Campaign Creation: Step-By-Step Guide

Leadvista AI campaigns let you automate LinkedIn outreach with the right objectives, lead sources, and message sequences. This guide walks you through every step.

Prerequisites

A connected LinkedIn account (sender profile)
A website URL or document describing your offer
Leads ready to import (or a plan for which source to use)

1. Start a New Campaign

Go to the Campaigns page and click Create new campaign at the bottom.
If you don't see the button, scroll down.

2. Choose a Profile

Select which Sender profile to use.
Leadvista AI automatically pulls experience details from the LinkedIn profile.
If no experience appears, choose I don't have experience, or add experience on LinkedIn. Then click Refresh to update the Leadvista AI page.

3. Define Your Objective

Pick the goal that matches your outreach:

Book meetings with prospects
Capture prospect contact information
Drive traffic to your website
Get sign-ups for your application
Invite prospects to an event
Encourage prospects to apply for a job

👉 Note: Add your Website URL here. The AI reads it to understand your product and write better messages.

About the Website URL

The Website URL is where the AI learns about your offer. It doesn't need to be a polished website. It can be:

A Google Doc
A Notion page
A simple landing page
Any link that explains what you do

The AI uses this link to learn your product, its benefits, selling points, pricing, and competitors. Prospects never see this link.

4. Set Conversion Links

Match your objective to the right link:

Book a meeting calendar link
Capture contact info leave blank or use a form
Drive traffic website URL
App sign-ups signup page link
Event registration event page or form
Job recruitment job description or careers page

About the Landing Page URL

The Landing Page URL is optional. Here's how it affects your messages:

Without a booking link: AI writes something like "Are you free next week for a call?"
With a booking link: AI writes something like "Are you free for a call? Here's the link to book."

👉 Note: Only the Landing Page URL can be left empty. The Website URL must always contain information about your company.

👉 Note: When a Landing Page URL is set, the AI must place it in your final call-to-action message. Make sure your sequence instructions allow a link there (see the sequence design rules in step 8).

5. Engagement and Lead Handling

Choose how the AI handles replies:

Copilot: AI drafts replies, you review and send.
Autopilot: AI drafts, qualifies, and replies automatically within 3 to 10 minutes.
Both modes handle nurturing: if a prospect doesn't respond after 7 to 30 days, the AI follows up.

Adaptive Microsite

Adaptive Microsite is an AI-generated personalized page created for each lead. It replaces static outreach with dynamic content that builds interest, qualifies prospects, and keeps buyers and sellers aligned.

It includes tailored Buyer and Seller views, plus a built-in Leadvista AI Inbox for direct, contextual conversations. Fully branded and adapting in real time.

💡 Tip: Enable Adaptive Microsite to boost engagement, qualify leads faster, and move prospects further down your funnel.

6. Apply Outreach Settings

Set active days and hours for outreach.
Exclude holidays by prospect country.
Maintain a blacklist of contacts to avoid.

Agent Duplicate Security is off by default. Turn it on to prevent any sender on your team from messaging the same lead twice across all your campaigns. The always-on layer already prevents the same sender from re-messaging a lead — the toggle extends that protection team-wide.

7. Import Leads

Choose your lead source:

AI Lead Finder: Build lists using persona templates, job titles, seniority, location, and industry filters. → Full guide
Sales Navigator: Paste a saved search URL (up to 1,500 leads per import). → Full guide
LinkedIn People Search: Use keywords, logic operators, and filters. → Full guide
Company Followers: Import followers of a LinkedIn page or people engaging with company posts. → Full guide
Event Attendees: Import up to 1,500 people from a LinkedIn event. → Full guide
Google Sheets: Import LinkedIn profile URLs from a public sheet. → Full guide
Saved Lists: Reuse lead lists you've already created. → Full guide

8. Build the Sequence

Your sequence is the series of touchpoints sent to each lead. There are three parts to it: pick a structure, lay out your touchpoints, and decide how each message is written.

Choosing a sequence structure

When building your sequence, you first choose a preset or start from scratch:

Presets (recommended): Ready-made sequences that include pre-written messages you can edit, along with a defined number of steps, touchpoint types, and timing between them. See Pick Your Template to find the right one in under a minute.
Build from scratch: Add each step manually, write your own messages, and define the timing yourself.

💡 Tip: Presets give you a complete starting point. You can edit every message and step to match your voice and goals.

Choosing the message language

At the top of the sequence step, you can choose the language in which your messages will be sent. You have two options:

Pick a specific language (English, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.): Every message in the sequence will be sent in that language to every lead.
Leave the field empty: The system automatically uses Auto-detect prospect's language, sending each lead messages in their own language based on their LinkedIn profile.

This setting works the same way whether you built your own sequence or picked a template.

💡 Tip: You can change the language at any time, even after the campaign is live. Just return to the Sequence tab inside your campaign and select another language.

Build your own sequence

Start your sequence with a Connection Request (recommended: leave the message empty).

Why empty?

Free LinkedIn accounts only get 10 personalized connection messages per week. An empty request saves those credits.
An empty request encourages prospects to visit your profile, consume your content, and learn about your solution before you ever message them.
By the time your follow-up arrives, they already know who you are.

⚠️ Warning: This strategy only works if your LinkedIn profile is strong and optimized.

Campaigns automatically skip:

Existing connections (1st network) when your sequence includes a connection request
Out-of-network contacts (2nd and 3rd network) when the sequence is message-only

💡 Tip: Whether or not you include a connection request as a step determines which LinkedIn network you target - include one to reach 2nd and 3rd-network prospects, or skip it to only message your existing 1st-network connections.

After the connection request, add 4 to 6 touchpoints over 1 to 3 weeks with short, natural follow-up messages.

Choosing how each message is written

Which writer should you pick?

Pick AI when each lead should get a different, personalized message. You give the AI instructions, not the final words. It writes a fresh message for every lead, so it will always rewrite and rephrase your text. That is by design.

Pick Human when every lead should get the same message, sent word-for-word. You write the exact text, and it goes out unchanged — no AI rewriting. It still fills any placeholders you add, like {firstName}, and leaves a blank where a value is missing.

Rule of thumb: AI personalizes for each lead. Human sends the same text to everyone.

Inside every step, you decide who writes the message: AI or Human. This choice changes what you put in the message field.

AI: You give the AI instructions, not the message itself. Treat the text box as a brief - bullet points, talking points, tone guidance, anything that tells the AI what to convey. At send time, the AI treats your text as guidance and rewrites it in its own words, fully personalized for each individual lead based on their LinkedIn profile. Click Generate to preview an example of what the AI will produce. To change the output, edit your instructions and click Generate again.
Human: You write the exact message that will be sent. The system delivers it word-for-word to every lead - no AI rewriting. It still fills any placeholders you add ({firstName}, {lastName}, {company}) and leaves a blank where a value is missing. You can either pick one of our preset messages or type your own. Use this mode whenever you want the same precise wording sent to every single lead.

👉 Note: The Generate button only produces a preview of an AI message. It has no effect on Human messages.

Sending a message word-for-word. If you need a message sent exactly as written, use the Human writer — it never rewrites your text. The AI writer always rephrases by design, so an instruction like "send this exactly as written" will not stop it from rewriting. If an AI step keeps changing copy you want kept intact, switch that step to Human.

Designing a sequence that passes quality checks

Every AI message is reviewed for quality before it ships (see Understanding Message Quality Checks). A few design rules prevent almost all rejections - and make sequences convert better:

One question per message. Ask exactly one thing. If a message needs a linking sentence before the ask, write it as a statement, not a second question.
One clear ask at the end. The last line before the signature should be the call to action (usually a short meeting ask). Do not stack a vague question and a meeting ask in the same message.
Give your link one home. If your objective involves a website, booking, or event link, exactly one message step should carry it - and its instructions should say so explicitly ("End with this exact link: ..."). Do not forbid links in every step while the campaign objective requires one; that contradiction causes repeated rejections.
Declare deliberate soft closes. A final break-up message should contain no ask, no question, no link. Tell the system it is intentional by adding the marker NO_CTA on its own line in that step's instructions. This works in any language.
Early steps build trust, late steps ask. Meeting requests or links in the first messages trigger quality warnings. Lead with an observation or a question, ask later.
Keep it human and short. 25-45 words per message, plain words, no corporate cliches or AI-sounding filler ("caught my attention", "this shows a commitment", "is key"). English messages are also scored for readability (target grade 5-7).
Check the timing. Delays count from the previous step. A common mistake is a long delay before the second-to-last message and one day before the final one, when the reverse was intended.

💡 Tip: After editing step instructions, click Generate to preview what the AI produces and confirm it matches your intent before launching.

📖 For more details, view here:

9. Manage Agent and Access

Assign campaigns to the right agent, set team access, and configure Agent Duplicate Security. When this toggle is on, any lead already contacted by any sender in your team is excluded — not just the same sender. This is separate from the always-on per-sender protection. For the full explanation of how duplicate protection works, see the Campaign Settings article.

10. Review and Launch

Review all steps on the summary page.
Name your campaign.
Save as a draft or click Launch to start sending.

What's Next

Learn how to import leads with AI Lead Finder
Understand conditions and delays in your sequence
Set up Outreach Settings for blacklists and active hours

FAQ

If I add the same person to two campaigns, will they get messaged twice?

It depends on your settings. Leadvista AI always prevents the same LinkedIn sender from messaging someone twice across active campaigns — this protection is always on. To prevent any sender on your team from double-messaging the same lead across all your campaigns, turn on Agent Duplicate Security in the campaign's Settings tab. It's off by default.

If I duplicate a campaign with leads, will people who weren't contacted in the original get messaged again from the start?

Yes — leads who weren't contacted in the original are eligible to be reached in the duplicate. Leads who were already contacted are automatically skipped (same-sender protection). For a smooth handover, turn on Pause New Outreach on the original campaign first so any in-progress sequences can finish before you launch the duplicate.