How to track multichannel engagement across email and LinkedIn with Nektar

If you’re in sales, ops, or revenue leadership and you still can’t see all your team’s customer conversations—especially across email and LinkedIn—you’re not alone. Most CRMs promise “360-degree visibility” but can barely keep up with one channel, let alone both. Here’s the honest truth: tracking multichannel engagement is messy, but it’s possible to get a lot closer to reality with the right tools and a little setup. This guide shows you how to do it with Nektar, a tool made for capturing sales activity where it actually happens.

Let’s cut through the noise and get to something that actually works.

Why Track Multichannel Engagement in the First Place?

Here’s the deal: buyers aren’t sticking to just email or calls anymore. LinkedIn DMs, emails, calls, WhatsApp—deals can live and die in any of these. If you’re blind to half the action, your CRM reports are just wishful thinking.

  • Sales managers want to know who’s actually talking to customers (and how often).
  • Ops teams need real data to improve processes, not just “gut feel.”
  • Reps want credit for outreach, wherever it happens.

But, most CRMs are blind to LinkedIn, and reps don’t want to spend their day copy-pasting messages across platforms. That’s where Nektar comes in.

Step 1: Get Real About What You Can (and Can’t) Track

Before you start, it’s worth knowing what’s possible:

  • Email: Pretty straightforward. Most tools (including Nektar) can sync emails, subject lines, recipients, and timestamps—sometimes even body content, depending on privacy and permissions.
  • LinkedIn: Trickier. Most CRMs can’t touch it. LinkedIn’s API is locked down, so unless you’re using a tool designed for this, you’re not going to get DMs logged automatically. Nektar uses browser-based integrations to pick up LinkedIn messages and activity.

What you probably can’t track:
- WhatsApp, SMS, or encrypted platforms—at least not reliably or ethically. - Group messages or comments on public posts (again, privacy and API limits).

Pro tip:
Don’t waste time trying to “track everything.” Focus on email and LinkedIn DMs—those make up 80% of real deal progress for most B2B teams.

Step 2: Connect Your Email and Calendar to Nektar

First, get your basics in place:

  1. Admin setup:
  2. Make sure you have admin access to both your CRM and Nektar.

  3. You’ll need integration permissions for your company’s email system (Google Workspace or Microsoft 365).

  4. Connect email:

  5. In Nektar, connect your email accounts. This usually means OAuth authorization—no sensitive passwords stored.

  6. Nektar will start syncing emails related to your CRM contacts and accounts.

  7. Connect calendar:

  8. Same drill—authorize calendar access.
  9. Nektar can now log meetings, invites, and attendance alongside emails.

What works:
- Near real-time sync for emails and meetings. - Automatic association with the right CRM records.

What doesn’t:
- Private emails (internal chatter, personal notes) won’t be synced—and honestly, you wouldn’t want that anyway.

Step 3: Add LinkedIn Tracking (Here’s Where It Gets Interesting)

LinkedIn is the wild west for CRM data. But Nektar’s browser-based plugin can bridge the gap:

  1. Install Nektar’s LinkedIn extension:
  2. Usually, it’s a Chrome extension your reps install.

  3. Walk your team through the (short) setup—don’t assume they’ll do it on their own.

  4. Authenticate with LinkedIn:

  5. Each rep needs to log in and connect their LinkedIn account. Nektar doesn’t store passwords; it just needs API permission through the extension.

  6. Start capturing activity:

  7. The extension logs DMs, connection requests, and responses tied to your CRM contacts.

  8. Some tools try to pull post likes or comments—ignore that; it’s noise for actual sales engagement.

  9. Map LinkedIn messages to CRM records:

  10. Nektar matches LinkedIn contacts to CRM leads/accounts based on email, name, and company.
  11. There will be mismatches—clean up your CRM contacts for better results.

Stuff to watch out for:
- Privacy: Make sure your team is comfortable with what’s being logged. Nektar is designed for enterprise use, but always double-check. - Coverage: If reps don’t install the plugin, nothing gets tracked. Bake it into onboarding.

Step 4: Set Up Rules for What Gets Synced (And What Doesn’t)

You don’t want your CRM clogged with every “thanks!” or automated reply. Nektar lets you control what gets captured.

  • Set filters:
  • Only sync emails and DMs with external contacts (not internal teams).
  • Exclude messages with certain keywords (like “unsubscribe” or “out of office”).

  • Choose whether to log full message bodies, just subjects/previews, or only metadata.

  • Decide on frequency:

  • Real-time sync is nice, but daily is usually enough—pick what fits your workflow.

Don’t bother:
- Logging every single touchpoint. Focus on meaningful engagement—conversations, not just opens or one-word replies.

Step 5: Review and Tune the Data in CRM

Once Nektar is humming, check what’s actually landing in your CRM:

  • Spot check records:
  • Pull up a few key deals. Are recent LinkedIn DMs and emails showing up, with correct timestamps and contacts?

  • If not, retrace your steps—look for plugin issues or bad contact mappings.

  • Talk to your team:

  • Are reps seeing their real activity reflected? Any privacy surprises?

  • Ask for feedback. If it’s logging too much noise, tweak your rules.

  • Audit regularly:

  • Once a month, review a sample of logged activities. Clean up any mismatches or junk.

Honest take:
You’ll never get 100% coverage. Aim for “good enough”—if you’re seeing 80-90% of real engagement, that’s a win.

Step 6: Put Engagement Data to Work

Now that you’re capturing multichannel engagement, make it useful:

  • Pipeline reviews:
  • See which deals have gone cold (no LinkedIn or email touches in weeks).

  • Spot “phantom” deals—opportunities with zero real engagement.

  • Coaching:

  • Help reps who are over-relying on email and ignoring LinkedIn (or vice versa).

  • Use data to show what’s actually working, not just what feels comfortable.

  • Reporting:

  • Build dashboards showing total touches per account, channel mix, and rep activity.
  • Don’t obsess over vanity metrics (“messages sent”); focus on actual conversations and deal movement.

Ignore the hype:
No tool can tell you exactly why a deal moves—just whether people are talking, and on what channels. It’s a signal, not the whole story.

Step 7: Keep It Simple (and Don’t Make This Someone’s Full-Time Job)

  • Automate as much as possible:
  • Manual logging is a waste of time and never sticks.
  • Don’t over-engineer:
  • You don’t need ten dashboards. Start with one or two reports that show engagement by channel and deal stage.
  • Iterate:
  • As your team’s habits change, update filters and rules. Don’t be afraid to prune what’s not useful.

Final Thoughts: Iterate, Don’t Overthink

Getting real visibility into sales engagement across email and LinkedIn isn’t magic, but it is possible with the right setup. Nektar takes care of the grunt work, but you’ll still need to tune things to your team and use a little judgment. Skip the dashboard overload and focus on what actually moves deals forward.

Start simple, review often, and don’t fall for the “track everything” trap. Most of this is about giving your team more time to sell, not more forms to fill out. Keep it practical, and you’ll see the benefits where it counts—on your pipeline, not just your reports.