Qualify New LinkedIn Connections
Automatically research and qualify new LinkedIn connections with AI, score their potential as leads (1-10), and save enriched data to Google Sheets for follow-up.
Last updated
November 15, 2025
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Key Takeaways
- AI-powered lead scoring - each connection is rated 1-10 based on role fit, company data, and buying signals
- Web search + LinkedIn API - combines web research with LinkedIn company and member profile lookups
- Enriched output to Google Sheets - saves qualification score, reasoning, and profile details for follow-up
- Customizable scoring criteria - adjust the AI prompt to match your ideal customer profile
What This Workflow Does
This workflow loads your LinkedIn connections from Google Sheets, researches each person using AI web search and LinkedIn API, scores their potential as a lead (1-10), and writes the enriched data back to Google Sheets.
Use cases:
- Qualify new LinkedIn connections while they're still engaged
- Prioritize which connections to follow up with first
- Build a scored lead list ready for CRM import
How It Works
| Step | What Happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Manual trigger | You start the workflow |
| 2. Load connections | Reads your LinkedIn connection data from Google Sheets |
| 3. Parse data | Code node structures each row (name, company, position, connected date) |
| 4. AI web research | Searches the web for each person's professional background and recent activity |
| 5. LinkedIn deep dive | Looks up company profile and member profile via LinkedIn API |
| 6. Lead qualification | AI scores each lead 1-10 with a written reason |
| 7. Save to Google Sheets | Writes enriched data (score, reasoning, profile details) back to Sheets |
How to Get Your LinkedIn Connections
- Go to linkedin.com/mypreferences/d/download-my-data
- Select "Connections" from the data export options
- Request the export (LinkedIn will email you when ready, usually within 10 minutes)
- Download the Connections.csv file
- Upload to Google Sheets
Expected columns: First Name, Last Name, Company, Position, Connected On
Setup Instructions
- Click "Use template" on this page
- Export your LinkedIn connections and upload them to Google Sheets
- Connect integrations: Google Sheets and LinkedIn API
- Update the Google Sheets URLs in the workflow (input sheet and output sheet)
- Customize the qualification criteria in the lead scoring AI node's system prompt
- Test with 5-10 connections before running a full batch
Customization
| What You Can Change | How |
|---|---|
| Scoring criteria | Edit the system prompt in the lead qualification AI node |
| Output columns | Adjust the structured output schema in the AI node |
| Google Sheets source | Update the URLs in the Google Sheets nodes |
| Research depth | Increase max steps on the web research or LinkedIn AI nodes |
FAQ
Q: Do I need LinkedIn Premium? A: No. The workflow uses LinkedIn's public API for company and profile lookups, which doesn't require Premium.
Q: Can I customize the scoring criteria? A: Yes. Edit the system prompt in the lead qualification AI node to define what makes a good lead for your business.
Q: Can I re-run this on the same connections? A: Yes. The workflow doesn't track which connections have been processed. Add a "Status" column to your Google Sheet and use a code node to skip already-processed rows.
Q: What if I have 1,000+ connections? A: Process in batches of 100-200 at a time to avoid API rate limits. You can add a filter node to limit which rows are processed per run.
Q: Can I use this for other lead sources? A: Yes. Adjust the Google Sheets input to match any data source, as long as you have a person's name and company.
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