Expandi Unbiased Review: is it worth the hype?

An automation tool is very significant when you want to take your business to a new level. Various options are available for this; each of them offers different features and has its own pros and cons. Here we are going to discuss one of the reputed automation tools: Expandi. We have scrutinized Expandi in detail and discussed its alternatives so that you can quickly figure out whether it suits your business needs or not.

What if you need to reach out to a specific category of professionals or businesses? Expandi helps people, mainly entrepreneurs, to reach out to a specific group of professionals or other business agencies. It is pretty challenging to message or email each person individually and ask them whether they are interested in your product or service. Expandi solves such problems by the use of Artificial Intelligence to reach out to people at a mass level.

Expandi was started in 2019 to help businesses, and industries, especially sales personnel to help them generate quality leads via Linkedin without much headache. They solved various problems from managing all Linkedin conversations in one place to auto-messaging, helping various industries worldwide.

But are they able to solve the problems? Did they make any difference? Well, they did it to some extent; they have helped several companies to grow at a much faster rate. Now, let’s discuss whether  Expandi is worth using in 2022.

Let's begin!

What does Expandi do?

Expandi is one of the eminent Linked Automation tools, using which one can shoot up the leads hassle-free through AI. This platform guarantees tempting leads and comes with various personalization options, from images to templates to follow-ups, all on one screen. Basically, if you consider the functioning, expandi combines Linkedin and cold email outreach. Expandi is a good option for day-to-day automation processes and integration. Expandi mimics human behavior while reaching out to prospects, reducing the risk of your Linkedin account getting banned.

You are at the right place to know more about this tool in detail like Features, Pricing, Reviews, Shortcomings, and Alternatives. So without wasting a minute, Scroll down!

Let’s start with the features offered.

What are the features of Expandi?

Dynamic Personalization options

This tool comes with dynamic personalization where you can connect with people based on a custom variable as per your requirements. This method goes far beyond criteria like the name of the company or of a person only. You can set other criteria apart from the common ones.

LinkedIn & email outreach

combined for optimal lead generation results – Expandi can connect to any email provider and integrate LinkedIn and email outreach. You can also create email drip campaigns as well as a smart inbox that makes the job easier. It can also generate smart sequences, allowing you to automate entire campaigns.

Smart Inbox  

If you are reaching out to 100 prospects daily, managing your inbox natively from LinkedIn would be a complicated and messy task. Some messages get lost, you’re limited in filters, or you ignore some messages unknowingly. Using this feature, you can manage many of the chats in one place and reply to each of them easily.

Image and GIF personalization

When it comes to personalizing things, expandi offers diverse options; this can be used to make the interactions more catchy. You may be able to double your reply rates or can take it up to 55%. You need to Put some time into targeting and coming up with a quality outreach plan like messages, channels, segmentation strategy, Images & GIFs, and then just focus on connecting with new leads. Now let’s have a look at some other perspectives.

How does Expandi work?

Expandi is a LinkedIn automation software that works to automate most of your LinkedIn engagements and interactions so that you can reach out to a large number of people and take your business to new heights.

The primary purpose of Expandi is to run your campaigns; you can reach out to people using bulk messaging and get access to other actions like sending Inmails and using images to generate quality leads.

To use this tool, you have to first set up your account after buying a seat from Expandi, then you need to add the Linkedin account that you want to use for automation purposes. After that, if you want to create a campaign and add the necessary things required. Expandi's smart sequence will do the following actions for you:

• Visiting the profiles
• Following the profiles
• Following a company page
• Sending connection requests
• Skill endorsements
• Following-up messages
• Sending open Inmails
• Combining Emails with Linkedin outreach

Expandi can help to randomize the route to people that your account interacts with while you’re offline or relaxing at a cafe. You can set up auto-responses, and the software will take care of the rest of the tasks for you.

Detailed Analysis of Dashboard

It won’t be complete to call an automation tool good unless it shows the position of your campaigns or how far you have grown after using their software. Expandi provides detailed campaign statistics; using this, you can track all your campaigns in one place and view their individual performance. You can also view the best and worst performing campaigns and stop those which are not performing well.

In addition to this, you can also run A/b testing, which helps to test different campaigns and then choose the best-performing ones.

API and Zapier Integrations

If you are willing to generate API for use on other third-party apps, you can do that with expandi too. Using Expandi, you can easily integrate on Zapier. You can manage and align your leads or connections by adding LinkedIn to your CRM, using Zapier. This can also be used to establish connections between LinkedIn and your CRM.

What are the shortcomings of Expandi?

• Customer support- Expandi lacks in providing basic customer support to its users, it is not at all user-friendly, and sometimes they take days to reply to your query and solve the issues that you are facing.
• Non-userfriendly - Its interface is not very user-friendly. It’s pretty cluttered, and some points are hard to understand and get through.
• LinkedIn message limitation - Although Expandi has a feature that enables overcoming LinkedIn limitations, it cannot send more than 100 messages/invite requests per day.

But you might be curious to know about the pricing of Expandi. Do you really need deep pockets to buy their plan? Let’s find out:

How much does Expandi cost?

As of now, Expandi offers a single pricing plan at $99 per month per seat; some start-ups may feel that this is a slightly high price. Also, those who need more than one seat need to have a good amount of bucks with them.

And if we discuss the trial, Expandi offers a 7-day free trial which may not be sufficient for you to get an in-depth experience of their automation.

Expandi user-ratings

Expandi has a 3.9 rating on G2, which is not very good compared to its competitors. In addition to this, it has a decent 4.5 rating on Capterra.

Expandi Review on G2

As mentioned earlier, Expandi has a 3.9 rating on G2 and 17 reviews. Let’s look at what users felt after using Expandi;

Positive:

“The A/B testing features allow me to easily test campaign strategies. The campaign builder is a great feature that allows you to create your own flows, exactly how you want to outreach your leads. I like to host LinkedIn events, and the campaigns for events will allow me to automate my messages and invites, so it saves me a lot of time.”

Negative:

“Other than sending messaging campaigns, it's pretty limited. The reporting isn't worth using as it doesn't produce much value and is hard to interpret. It's also unclear why only some requests are sent - and others don't regardless of the ‘settings’ you select.”

Expandi has mixed reviews of G2; some users have said that the trial was insufficient, while some mention that the tool is hard to use and Interface is not very user-friendly. Sometimes the buttons and options don't work very well. It can also be a bit buggy as compared to other apps. Also, expandi needs to provide more information on the security and safety of the tool.

Expandi Review on Capterra

Expandi has a 4.5 rating on Capterra; let’s look at reviews to find out if it is justified or not:

Positive:

"An easy-to-use LinkedIn outreach platform which provides a strong sense of confidence within a delicate practice, alongside the ability to track the activity and optimize it over time."

"Someone recommended Expandi, and while we are only testing it out, for now, it seems to be very easy to use, intuitive, and helpful for automation."

Negative:

"Builder campaigns or other new features seem good in V2, but for a long time, it was difficult to judge if we have higher success with new tactics due to missing data or weak statistics."

As reviewed on Capterra, the platform is intuitive and helpful for automation as the targeting is very accurate. But the same fact keeps on popping up at every platform that the lead gen tool is not much interactive and user-friendly; technically also, there are some issues with Expandi. There is a lack of guidance and manuals on some features; users don’t know how and when to use a particular function; they only consider it suitable for basic automation and personalization, as they are not fully aware of other functions.

Is Expandi safe to use?

Expandi is a cloud-based platform, making it difficult for LinkedIn to detect its use. In addition, it has a wide range of options for randomizing and making breaks between activities, and it also provides each user with a dedicated IP and an account warm-up mode; with other LinkedIn automation tools, your IP is different each time you log in and LinkedIn can tell if you’re logging in from a different country each time, but this won’t happen with Expandi, it’s not traceable by LinkedIn.

But still, we can’t say this is a 100% safe tool to use as LinkedIn may restrict your account or even get permanently banned if it somehow traces the use of AI on your account.

Salesrobot: Is it the best option for LinkedIn outreach?

Salesrobot is a robust cloud-based automation tool designed explicitly for cold outreach on LinkedIn, enabling users to easily create elaborate campaigns that run on total autopilot. Since it has plenty of options for automating various activities, Salesrobot’s a perfect LinkedIn automation tool for a wide range of users, from lead generation agencies to start-ups, sales teams, recruitment agencies, and individual small business owners. It also has the best personalization options with customized templates. It also comes with an Email enrichment feature to make the task easier.

What features does Salesrobot offer?

Top-notch personalization options

Salesrobot offers different options for personalization; you can effortlessly draft and send highly-personalized messages and connection requests in just a few clicks. Sales Robot’s latest generation AI can automatically find the things that stand out from a particular profile, such as experience with volunteering or top certifications, among others. You can use Images and GIFs in your messages or emails to make the approach attractive.

Email enrichment option

Using this automation tool, you will find and verify your prospects’ business email addresses effortlessly. Since Sales Robot has integrated data from a verified email address provided, the chances for a mismatch or difficulties in verification are reduced to a minimum, and you can draft emails without any inconvenience.

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Smart Inbox

Salesrobot also offers a Smart Inbox facility that you can use to manage all of your conversations in one place. You can monitor all your leads in just one place and customize or filter them all per your requirements. Moreover, you can solve similar issues with just one click. Using this feature, you can do message management without wasting your time.

Smart campaign and message sequences

You can smartly run the campaign and use follow-up message features or use one of the ready-made templates that are fully customizable to fit every goal and purpose. The sequences are based on your lead’s behavior, so there’s no chance for embarrassing missteps, such as sending a follow-up even when the lead’s already answered your first message. And you can track all the activities in one dashboard.

Salesrobot is a tool with plenty of options for automating various activities, from lead generation to start-ups, sales teams, recruitment agencies, and individual small business owners; Salesrobot can be very beneficial. It allows you to send 200 messages and connection requests daily.

One thing to note

One pricing plan only

Salesrobot comes with only one pricing plan for now. However, the value for your money is more than enough to justify the cost. You can expand your network with this plan in a 100% safe manner.

What is the pricing of Salesrobot?

At the time being, Salesrobot has a couple of pricing plans:

• Professional at $99 per month per account.

In addition to this, you get a 20% discount on a yearly subscription.

Salesrobot comes with a 14-day free trial, so you can try it in a detailed manner.

Lempod: The best option for Content Engagement

Lempod is an automation tool that supercharges your business growth by increasing your LinkedIn post views and engagement.

As such, it’s an excellent solution for marketers, business owners who’d like to build and promote their brand, salespeople selling products or services, and recruiters looking for the best potential employees.

This tool primarily works by enabling users to join groups or “pods” of other users who will then like and/or comment on each other's posts.

What are the benefits of Lempod?

• It increases your post visibility - By joining relevant pods and publishing posts in them, you’ll effectively get your content in front of a crowd of eager audiences. Since you can choose pods based on your target industry or location, chances are you’ll attract at least some potential leads that way.
• You’ll get higher post engagement - You can choose whether you’d like other pod members to both like and comment on your posts, or you can disable one of these options. In addition, you get to choose what comments your audience can post.

• You can create your personal pods - this is a great option for companies in particular, as by doing that, you can ensure that your teammates and employees engage with your content the way you intended them to.

Lempod - Shortcomings

• It’s not the best of options for lead generation - Since there are no advanced filtering options, you can’t really choose which users will engage with your content, as all members of a given pod will like and/or comment on your posts. However, there are no guarantees that any of them are actually interested in what you have to offer.
• It can infest your LinkedIn feed with irrelevant connections and content - When you’re a pod member, your feed will inevitably be swarmed by content from all the other pod members you may not be interested in the least. In fact, it’s a widespread problem Lempod users face;
• It’s a browser extension - So the question of Lempod’s safety is somewhat dubious. Moreover, extensions are prone to lagging and slowing your device down, so it’s another thing to have in mind;
• There’s a limited number of posts you can publish per day - Judging by the information that can be found on their official website, you can share between 1 and 3 posts per day for “safety reasons”.

How much does Lempod cost?

Lempod has two pricing plans, one for individuals and another for companies.

The main difference between the two is that individuals get charged per pod, while companies get charged per user in a pod.

That means that if you want to join any pod and post your content there, you’ll have to pay $5 for it.

On the other hand, companies pay $2 per user in a pod.

Lempod allows users to choose between getting a 7-day free trial and 3 free pods to try the tool out.

Lemlist:  Best Expandi alternative for automating email campaigns

Lemlist is an all-in-one outbound marketing platform with a focus on cold email outreach.

This software offers solutions for creating automated email drip campaigns, personalizing email copy, providing high email deliverability, and having options for cold calls.

What does Lemlist excel in?

• Email domain warm-up – Lemlist gives you a slow start and progressively increases the number of emails they send to prospects. Moreover, its algorithms make sure that everything flows smoothly and keep you out of spam by maintaining conversation threads and pulling your mail back to the primary inbox if it does end up in spam;

• Scheduling emails and setting up daily team limits - that way, Lemlist prevents sending more than the desired number of emails and mimics human behaviour;

• Cold email templates database;
• Custom landing pages for every prospect.

Where does Lemlist lag behind?

• Lacking in LinkedIn outreach – Lemlist was not primarily intended for LinkedIn outreach. However, some time ago, Lemlist devised a LinkedIn Chrome extension.

Given that it’s a browser extension, its use exposes you to a considerable risk of being detected and banned by LinkedIn. Moreover, you only get the extension if you opt for the most expensive pricing plan;

• The interface often glitches and is pretty unintuitive, making it hard for new users to get around;
• It doesn’t have an in-app email finder - it finds emails only through integration with other apps such as Drop contact, meaning more costs for you.

How much does Lemlist cost?

Lemlist has three pricing plans:

• Email warm-up at $29 per month;
• Email outreach at $59 per month;
• Sales engagement at $99 per month.

The prices are somewhat lower should you opt for annual billing. There’s also a special offer for lead gen agencies, but the exact amount is not disclosed on the official website.

If you are serious about acing your email outreach, you’ll have to go for one of the two pricier plans. The basic one will leave you with next to nothing since all the vital tools for conducting a successful email campaign is omitted from it.

On the upside, there’s a 14-day free trial, and you don’t have to provide your credit card information during that period. Essentially, you get a free ride for two weeks to test everything out and see for yourself whether Lemlist gets the job done for you or not.

Expandi Summary

Regarding Expandi’s strengths, it offers various hyper-personalization options and you can expect a good positive response rate.

Expandi is great at GIF and image customization, as it offers plenty of easy options for creating personalized messages using exciting and original visuals.

The solution Expandi has for cold email outreach and the possibility of combining it with LinkedIn outreach is an excellent feature if your business greatly relies on cold email prospecting.

When it comes to advanced features, Expandi simply offers more options to improve your lead gen process. The dashboard allows you to switch to-and-from accounts. You can expect some unique features like post-engagement search, dynamic personalization, running multiple campaigns, setting auto-responses, campaign insights, and many more.

On the other hand, Expandi’s 7-day trial is a little bit short, as 7 days are definitely not enough to try out the platform - so you’ll need to subscribe for at least a month to test the product thoroughly.

Although Expandi has a feature that enables users to work around the LinkedIn limits, you still may not be able to send more than 100 messages or requests per day.

If you are looking for a great alternative to Expandi, then SalesRobot can be a good option as it offers similar features; but the pricing is high as compared to Expandi, but the pricing is justified considering the top-quality features and safety in bypassing LinkedIn limits offered by SalesRobot.

Or, if you are looking for some good sort of engagement on your Linkedin posts, and to increase the views, then you can go for Lempod without a second thought.

Lastly, if you are looking for good personalization and cold outreach as Expandi offers, then you can go for Lemlist; but safety is the only issue that Lemlist has to work on.