Automate Email Campaigns from LinkedIn Interactions with n8n

Turn LinkedIn post engagement into a repeatable lead-generation engine. This post walks through a complete n8n workflow that captures likers and commenters from a LinkedIn post, enriches their contact data, deduplicates against Airtable, and launches email outreach via Lemlist and HubSpot.

Why automate LinkedIn interactions?

Manually capturing and following up with LinkedIn likers and commenters is slow and error-prone. Automating the process ensures you:

• Respond quickly to engaged prospects
• Keep a single source of truth (Airtable or CRM)
• Enrich contacts for higher deliverability and personalization
• Trigger email campaigns at scale without manual copying/pasting

High-level workflow overview

The provided n8n template does the following, in order:

1. Run on a schedule via Cron Trigger
2. Launch Phantombuster agents to scrape LinkedIn likers and commenters
3. Pause briefly to allow Phantombuster agents to finish and upload output
4. Fetch Phantombuster output and send each profile to Dropcontact for enrichment
5. Check Airtable if the enriched email already exists (deduplication)
6. Update existing Airtable records or create new ones
7. Add the contact to Lemlist (for email campaigns) and HubSpot (CRM)
8. Send a Slack notification when a contact is processed

Key nodes and their roles

Cron Trigger

Starts the workflow on a schedule (example: every hour). This ensures you regularly capture new engagement without manual intervention.

LinkedIn Commenters & LinkedIn Likers (Phantombuster)

Phantombuster agents scrape post interactions (likers and commenters). In n8n these nodes are launched manually or scheduled; the workflow includes a Short Wait node to give Phantombuster time to finish processing and produce output.

Phantombuster Get Output

These nodes retrieve the results of the Phantombuster agents (lists of profiles) and pass them to the enrichment step.

Dropcontact Enrich

Dropcontact attempts to enrich profile data with emails, phone numbers, company, website and more. The workflow maps Dropcontact fields into Airtable and CRM entries using expressions such as:

<code>={{$node["Dropcontact Enrich"].json["data"][0]["email"][0]["email"]}}</code>

Note: Keep an eye on the output structure as APIs evolve; adjust expressions accordingly.

Airtable List + Record Exists (If)

Airtable List retrieves contacts from your Contacts table. The Record Exists node compares the email returned by Dropcontact to any existing Airtable email to decide whether to update or create a record.

Prepare Update / Prepare New

These Set nodes format and map the enriched values into the exact Airtable fields. For example, Prepare New constructs a row with Name, Account, Company website, Email, Phone and LinkedIn.

Airtable Create / Airtable Update

Create appends a new contact, while Update modifies an existing record using the Airtable record ID captured earlier. Both nodes are configured to typecast where appropriate.

Lemlist Add Lead + HubSpot Create Contact

After the contact lands in Airtable, the workflow adds the email to Lemlist (email campaigns) and creates or upserts the contact into HubSpot CRM. The Lemlist node is set to continueOnFail=true to avoid stopping the flow if Lemlist is rate-limited.

Slack Notification

Posts a message to a Slack channel for each new or updated contact, keeping the team informed in real time.

Step-by-step setup guide

1) Clone the workflow

Import the provided n8n JSON template into your instance. Verify you have the necessary credentials for Airtable, Phantombuster, Dropcontact, Lemlist and HubSpot.

2) Configure Phantombuster agents

• Create Phantombuster agents for collecting likers and commenters on the target LinkedIn post.
• Set agents to produce output to the Phantombuster API and allow n8n to fetch it.
• Test agents manually before automating.

3) Add API credentials in n8n

In n8n settings, add credentials for:

• Airtable (API key and base/table)
• Phantombuster (API key)
• Dropcontact (API key)
• Lemlist (API key)
• HubSpot (API key or OAuth)
• Slack (bot token)

4) Map and validate fields

Open the Set nodes (Prepare New / Prepare Update) and map each field to your Airtable column names. The expressions in the template expect Dropcontact’s output format; if you use another enrichment service, update the expressions accordingly.

5) Tune timing and rate limits

Phantombuster agents need time to run. The template uses a 30-second Short Wait before fetching outputs. Depending on the size of the post and Phantombuster agent speed, increase this delay or implement a polling loop until output is ready.

Best practices

• Respect LinkedIn terms of service and Phantombuster usage limits.
• Use deduplication and suppression lists in Lemlist to avoid duplicate sends.
• Validate emails before sending to protect sending reputation.
• Limit how frequently the Cron runs to avoid API overuse and rate limits.
• Enable logging and error notifications in n8n (use Slack/email) to catch failures early.

Troubleshooting tips

• If Dropcontact returns no emails, check that LinkedIn profile URLs or names are being passed correctly.
• When Airtable updates don’t occur, verify the record ID is passed correctly to Airtable Update.
• If Lemlist fails, set continueOnFail=true (as in the template) so the rest of the flow continues and retry later.
• Use n8n’s Execution List and node logs to inspect input/output JSON at each step.

Security, privacy & compliance

Collecting and contacting leads from LinkedIn means handling personal data. Follow these guidelines:

• Only contact prospects for legitimate business purposes and with a clear value proposition.
• Honor opt-outs and maintain suppression lists in Lemlist and HubSpot.
• Store credentials in n8n’s credential manager; avoid hard-coding keys in nodes.
• Consider GDPR: document lawful basis for processing and provide a privacy notice if you send marketing emails to EU residents.

Extensions and improvements

• Add a quality filter: only add contacts with company size or title matching your ICP.
• Implement a smart cadence in Lemlist based on profile data (e.g., personalize first line).
• Use an email verification service before adding to Lemlist to keep bounce rates low.
• Attach LinkedIn profile URL and comment text to Airtable for personalization and reporting.

Summary

This n8n workflow turns LinkedIn post interactions into qualified leads—automatically enriching, deduplicating, and injecting contacts into your email campaigns and CRM. With a few tweaks to timing, field mappings, and filtering rules, it can become a powerful, compliant lead-generation pipeline.

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Ready to deploy this automation? Import the template into your n8n instance, add your API keys, and run a test. Need help customizing the workflow for your stack or ICP? Contact us for a configuration session or automation audit.