate is about <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/business.linkedin.com\/content\/dam\/me\/business\/en-us\/marketing-solutions\/resources\/pdfs\/sponsored-inmail-overview.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">21.6%<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, while InMail can bring you 57.5% open rates. As for the response rate, it reaches <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">10-25%<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for InMail messages, while for emails, it can be from <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1 to 10%<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The reason for such a gap is clear: the number of email and InMail users is different. With about <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">756 million<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> LinkedIn members and over <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/99firms.com\/blog\/how-many-email-users-are-there\/#gref\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">4.1 billion<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> email users, you have more chances to reach prospects with your InMail message than with an email.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Besides, if you&#8217;re sending an InMail, your prospect can click on your profile to learn more about you, your company, and the product you offer, which makes InMail outreach more interactive.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">6. Prospect segmentation<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prospect <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">segmentation and personalization<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are the primary basis for successful outreach, especially when contacting potential clients in bulk.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can&#8217;t prospect everyone, as it&#8217;s a big waste of resources. As soon as you build your ideal customer profile and start looking for ideal prospects, you need to think about segmenting your prospect list so that each of your potential customers can get a highly personalized message.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whereas with <\/span><b>Email,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> you can divide your prospects into many segments, from specific demographics to a prospect&#8217;s position in the sales funnel, you won&#8217;t be able to do it with <\/span><b>InMail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">7. Automation\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If your company aims at sending messages in bulk, you should have automation tools in your arsenal that will do bulk outreach for you. Luckily, now you can use such software for both <\/span><b>Email <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><b>InMail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Email automation<\/b> <b>services<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> allow you to send triggered messages based on recipients&#8217; specific actions.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> For instance, with the <span data-sheets-root=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/cold-email\">Snov.io cold email<\/a> tool<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you can build and send complex multistage email sequences, program auto follow-ups, and analyze your campaign performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/app.snov.io\/register?lang=en&amp;signup_source=blog&amp;signup_page=snov.io%2Fblog%2Flinkedin-inmail-vs-email&amp;cta_type=banner\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-14494\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background408.png\" alt=\"snov.io email automation\" width=\"850\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background408.png 1032w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background408-300x99.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background408-1024x337.png 1024w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background408-768x253.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>A <a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/linkedin-automation-tools\/\">LinkedIn automation tool<\/a><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, in its turn, will help you send InMail messages and follow-ups on your behalf, allowing you to set the desired level of engagement with prospects and track the performance of your InMail campaigns.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">8. Limits<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No matter what outreach channel you choose, you should keep in mind that you&#8217;ll have to deal with sending limits, breaking which will cost you a temporary account ban.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>Email<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> sending limits depend on your email provider. With some, you&#8217;ll be able to send up to 10,000 + emails a day or even enjoy unlimited email sending. As for <\/span><b>LinkedIn InMails<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, having a Sales Navigator account and imagining that all your emails got a response, you can send about 100 InMails a month.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet, there&#8217;s something else you should know. If you want to use LinkedIn as a single platform for both prospecting and outreach, you&#8217;ll have to deal with other LinkedIn limits related to the number of connection invites, monthly searches, and regular messages sent. You can read more about these limits in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/linkedin-invitation-limit\/#:~:text=LinkedIn%20invitations%20limit%20per%20day,days%20%E2%80%94%2050%20daily%20connection%20invites.\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">one of our articles<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Okay\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We&#8217;ve just compared <\/span><b>Email<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>LinkedIn InMail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> based on eight parameters. Let&#8217;s sum up our findings in a table, so you can better understand which channel would be better to choose for your outreach.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr style=\"background-color: #d1d1d1;\">\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>Parameters<\/b><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>Email<\/b><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>InMail<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color: #bfb2f7; text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Price<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Free<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Min. $1.64\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color: #bfb2f7; text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Following up<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Free<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For extra price<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color: #bfb2f7; text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Analytics<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Free<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Paid<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color: #bfb2f7; text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Finding the perfect time for sending messages<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Difficult<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Easy<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color: #bfb2f7; text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Average open rate<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">21.6%<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">57.5%<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color: #bfb2f7; text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Average response rate<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1-10%<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">10-25%\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color: #bfb2f7; text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prospect segmentation<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color: #bfb2f7; text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Automation<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color: #bfb2f7; text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Limits<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">10,000 + messages a day<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; background-color: #f7f7f7;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">approx. 100 a month<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So which channel to use for outreach?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As you see, both <\/span><b>Email<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>InMail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> have their benefits, and one can be better than the other based on some parameters. Your choice will mostly depend on your primary outreach goals. If you&#8217;re accustomed to using LinkedIn to find potential prospects, don&#8217;t aim to reach out to people in bulk, and have money to invest, you can do well with <\/span><b>InMails<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the old friend <\/span><b>Email<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is without a doubt a better solution for those of you who don&#8217;t want to depend solely on LinkedIn, aim at contacting many potential prospects, and just don&#8217;t want to overpay. Besides, it&#8217;s a much better option for companies that follow the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/sales-and-marketing-alignment-smarketing\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smarketing strategy<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, i.e., sync their sales and marketing teams for higher results.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a rule, such businesses use <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/sales-crm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CRMs<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with an integrated email service that allows doing prospecting, outreach, and lead management from the same platform, where the system tracks all interactions with prospects and email campaign performance, and the prospect&#8217;s movement through the sales pipeline is well-visualized.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/app.snov.io\/register?lang=en&amp;signup_source=blog&amp;signup_page=snov.io%2Fblog%2Flinkedin-inmail-vs-email&amp;cta_type=banner\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-14505\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background409.png\" alt=\"snov.io crm\" width=\"850\" height=\"227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background409.png 1032w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background409-300x80.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background409-1024x273.png 1024w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background409-768x205.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"practices\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn InMail best practices<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No matter which channel you prefer, you won&#8217;t go far if you don&#8217;t understand how to use it to its full potential. But no worries, please. We know how you can squeeze the most out of your <\/span><b>InMail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>Email<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> outreach strategies and ensure the effectiveness of your cold campaigns.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We&#8217;ve already talked about <a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/how-to-write-cold-emails\/\">writing a cold email that converts<\/a>. Many of these tips work fine for LinkedIn InMail outreach too. Here&#8217;s what you can do to run your InMail outreach successfully:<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Keep your InMail messages short<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Numbers demonstrate that shorter InMails get more responses. If you look at the graph below, you&#8217;ll see that the response rate for the shortest InMails (400 characters or fewer) is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/business\/talent\/blog\/talent-strategy\/these-inmails-get-best-response-rates\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">16%<\/a> above the average rate<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14506\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14506\" style=\"width: 850px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-14506\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background410.png\" alt=\"InMail response rates\" width=\"850\" height=\"666\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background410.png 1032w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background410-300x235.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background410-1024x802.png 1024w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background410-768x601.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14506\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Source: LinkedIn Talent Blog<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It doesn&#8217;t mean that all your InMails shouldn&#8217;t exceed 400 characters. However, if you wish to stand out from the rest, I recommend experimenting with brief messages. The thing is, almost <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/business\/talent\/blog\/talent-strategy\/these-inmails-get-best-response-rates#:~:text=The%20response%20rate%20for%20InMails,16%25%20above%20the%20average%20rate.&amp;text=Less%20than%2010%25%20of%20all,InMails%20simply%20by%20their%20brevity.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">90%<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of all InMails are commonly more than 400 characters long. So chances are, your conciseness can help you gain a competitive edge over other InMails your prospect gets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Use impactful subject lines<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Subject lines that make an impact are short (no more than 8 words) and hooky. As a hook, you can mention something related to your prospect that caused you to write a message to them, e.g.,<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8220;Loved your new post about \u2026,&#8221;<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or something that sums up your value-bringing message, e.g., <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;8 ways sales automation tools grow your revenue.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Introduce yourself<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even if your prospect can easily visit your profile to see who that charming sender of the InMail they&#8217;ve just received is, don&#8217;t miss a chance to explain who you are and what you do right in the introduction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a matter of respect, which, when neglected, may leave InMails ignored by potential customers. Just look at one of the LinkedIn InMail examples below to see how you can introduce yourself in your InMail message.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-15676\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/InMail-1a.png\" alt=\"InMail with a good introduction\" width=\"850\" height=\"588\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/InMail-1a.png 672w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/InMail-1a-300x208.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Personalize your InMails<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Again, numbers don&#8217;t lie: individual InMails have <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/business\/talent\/blog\/talent-strategy\/these-inmails-get-best-response-rates#:~:text=The%20response%20rate%20for%20InMails,16%25%20above%20the%20average%20rate.&amp;text=Less%20than%2010%25%20of%20all,InMails%20simply%20by%20their%20brevity.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">20%<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> better performance than InMails sent in bulk. The same goes for non-template-based and template-based InMails.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That doesn&#8217;t mean you should send messages to prospects one by one and never use a template as a backbone. If your company operates at scale, I&#8217;m afraid, it&#8217;s just impossible. These statistics rather show that InMails that are more personal get prospects&#8217; feedback more often.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To make your InMails more personalized, you should demonstrate you&#8217;re indeed aware of who your prospects are and what they&#8217;re doing to ensure your message has been crafted specifically for them. Just take a look at the following LinkedIn InMail excerpt with a personalized introduction.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-15677\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/InMail-2a.png\" alt=\"InMail with personalization\" width=\"850\" height=\"602\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/InMail-2a.png 645w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/InMail-2a-300x213.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Don&#8217;t send InMails on the weekend<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can see when a prospect is online and send a message so that it gets caught by them instantly. That&#8217;s the ideal option, but not quite possible if you do mass InMail sending.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So when it comes to the right time for sending InMails, studies have shown that the worst moment to reach out to your prospects is on <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/business\/talent\/blog\/talent-strategy\/these-inmails-get-best-response-rates#:~:text=The%20response%20rate%20for%20InMails,16%25%20above%20the%20average%20rate.&amp;text=Less%20than%2010%25%20of%20all,InMails%20simply%20by%20their%20brevity.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saturday and Sunday<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, while sending InMails in the middle of the week demonstrates the best response rates.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14511\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14511\" style=\"width: 850px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-14511\" src=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background413.png\" alt=\"InMail statistics\" width=\"850\" height=\"703\" srcset=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background413.png 1032w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background413-300x248.png 300w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background413-1024x847.png 1024w, https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Background413-768x636.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14511\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Source: LinkedIn Talent Blog<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, it looks logical. LinkedIn is a professional network, and not many people would prefer reading and responding to your InMail when kids are just jumping on their head, or the smell of barbeque from the yard is so tempting that LinkedIn notifications on mobile get muted on their own.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wrapping up<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fast-growing popularity of LinkedIn has caused a real dilemma for sales and marketing teams \u2013 to choose LinkedIn InMails or rely on traditional email campaigns for cold outreach.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>InMails<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are a good solution for professionals who don&#8217;t have large-scale ambitions and are ready to pay for the convenience of using the same platform for both prospecting and outreach. We hope our tips and LinkedIn InMail examples will help you succeed in your outreach once you choose InMails as the primary channel for communication with prospects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, <\/span><b>Email<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> remains a universal outreach tool that you can use for free and rely on for bulky campaigns. What&#8217;s more, it allows you to send highly targeted messages to a thoroughly segmented prospect list, analyze their performance, and increase your conversion rate owing to the persistence of your follow-ups.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And if you want to automate your email outreach, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/snov.io\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Snov.io<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> will do it easily for you. And much more! With Snov.io CRM, you&#8217;ll not only be able to organize your prospecting and cold outreach campaigns but build the whole sales process from scratch.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To Email or to InMail? If that\u2019s a real question to you, read on to choose the  right channel for your outreach. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":14489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[470,472],"tags":[439,542,550],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14487"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43768,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14487\/revisions\/43768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snov.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}