The cadence

What happens after someone accepts your connection request: when each message goes out, and the one rule that overrides everything — a reply stops all automated follow-ups instantly.

From Accepted to first message

When a lead accepts, your agent notices during one of its work windows and immediately drafts the first message — the lead moves to Message prepared. What happens next depends on the mode for that step:

• Review mode: the draft waits at Message prepared until you approve it.
• Auto mode: it sends in an upcoming work window.

So the first message typically goes out within hours of acceptance in auto mode — or as soon as you approve it in review mode. You can always read the exact text on the lead's page before (and after) it sends.

When does message 2 go out?

Follow-ups are spaced days apart, counted from the previous message, and only sent if the lead hasn't replied. The default cadence is three LinkedIn messages:

1. Message 1 — right after they accept.
2. Message 2 — about 3 days after message 1, if no reply.
3. Message 3 — about 5 days after message 2, if no reply.

Your Flow tab is the source of truth for your own cadence — it shows every block, its channel and its spacing, and you can edit them there or ask your Ninja to add, change, or remove a block. Two timing notes: "3 days later" means during a work window on that day, not at an exact hour; and in review mode a follow-up won't send until you've approved it, even if its day has come.

Email steps (Pro)

On the Pro plan you can connect a Gmail or Outlook mailbox in Settings → Connections, and your cadence can then interleave email with LinkedIn — for example: LinkedIn message on acceptance, an email two days later, a LinkedIn follow-up three days after that, and so on. Email steps behave exactly like LinkedIn steps: same review/auto toggle per block, same spacing rules, and the same hard stop the moment the prospect replies on either channel.

Email steps are written to stand on their own, because a prospect who never opened your LinkedIn message shouldn't receive an email that reads like a reply to it. Each one goes out from your own mailbox, under your name.

Why so spread out? Because it works. A prompt follow-up plus patient spacing reads like a genuinely busy professional; four messages in four days reads like a bot — to the lead and to LinkedIn.

A reply stops everything — guaranteed

The moment a lead replies, all automated follow-ups to that person stop. Immediately, in both modes, with no exceptions. A follow-up that was already queued for later will not send. The lead moves to Replied and the conversation is yours from there — the agent never answers a reply on its own. See Handle replies.

This is a hard guarantee, and the whole point of the design: automation gets you to the conversation; it never barges into one.

Connection notes vs. blank invites

A connection note is the short text that can accompany a connection request. Your agent sends requests without one — a blank invite. That's deliberate, not a bug:

• Blank invites often get accepted more, not less. A note that smells like a pitch is an easy "Ignore."
• The connection request is just the handshake. The real opener is message 1, sent after acceptance — when the lead can actually reply.

So if you're wondering "when you send the first connection, aren't you sending a message with it?" — no, and that's on purpose. Your effort goes into message 1, which lands after they accept.

If the cadence ends with no reply

After the last message, automated outreach to that person ends. No endless drip, no re-enrollment. The lead:

• stays a 1st-degree connection — your network grew either way,
• stays visible in Leads at their last stage,
• can be picked up by you manually anytime — some best replies come weeks later, from you.

Silence at the end of a cadence isn't failure; it's the normal cost of outreach. The pipeline keeps filling behind it — see A day in your agent's life.

The one exception: a date they asked for

If a prospect replies with a date — "not now, ping me in Q4", "circle back after the holidays" — your agent remembers it. When that date arrives it drafts a short re-opener and puts it in front of you for approval. It is never sent automatically: an unprompted message to someone who asked to be left alone until a date is exactly the message a human should read first.

This only ever fires on a date the prospect named. A conversation that simply went quiet is never revived on its own.