Finding the right people is the first and most important step in Conextly. Everything downstream — your reply rate, your account's health, the quality of every draft — depends on who you put on your list. This page shows how to search well.
Two ways to search
Describe it. Open Find and type who you're after in plain language: "VP of Sales at logistics companies in Texas," "founders of seed-stage fintech startups," "heads of talent at agencies over 50 people." Conextly turns that into a structured search across LinkedIn's filters.
Build it. For precise control, set the filters yourself — title, seniority, company, industry, location, headcount, connection degree — and add a Boolean string for exact title matching. This is the way to go when you know exactly what a good-fit title looks like. See Writing Boolean Searches and the Search Filters Reference.
Most people start by describing and then tighten with filters once they see the first results.
What the results show
Each result carries the signals that matter for outreach, not just a name:
- Current role and company — what they do now.
- Tenure — how long they've been in the role. Someone three weeks into a job is a very different prospect from someone three years in.
- Mutual connections — shared connections that make a warm intro or a credible opener possible.
- Location and company size — so you can filter to the segment you actually sell to or hire from.
Aim for tight, not big
The instinct is to cast wide — 5,000 results feels like more opportunity than 50. It isn't. A loose search dilutes every message you send, drags down your reply rate, and burns your daily action budget on people who were never going to be interested. LinkedIn's algorithms also watch reply and acceptance rates: reaching people who ignore you quietly hurts your standing.
A good search is specific enough that you'd be comfortable messaging every single person in it. If you wouldn't, tighten it: add a seniority band, narrow the geography, or require a keyword that only real-fit prospects would have.
From results to a list
When the results look right, save the people you want to a list — a named group you'll work through together. Lists keep your pipeline organized and let you review drafts in batches. See Building Lists.
Save the search itself
If this is a search you'll want to run again — a role you're always hiring for, a segment you're always selling to — save the search, not just the results. Conextly re-runs it and tells you when new people match, so your pipeline refills itself. See Saved Searches & New-Match Alerts.
Respecting LinkedIn's search limits
Free LinkedIn caps how much searching you can do each month (the commercial-use limit), and Conextly stays within whatever your account allows. If you search heavily on a free account and hit the cap, it resets monthly; Premium and Sales Navigator raise or remove it. Conextly never tries to search past your account's real limits.