Promo DMs that actually get opened?

Doing a lot of DM outreach lately and the hit rate is depressing... most get ignored, and if I push volume the account gets restricted for spam.
Trying to work out what can make it better.
How much is the profile warmup doing vs the actual message? And Is there a timing/pacing thing to how you ramp up so you don't trigger some spam flag?

These two questions have different answers, and mixing them is what makes this feel unfixable.

The profile decides whether you get restricted. The message decides whether you get a reply. A warmed profile with a bad opener still gets ignored, and a strong opener on a cold profile still gets you limited.

On the restriction side, the number that matters isn't your daily count, it's the complaint rate. A person who sends fifty a day with almost no reports lasts far longer than someone sending twenty that people block. So ramping by calendar misses the point. Watch what share of recipients block or report, and slow down when that moves, not when you hit some arbitrary cap.

The single biggest lever on both is the first message carrying no link. Send something normal, let them answer, put the link in the second message once there's a conversation. Links in a cold first contact are what turns an ignored message into a reported one.

And judge it on replies, not opens. Opens tell you almost nothing about whether the approach works.

Best,
Floqal