LinkedIn Templates: Purpose & Workflow
LinkedIn templates serve as reusable building blocks for your outreach campaigns. Here is how they work and why they matter:
What Templates Do:
- Templates are pre-written messages stored in your template library (LinkedIn > Templates).
- They save time when creating multiple campaigns — instead of writing from scratch every time, select a proven template as your starting point.
- Templates support merge tags ({{firstName}}, {{company}}, {{headline}}) so they auto-personalize for each prospect.
Why You Edit Messages in Campaigns:
- When you create a campaign step and select a template, the template content is copied into the step as a starting point.
- You can then customize the message for that specific campaign's audience without changing the original template.
- This is by design — your template library contains your general frameworks, while each campaign step can be tailored to the specific audience.
- Think of it like a document template in Word: you start from a template but customize each document.
Template Types:
- Invite Note (300 character limit) — For connection request personalization.
- Message (8,000 character limit) — For direct messages to connections.
- InMail (8,000 character limit) — For InMail messages to non-connections.
Workflow:
- Create templates in LinkedIn > Templates for your best-performing messages.
- When building a campaign step, click the template picker to select one.
- The template content fills the step editor — customize it for this specific campaign.
- Changes to the step do NOT modify the original template (they are independent after selection).
- For frequently used messages, save them as templates so you can reuse them across campaigns.
Auto-Created Templates:
When you write a message directly in a campaign step without selecting from the library, the system may auto-create a template (marked with '(Auto)' suffix) for that step. These auto-templates are campaign-specific and update in-place, unlike library templates which are copy-on-write protected.