Ask any company offering this ten things: what exactly will be sent from your profile, whether you approve the target list, whether you can block named companies and industries, whether people you already know will be contacted, exactly how access to the account works, what the risks are and who carries them, what happens if the account is restricted, when and how you are paid and what happens if a campaign pauses, whether you are ever asked to pay them anything, and how you end it. A company that will not answer all ten in writing has already answered the only question that matters.
If you are considering this, you should interrogate the company offering it. Below are the ten questions worth asking, and what an honest answer sounds like.
Ask these of us. Ask them of anyone else too.
1. What exactly will be sent from my profile?
A straight answer: connection requests to a defined target list, and replies within direct messages. Nothing posted publicly. You see the templates before anything goes out.
A bad sign: vagueness. "Professional outreach" is not an answer.
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Worth weighing first: letting anyone else use your account runs against LinkedIn's User Agreement, and the account can be restricted.
2. Do I approve the target list?
A straight answer: yes, before the campaign starts, and you can revise it.
A bad sign: any suggestion that approval is unnecessary or handled later.
3. Can I block specific companies and industries?
A straight answer: yes, and it goes in the agreement. Your own employer and competitors excluded by default.
A bad sign: treating this as an unusual request.
4. Will you contact people I already know?
A straight answer: no. Target lists are people outside your existing network. Your connections and colleagues are off-limits.
A bad sign: wanting access to your existing connections. That is the most valuable thing you have and the fastest way to damage your reputation.
5. How exactly does access work?
A straight answer: a specific, describable mechanism, and a clear statement of what happens when the engagement ends.
A bad sign: asking you to email a password. Anyone who does this is not handling security seriously.
6. What are the risks, and who carries them?
A straight answer: a direct explanation that this sits outside LinkedIn's User Agreement, that account restriction or closure is possible, and that the risk sits with you. Ours is set out in Terms sections 4 and 5.
A bad sign: claiming there is no risk, or that they are "fully compliant". They are not, and a company willing to lie about this will lie about other things.
7. What happens if my account is restricted?
A straight answer: activity stops immediately, they help with the appeal, and the month in progress is still paid in full. No promises about recovery, because nobody can make them.
A bad sign: guaranteeing recovery, or having no answer at all.
8. When and how do I get paid, and what if a campaign pauses?
A straight answer: a stated schedule (ours is daily, from the day a campaign goes live), named methods, and payment that continues even if the campaign pauses on their side.
A bad sign: payment tied to campaign performance. You are providing access, not a sales result. Performance-linked pay transfers their commercial risk onto you.
How the payout methods compare is covered in how professionals get paid.
9. Do I ever pay you anything?
A straight answer: never. No application fee, no setup fee, no deduction.
A bad sign: any fee at any stage. This is the clearest signal of a scam in this space. Money should only ever move toward you.
10. How do I end it, and what happens afterwards?
A straight answer: written notice of a defined length, no penalty, access ceases, you change your password and revoke sessions.
A bad sign: long lock-ins, penalties for leaving, or vagueness about what happens to your access afterwards.
Two more things worth doing
Check your employment contract. If it restricts commercial use of your professional identity, that is between you and your employer, and it is worth knowing before you start rather than after.
Read the actual agreement. Not the website — the contract. If the two disagree, the contract governs. If a company will not show you the agreement before you commit, that tells you what you need to know.
Why we publish this
A professional who asks these questions and gets satisfactory answers stays for years. One who is rushed into it discovers the details later and leaves angry, often publicly.
We would rather you arrive informed. Shorter answers to common questions are in our FAQ. If our answers do not satisfy you, do not apply; if they do, you can apply here.
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