I think these worked because they sound human, genuine, personality-driven, and low-pressure. But, of course, you need to tailor them to your situation and role.
"hey {firstName}, thanks so much for connecting. one step closer to my goal! haha 🙂"
This worked because I showed my personality and referenced something specific about my journey which made it feel warm and genuine.
You can use this with any LinkedIn search import - you don’t need any specific context about the person other than their first name.

This is the campaign I built in Botdog for this one. You can skip the AI Review skip if you’re not a Pro+AI user - I added this because I wanted to check that each person was in my ICP before sending a request.
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</aside>
"hey {firstName}, saw your comment on {person}'s post about {topic}. i couldn't agree more, so thought it might be good to connect 🙂"
This worked because I referenced something they actually did which showed I was paying attention without putting any pressure on them.
You can use this when you've imported a list of people who commented on a specific LinkedIn post (either yours or a competitor's). This works especially well for competitor posts where commenters are showing interest in your space.