Most outbound signals are indirect. An open role implies a need, a funding round implies budget, a piece of technology implies a way of thinking. All of it is educated guesswork.
A comment or a reaction on a competitor's post is something else entirely. Someone saw content about the problem you solve and decided to respond to it in public, under their full name and their job title. That is declared interest.
This campaign turns that stream into a list. And like every strong signal, it also tempts you to skip the boring part, which is exactly what kills it.
Who this is for, and when to skip it
Run it when your market has live content. Competitors who publish, practitioners who talk about the field, tools that market through LinkedIn. The more active your category is in the feed, the richer the source.
It fits especially well for categories that are hard to filter in a database. If you cannot tag your audience by industry and headcount, you may be able to identify them by what they read.
Skip it when your market is quiet on LinkedIn. Entire industries barely exist there, and there is no point hunting for engagers inside them.
And skip it if you are willing to drop the fit check. Engagement proves interest in a topic. It does not prove they are your customer. Skip that check and you will find the list full of competitors, students, consultants, and people who simply like liking things.
Building the list
Step one, pick your sources. Not just direct competitors. Include recognised practitioners in the field, adjacent tools speaking to the same audience, and your own content. A post from a well-known expert often produces higher-quality engagement than a competitor's post, because there is no defensiveness in it.
Step two, pull the posts. From the company page and from the profiles of the people inside it. Personal posts almost always generate more traffic than the company page, so skipping them means skipping most of the source.
Step three, collect everyone who touched it. Commenters and reactors both. Commenters are warmer, reactors are more numerous, and both go in.
Step four, cross-reference. Anyone who engaged with several different posts, or with several different sources, is not a casual viewer. That group deserves the most personal handling.
Step five, and this is the step you do not skip. Everyone collected goes through a fit check against this campaign's ICP. Title, company type, size, market. Whoever does not fit comes off, even if they commented three times. Engagement is a layer on top of fit, not a replacement for it.
Step six, cleaning. Client blocklist, including competitors. And deduplication against earlier rounds, because the same people engage again and again.
The angle
And here is the one piece of caution that decides everything: do not tell them you saw them engaging with a competitor.
It feels like surveillance, it puts them on the defensive, and it reminds them of the competitor at the exact moment you are trying to enter the picture.
The right move is to use the signal to choose the topic, not to open with it.
- First message: open on the topic they engaged with, like someone in the same conversation rather than someone who watched them.
- Middle: a short position of your own on that topic. Something they can agree with or argue against.
- Close: an open question, not a request.
The first message in this campaign sells nothing. It joins a conversation. Try to sell in message one to someone who just read a competitor's content and you get exactly the response you deserve.
The offer
The offer arrives late, and that is what makes this campaign different from every other one in this collection.
They engaged with a topic, not with you. The way in runs through a conversation about that topic, and only once it exists can you offer anything.
What works: a point of view of your own, a fact or an experience that adds something to a discussion they are already inside, and then an asset that goes deeper.
What does not work: opening with a comparison to the competitor. Even when you are right, it reads as defensive selling.
The sequence
On LinkedIn the sequence starts before the message, and that is the part most campaigns miss.
Profile view. It shows up in their notifications and starts an acquaintance without asking for anything.
Wait a few days. Do not fire the connection request in the same moment.
Connection request. With no note attached, or one short line. Requests with a pitch attached get declined far more often.
Message only after it is accepted. Not before.
Then a conversation. Two or three messages that develop the topic, and only after those, an offer.
The pace is slower than is comfortable, and that is deliberate. This campaign depends on the person feeling they entered a conversation rather than a list.
Upload and send
The campaign runs in HeyReach, on conservative rate limits. Profile views, connection requests and messages all capped per day. A restricted LinkedIn account costs more than this campaign can bring in.
No signature and no spintax. Those are email mechanisms. On LinkedIn they only mark a message as mass-sent.
Short. The message gets read on a phone, between two meetings.
A stream, not a batch. New content produces new engagers every week. The campaign has to refresh continuously, or you are approaching people whose interest has already cooled.
If you also run email, cross-reference: the same people on both channels, timed so it does not feel like a chase.
Where it breaks
Skipping the fit check. Failure number one. The list fills with everyone in the feed, including direct competitors who will now get a cold approach from you.
Naming the competitor. It feels like surveillance, and it puts them back to thinking about the competitor.
Selling in the first message. The signal says they are interested in the topic, not that they are shopping for a vendor.
Sending a connection request with a pitch attached. Acceptance rate drops and the account takes damage.
Running aggressive limits. LinkedIn responds to that, and recovery is slow.
Approaching the same people every round. An active commenter shows up in every pull. Without deduplication this turns into harassment.
Running it once. This source refreshes itself. A one-off campaign wastes its actual advantage.
- Engagement is a signal of interest, not proof of fit. The fit check is not a step you skip.
- The signal picks the topic. It does not get mentioned in the message.
- On LinkedIn the sequence starts before the message: view, wait, request, and only then write.
- No signature and no spintax. Those are email mechanisms.
- The source refreshes itself every week. Run it as a stream.
