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It doesn’t feel like they want to support, I booked a call - a guy came and said he has to fix his network, waited for 30 minutes just to check how to use the tool and then dropped as he never showed up. same thing happened earlier - booked a demo and nobody joined the call.

Need better integrations. Need APIs

Closely has a lot of promise, but I've been struggling to get most of the functionality to work the way it is supposed to. Customer support has been very responsive, but we quickly get to a point where they need to "transfer this issue to our devs and provide you with an update as soon as we receive it."

Like most users, we want a multi-channel solution that enables LinkedIn and Email campaigns to use personalized messages for outreach. I currently have 4 outstanding support requests that I have listed the titles to below. If any of these are deal breakers for you, I would encourage you to look for a different solution at this point.

1. OPEN: Failed Custom Variable-LinkedIn Connection Request
I was "adding a note" to LinkedIn connection requests, and Closely substituted my custom variable (which showed correctly in the preview) with "custom_9483" in the actual message that was sent to a prospect. This clearly gave away I was using poor automation, and it is embarrassing.

2. OPEN: Bcc not working on sent mail from Closely
Followed the steps to set this up. Bcc's are never sent.

3. OPEN: HubSpot Integration creates duplicate entries and does not sync emails or LinkedIn messages
Integrated with HubSpot. Every campaign creates a duplicate entry, and Closely never syncs any message (email or LinkedIn) despite that option being checked.

4. OPEN: Letter case issue for built-in variables from a field in CSV
Imagine sending a message to a prospect saying "Since you are a <job_title>....". This is a common outreach strategy. When you use built-in variables, Closely will use upper case for the first letter, and then lower case for all the other letters of the value. I've tested this on company names and on job titles. If my CSV data has "CFO" as the job title, I get "Cfo" in the message; "VP" translates to "Vp". This obviously is a problem. Imagine a message that references the company name "BBC", but instead, it will say "Bbc"...it just sends the wrong impression.

I'm giving Closely 2 tacos for trying, but I would highly recommend only using it for non-personal outreach and test everything very carefully before ruining your reputation.

Alex, I'm happy to get on a call with you and demonstrate some of these bugs. I've submitted reproduction steps and screenshots with each one, so your support team and dev teams will have these as well.

I bought 10 codes, but app doesn't work well. Even simple chat feature, there are many issues.

I used this to help scrape LinkedIn information and run campaigns, which it worked fairly well. Also, their technical support was excellent and on top of the issues. I'm going to continue to use them.

The only reason I rated this 4 and not 5 is that LinkedIn kept sending me threatening messages about using automation, but Closely support helped me through it.

Observation #1. 101 basic features. In 2025, those features will feel like something you can start generating by yourself via Claude. Basic features everyone else has offered for ages.

Observation #2. The product isn't evolving at all.
P.S. I'm not even taking into account their Apollo.io clone attempt because there's no chance it's anywhere near those systems; most emails are non-existent and/or outdated. This isn't the value, value is in what they can do around and for LinkedIn accounts.

Observation #3. LinkedIn restricts accounts more often than not (more and more). It was okay in the past, nowadays LinkedIn has gotten better with detecting those things, and Closely is not evolving at all, so here we are...

Observation #4. To recap, their product manager / CEO needs to understand users' needs and features that will help get better profile visibility, engagement, low-cost marketing, etc.

Proposing a DM feature but instead of on LinkedIn - on their platform type of features is a joke. 'Nice to have' features when you really don't know what to do next.

I'm sorry to say that Closely does NOT actually have a scraper. I tried to scrape a LinkedIn Search URL. It found 6 emails out of over 1,000 people. I ran the same search on LinkedHelper2, and they found hundreds. I told Closely this, and they told me that it's not a bug. They use their own database to provide me emails and are not actively scraping LinkedIn with their plugin! They are literally lying about having a chrome extension that scrapes leads. It doesn't and they won't fix it. This is what their tech support said, "We have checked an issue that you have previously reported and as we see, we don't have an emails of that contacts. I would like to inform you that we are updating our database every day..." So don't get this product if you need email scraping.

I had high hopes for Closely, especially with their attractive initial deal. However, my experience quickly turned frustrating. Within weeks of signing up and going through their warm-up campaign stage, I received notifications from LinkedIn that my account was flagged for automation, resulting in restrictions.

When I contacted Closely about this issue, they simply sent standard instructions: turn off campaigns, don't use new accounts, etc. I followed their advice - disconnected Closely and waited several weeks to let things cool down. When I tried again, I set everything to manual mode with extremely conservative settings (just 2 connections per day). Despite these precautions, within 24 hours, LinkedIn restricted my account again.

Throughout this ordeal, Closely's response remained the same - just generic messages with no real solutions. There was no sense of urgency or genuine attempt to help resolve the situation. I couldn't risk having my LinkedIn account permanently suspended, so I had to stop using their service entirely.

Key Takeaways:
* Account gets flagged by LinkedIn even with minimal automation settings
* Customer service only provides generic, unhelpful responses
* Risk of permanent LinkedIn account suspension is not worth it
* Even after following all their recommended precautions, issues persist
* No proper support or solutions when problems occur

My Linkedin got restricted twice using this tool. The first time I got a warning from LinkedIn, I contacted their support and asked for suggestions to follow. I followed exactly the same but got restricted 2 days later.

Your account is temporarily restricted
We’ve restricted your account until December 22, 2024 1:35 PM PST because we detected the use of software that automates activity. To protect our members’ privacy and help foster authentic interactions on LinkedIn, our User Agreement prohibits the use of these tools.

Please review any tools you’re using to access LinkedIn and remove any automated software. If you’d like to provide us with more details about your account so we can further assist you, contact us.

that was my 2nd time i have got warning from linkdein this is not good for any other country only based for united state

It is not safe to use like other apps. My account got banned in just 3 days after using this. Stay away

-The support is fast, so I’ll give it some credit for that.
-The features are very simple and old-fashioned.
-You can’t change the emails much (no fancy variability). It’s coming, but it should have been there already.
-You can only add a few email inboxes. This makes it hard to keep your email in good shape. It’s not really useful for sending cold emails with your LinkedIn strategy (bummer).