What the LinkedIn Import Does

LinkedIn Import Walkthrough (5 min)

LOOM_LINKEDIN

The LinkedIn import pipeline processes your exported LinkedIn data and merges it into your CRM. It handles:

Connections — name, company, title, LinkedIn profile URL
Message history — extracts last sent/received dates per connection
Name cleaning — strips credentials, titles, pronouns, and emoji automatically
Three-tier matching — matches LinkedIn contacts to existing CRM rows before creating new ones

Step 1 — Export Your Data from LinkedIn

1

Go to LinkedIn Settings
linkedin.com → Settings & Privacy → Data privacy → Get a copy of your data
2

Select what to export
Choose at minimum: Connections and Messages
3

Request and download
LinkedIn will email you a download link, typically within 10–30 minutes

LinkedIn sometimes takes up to 24 hours to prepare large exports. If you requested the archive and haven't received the download email yet, check your LinkedIn notifications — it will appear there when ready.

Step 2 — Upload to Google Drive

1

Find the LinkedIn Data folder
Open Google Drive and navigate to Water LLM/LinkedIn Data/. If this folder doesn't exist, go to Water LLM › Settings › Create Folders to create it.
2

Upload the archive
Upload the downloaded ZIP file (or the extracted Connections.csv and messages.csv) into the LinkedIn Data/ folder. Water LLM can extract ZIPs automatically.

Step 3 — Run the Import

Go to Water LLM › External Data Sources › Import LinkedIn Archive.

The pipeline runs these steps in sequence:

Step	What Happens
1	Checks for the LinkedIn Data folder; creates it if missing
2	Extracts CSV files from ZIP if a ZIP is present
3	Parses `Connections.csv` — cleans names (removes credentials, titles, pronouns, emoji)
4	Parses `messages.csv` into the Messages sheet
5	Matches message dates to connections — writes sent/received dates
6	Merges LinkedIn data into the CRM using 3-tier matching (described below)
7	Rebuilds the Contact ID index for downstream features
8	Recalculates Last Contact across all contacts
9	Refreshes the Delete dropdown validation

Don't edit the CRM while the merge is running

A warning appears before the merge step (step 6). If you edit cells while the merge is writing rows, data can land in incorrect positions. Wait until the import completes before making any edits.

How LinkedIn Matching Works

Before creating a new CRM row, Water LLM tries to match each LinkedIn connection to an existing contact using a three-tier system:

Tier	How It Matches	Confidence
1 — LinkedIn URL	Exact match on the LinkedIn profile URL stored in a Website column	Automatic — no confirmation needed
2 — First + Last Name	Fuzzy match on full name (handles credential clutter and nickname variations)	Prompts you to confirm the match
3 — No match	Connection doesn't match any existing CRM contact	Placed in the ℹ️ LI Contacts tab for review

First-time import creates all new rows — no matches expected

If your CRM was empty before the LinkedIn import, no contacts have LinkedIn profile URLs stored yet, so none will match by URL. All connections will either match by name (tier 2) or land in ℹ️ LI Contacts (tier 3) as new rows.

After the first import, future imports will match by URL automatically because the profile URLs were written into the Website columns during the first run. This is normal and expected on a fresh CRM.

The ℹ️ LI Contacts tab

This tab holds LinkedIn connections that didn't match any CRM contact. Review these and decide which ones to bring into your CRM:

Promote to CRM: Water LLM › External Data Sources › Promote LI Contacts to CRM — creates new CRM rows for selected contacts and queues them for Google Contacts sync
Ignore: Leave in LI Contacts if you don't need them in your CRM

Re-Running the Import

You can re-run the LinkedIn import any time after uploading a fresh export. The merge updates or adds — it never overwrites manually entered data in the CRM.

Deleted contacts won't reappear

Contacts in the Deleted Contacts sheet are automatically skipped during every import. This prevents people you intentionally removed from being re-added through LinkedIn imports.

Store LinkedIn URLs to speed up future imports

URL matching (tier 1) is much faster than name matching (tier 2). After your first import, make sure LinkedIn profile URLs were written to the Website columns for matched contacts. Future imports for those contacts will then resolve instantly.

Common Issues

Problem	What's Happening / Fix
All contacts added as new rows, no matches	Expected on a fresh CRM — no profile URLs exist yet to match against. After the first import, future runs match by URL. See "How Matching Works" above.
Import times out (5,000+ connections)	For very large exports, the merge can approach the 6-minute execution limit: Ensure CRM contacts have LinkedIn URLs stored — URL matching is much faster than name matching Run the import in stages if needed (export and import in smaller batches)
A deleted contact keeps reappearing	Check the Deleted Contacts sheet. If they're not there, they may be recreated from another Google source (phone auto-add, Gmail contact sync). Water LLM suppresses re-imports from LinkedIn and its own sync, but not from external Google Contacts sources.
Names still have credentials after import	Run Water LLM › Contacts & Sync › Clean Up Names to strip credentials, titles, and pronouns from the entire CRM in one pass.

📇 LinkedIn Import

LinkedIn Import