The 3-Touch LinkedIn Outreach Playbook for Heads of AI at Sport Fashion Ecommerce Brands (2026)

Quick Answer: Origami now bundles a built-in LinkedIn sequencer, so you don’t need to export your lead list or juggle separate tools. In this 2026 guide, you’ll get a step-by-step playbook for running a three-touch LinkedIn outreach campaign specifically for Heads of AI at sport fashion ecommerce brands — from refining your list to launching personalised sequences directly inside Origami.

You’ve already built a list of Heads of AI at sport fashion ecommerce brands using Origami (if you haven’t, read the parent guide on building that list — you can start with 1,000 free credits and no credit card). Now it’s time to turn that list into real conversations. This post is the companion playbook: the exact sequence, the segmentation logic, and the sending mechanics you need to get replies from people who are notoriously hard to reach.

What you’ll walk away with:

• A precise way to segment your Origami list so only the highest-intent leads enter your sequence.
• A battle-tested, three-touch LinkedIn outreach sequence written specifically for Heads of AI at sport fashion ecommerce brands. Each message is 50–100 words and you can copy-paste-edit it right now.
• How to launch the sequence directly from Origami’s sequencer, track opens and replies, and let automatic un-enrollment keep your outreach clean.
• Realistic response rates and when to iterate on the list versus the messaging.

Why this audience is worth the effort

Heads of AI at sport fashion ecommerce brands sit at the intersection of customer experience and operational efficiency. Most already have a mandate to deliver personalisation at scale, predictive inventory, dynamic pricing, or virtual try-on experiences — but they’re often blocked by infrastructure costs, data silos, or an internal bias toward legacy martech. A well-timed LinkedIn message that speaks directly to those pain points opens doors that cold email can’t.

In 2026, these leaders are more active on LinkedIn than ever. They post about model performance, share opinion on recent papers, and occasionally hint at tooling frustrations. That makes your outreach feel like a natural conversation, not a pitch.

Step 1: Build the list in Origami (the 30-second version)

If you haven’t built the list yet, here’s the exact prompt you would type into Origami:

“Give me a list of Heads of AI, Directors of AI, and VP of AI at sport fashion ecommerce brands. Include companies that sell athletic apparel, running shoes, yoga gear, outdoor clothing, or sport-specific fashion — online-first or omnichannel. Exclude pure equipment retailers. Make sure each contact has a verified name, email, LinkedIn URL, phone, title, and company details like employee count, tech stack, and industry tags.”

Origami’s agent searches the live web, chains data sources, enriches every contact, and returns a table you can filter, sort, and export — all from a single prompt. You’ll see 50–300 leads depending on parameters and plan. If you’re on the free plan, you get up to 1,000 credits to play with (no credit card required).

But the list alone isn’t a campaign. For LinkedIn, you need to segment ruthlessly. That’s what we’ll do next.

Step 2: Refine and segment your list for LinkedIn

A messy list tanks your response rate. The sequencer inside Origami will send messages exactly as you configure them, but if 40% of your contacts are the wrong fit, you’re burning connection requests and damaging your sender reputation. Take ten minutes to segment.

What “qualified” looks like for this audience

In sport fashion ecommerce, not every “Head of AI” leads a team that actually builds models. Some are title inflation: they manage a data engineering unit or a small analytics function. You want people whose daily work involves evaluating, deploying, or scaling AI/ML for customer-facing applications. Look for these signals while reviewing your Origami-enriched list:

• Company size: Brands with 50–500 employees are the sweet spot. They’re big enough to have a dedicated AI leader, but small enough that the Head of AI still makes or heavily influences tooling decisions. Enterprise brands (Nike, Adidas) often have sprawling teams; you can still pursue them, but expect longer cycles.
• Ecommerce platform: Filter by tech stack. If Origami shows the company uses Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, or a headless setup like Commercetools, that’s a strong signal they’re investing in digital experience — and AI sits on top of it.
• Adjacent tools: Presence of Dynamic Yield, Algolia, Constructor.io, Nosto, or Recombee indicates the brand already cares about personalisation and search. The Head of AI is likely evaluating what sits next to (or replaces) these.
• Location & language: If your product or service is English-first, filter for North America, UK, Australia, and EU markets with strong English proficiency. Don’t underestimate timezone; you’ll sequence outreach in the recipient’s working hours.
• Recent activity: While Origami’s enrichment includes tools, you can also cross-check LinkedIn activity manually. A Head of AI who posted about latency issues a month ago is a hot lead. You can create a separate high-intent segment inside Origami by tagging those contacts.

Once you’ve filtered, you’ll typically end up with 20–80 hyper-qualified leads. That’s plenty for a first campaign. Save this refined list in Origami so you can launch the sequence from it directly.

Step 3: Create your LinkedIn sequence (two ways)

Origami’s built-in LinkedIn sequencer gives you two paths:

1. Paste your own templates. Write your three-touch sequence, drop the templates into the sequencer, set delays between touches (e.g., Day 1, Day 3, Day 7) and hit launch. This gives you full control over wording, angle, and tone.
2. Let the AI agent write it. You can ask Origami’s agent to generate a personalised 3-day LinkedIn sequence for all your leads automatically. The agent reads each lead’s profile data — title, company, industry, tech tools — and crafts messages that feel custom without sounding generic. Some users start with the agent, review the drafts, and tweak as needed.

For a campaign targeting Heads of AI at sport fashion brands, I recommend you start with a controlled template and then let the agent personalise the opening line if you expand. Below is the exact three-touch sequence I’ve used and refined through 2026. Copy it, paste it into Origami, and you’re ready.

The full 3-touch LinkedIn outreach sequence (copy-paste)

Touch 1 — Connection request note (sent with invite on Day 1)

Hi [First Name], noticed you’re leading AI at [Company] — the sport fashion ecommerce space is one of the fastest-moving areas right now. I help AI teams at brands like yours cut personalisation latency and reduce infrastructure costs without sacrificing model accuracy. Would be great to connect and swap notes on what’s working in 2026.

This is a soft, low-ask note. It references their industry specifically, mentions two concrete pain points (latency and infra cost), and closes with a connecting intent, not a pitch. Keep it under 100 words.

Touch 2 — Follow-up message (sent Day 3 after connection accepted)

Hey [First Name], hope your week’s going well. I’ve been talking with a few Heads of AI at sport fashion brands, and a pattern keeps surfacing: they’re under pressure to deliver real-time product recommendations and predictive size/fit models, but the compute costs are eating into margin. Some are stuck behind legacy CDPs that don’t process user sessions fast enough. Curious if that resonates. I’ve got a lightweight framework that’s helped teams cut inference spend by ~30% while keeping sub-200ms latency — happy to share if you’d like a quick async walk-through.

Here we call out the exact tension: personalisation + fit prediction vs. compute cost. Mentioning “sub-200ms latency” shows you understand the technical bar. The ask is still soft — “happy to share” gives them an easy yes.

Touch 3 — Final message (sent Day 7 if no reply to Day 3)

Hi [First Name], last gentle ping from me. I know AI leadership at a fast-growing sport fashion brand means you’re probably juggling roadmap, infra, and a hundred Slack channels. If the timing’s off, totally understandable. But if you ever want to see how we’re helping similar brands get personalisation live in weeks (not months) with lower compute overhead, I’m here. No pitch, just a practical session if it’s useful. Otherwise, I’ll bow out gracefully.

This is a respectful soft close. It acknowledges their likely overload, reiterates the core value prop, and releases pressure. Many replies come exactly after this message because it feels safe to respond.

Why this sequence works for this audience

• It never talks about “AI” in the abstract. Every message names the outcomes they care about: latency, compute cost, time to market, and customer experience.
• It positions you as a peer who understands their stack, not a salesperson selling a feature.
• The 3-day and 7-day gaps give them space; you’re not hitting them daily like an SDR chasing volume.
• You leave the door open without guilt-tripping. That matters with technical leaders who receive dozens of lazy pitches weekly.

You can paste these three messages directly into Origami’s sequencer. Set delays to Day 1, Day 3, and Day 7 (or whatever cadence you prefer). The sequencer will automatically substitute [First Name] and other personalisation fields from your enriched list.

Step 4: Send the sequence directly from Origami

This is where Origami changes the game. You built your list inside the platform, enriched it, segmented it — and now you launch the LinkedIn sequence from the exact same dashboard. No exporting CSVs, no syncing to a separate outreach tool, no formatting fields with Excel macros.

Here’s how it works:

• From your refined list view, select the leads you want to include and click “Add to Sequence.”
• Choose “LinkedIn” as the channel, paste your templates or let the agent generate them, set the delay between touches, and confirm.
• Origami’s sequencer uses your own LinkedIn account (connected securely). It respects LinkedIn’s weekly invitation limits and sends connection requests and messages within comfortable thresholds so your account stays in good standing.
• Once launched, you watch everything from the Sequences dashboard: who received the invite, who accepted, who opened your follow-up, who clicked any embedded links, and — most importantly — who replied.
• The key feature: automatic un-enrollment. The moment a lead replies — whether it’s a “sure, send me the framework” or a “no thanks” — Origami pulls them out of the sequence. No accidental breakup message after a booked meeting. You see the reply, you take over the conversation.
• While reviewing a contact’s activity, you can still see their enriched profile right in the same panel: title, company, tools they use, all the context that tells you why you reached out. This keeps the follow-up relevant and human.

The sequencer is entirely free on all paid Origami plans. You only pay for the credits used to enrich your leads. The sending itself costs nothing extra. If you’re on the free plan, you get 1,000 credits to enrich leads and can test the sequencer with a small batch. Paid plans start at $29/month and give you more credits, longer sequencing windows, and deeper enrichment.

One more thing: Because Origami handles everything from list to outreach, you can iterate insanely fast. If a certain segment of your list gets low acceptance rates, you can go back, tweak the filters, rebuild the list, and launch a new sequence in minutes — not hours. That’s the power of having the toolchain connected.

What to expect (and when to tweak)

With a list of 50 highly-qualified Heads of AI at sport fashion ecommerce brands and the sequence above, here’s a realistic performance range in a 2026 LinkedIn environment:

• Connection acceptance rate: 20%–35%. On LinkedIn, these leaders are selective. A rate above 25% means your profile, headline, and connection note are aligned. If you dip below 15%, revisit your own LinkedIn presence (does your headline clearly say you help their world?) and test a different opener.
• Reply rate to follow-up message (Touch 2): 10%–20% of those who accepted your connection. That’s 2–5 replies from 50 invites. If you get zero, your messaging probably sounds too generic or too product-heavy. Swap the angle to something more specific — maybe mention a recent industry trend like “AI-driven virtual try-on adoption in running apparel” instead of generic personalisation.
• Meeting booking rate: Of the replies, about half turn into a 15-minute async walk-through or a Zoom call if your follow-up is low-pressure. That means 1–3 meetings from a campaign that took 15 minutes to set up and required no extra tools.

When to iterate on the list vs. the messaging:

• Low acceptance rate but high reply rate among those who accept → your list targeting might be slightly off (some are the wrong seniority or industry), but your messaging resonates. Tighten your Origami filters (e.g., only include companies with at least three AI-related tools in their stack).
• High acceptance rate but no replies → the list is great, but your Day 3 message isn’t landing. Change the value prop. Drop the percentage claim if it feels salesy. Add a specific customer story (anonymised) like “one brand we worked with reduced model retraining time from two days to six hours.”
• Low on both → start from scratch with a new audience segment or a radically different angle. The data will tell you.

Remember, these are senior technical leaders. They hate fluff as much as you do. The sequence succeeds because it respects their intelligence and their time. If you ever feel the urge to add a fourth touch, resist it. Three well-timed messages, maximum.

One platform, not five

The old way of running this campaign would have you bouncing between a data provider, a CSV editor, a LinkedIn automation tool, a spreadsheet for tracking replies, and a CRM for notes. In 2026, Origami collapses all of that into a single workflow: prompt → enriched list → segmented audience → LinkedIn sequence → live sending → reply tracking. You don’t export anything. You don’t sync anything. You just describe your ideal customer in plain English and let the platform do the rest.

If you haven’t already built your list of Heads of AI at sport fashion ecommerce brands, go straight to the parent guide and start with your free 1,000 credits. Then come back here, copy the sequence, and launch. Done.