Find and import LinkedIn prospects

A LinkedIn prospect in Distro is a person identified by their LinkedIn profile link (linkedin.com/in/…). You add them by pasting a link or importing a CSV, group them into lists, and pick a list when you build a campaign. Adding someone never contacts them.

LinkedIn prospects are a tab of People: open People in the Outreach menu, then the LinkedIn prospects tab. The tab opens on your lists; open a list to see and manage the people in it.

Prospects are kept separately from your email contacts, but the People tab shows both in one list with a Can reach by tag (LinkedIn only, or Email + LinkedIn when Distro also has a work email for them). See People and the "Can reach by" tags.

Ways to add prospects

Accepted profile links

Distro accepts personal profile links in the linkedin.com/in/<name> form, with or without https:// and www. It does not accept:

• Short links (lnkd.in/…). Open the profile and copy its full link.
• Old-style /pub/ links. Open the profile and copy its /in/ link.
• Company pages, posts, or Sales Navigator lead links (linkedin.com/sales/…). These aren't personal profile links.

Add one prospect

1. Open the LinkedIn prospects tab, open a list, and click Add prospect.
2. Paste the LinkedIn profile URL, for example https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe.
3. Optionally fill in first name, last name, job title, company, work email, location, tags and notes. Distro stores what you enter; it doesn't read these details from LinkedIn.
4. Click Add prospect.

If the person is already a prospect, Distro tells you and offers Open the existing record instead of creating a duplicate.

Import a CSV

1. Click Import CSV. To import straight into a list, open the list first and use Import CSV into this list.
2. Upload: drop a .csv file. Up to 5,000 rows and 2 MB. The first row must be column names, and one column must hold LinkedIn profile links. From Excel, Google Sheets or Sales Navigator, save or export as CSV (UTF-8).
3. Map columns: Distro guesses where each column goes (for example a "LinkedIn URL" or "Profile URL" column becomes LinkedIn profile URL). Change anything that's wrong. Columns set to Don't import are ignored. Extra columns can become Custom field values (up to 20) that you can use as variables in messages.
4. Preview: nothing is saved yet. Check the counts for Ready, Can't import and Duplicates in file, then choose what happens to Prospects you already have: Skip them, Fill in empty fields or Update chosen fields. Under Save to a list, pick or create the list everyone in the file goes into.
5. Click Import N prospects. The Done step shows how many were added, updated, skipped or not imported.

If your file has a work email column, map it to Work email: those prospects show as Email + LinkedIn in People.

LinkedIn URL,First name,Last name,Job title,Company
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe,Jane,Doe,Head of Sales,Acme

Unfinished imports expire after 24 hours, and you can have at most 5 open at once. Rows that couldn't be imported can be downloaded from the import summary with Download problems (CSV), fixed and uploaded again. All past uploads are under Import history.

Duplicates

Distro keeps one prospect per LinkedIn profile. Within a file, the first row for a profile wins and later rows are marked as duplicates. When a row matches an existing prospect, your choice in the preview decides whether it's skipped or updated. Notes, do-not-contact marks and fields you edited by hand are never overwritten by an import. Matching on email never merges two people.

Lists

Lists are named groups, for example "SaaS founders, Lagos". A prospect can be in several lists, and deleting a list never deletes its prospects.

• New list creates an empty list and opens it. Add people with Add prospect or Import CSV into this list.
• To move existing prospects, select them and choose Add to list.
• People who aren't in any list appear under Not in a list.
• To find someone in any list, use the search box above your lists.
• Copilot lists (badge Copilot · auto) are filled automatically for each product. Nobody in them is contacted until you choose that list for a campaign.
• Each list has a Can reach by tag. Your LinkedIn lists also appear on the People Lists tab, marked "LinkedIn prospect list", next to your email lists.

Statuses and bulk actions

Each prospect is Active, Archived or marked Do not contact. Inside a list, filter by Active, Archived, Do not contact or All. Select prospects to Add to list, Tag, Archive, mark Do not contact or Delete (up to 500 at a time).

• Do not contact: Distro will never contact them, and imports won't change them. You can undo it on the prospect's page with Allow contact.
• Archive: hides the prospect from the main view. Restore brings them back.
• Delete: permanently removes the prospect with their tags and history.

Only active prospects who aren't marked do not contact can be added to a campaign.

Limits

• Up to 10,000 LinkedIn prospects per account.
• Up to 5,000 rows per CSV file.
• Tags: up to 40 characters each, 20 per prospect.

Distro doesn't currently offer a prospect export. Next: Create a LinkedIn campaign.