Campaigns Overview
Campaigns are the core unit of work in Outreach. A campaign defines who you are messaging and what you are sending. The actual sending happens through one or more campaign runs. This page explains the campaign model, how runs fit in, and how campaigns behave.
Campaigns, Runs, and Messages
Outreach separates the definition of a campaign from each send:
- Campaign: the reusable definition — its name, delivery channel, contacts, template, schedule, and (for SMS under Sender Selection) its sender.
- Campaign Run: a single execution of the campaign. Each run takes a snapshot of the campaign when it is created and sends its own set of messages. A campaign can have many runs over time.
- Message: an individual SMS or email sent to one recipient. Messages belong to a run, not directly to the campaign.
Because messages belong to a run rather than to the campaign, you can send the same campaign repeatedly — on demand or on a schedule — without recreating it, and see the history and status of every send separately. See Campaign Runs for the full lifecycle.
What a Campaign Contains
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| Name and description | Identifies the campaign |
| Delivery channel | SMS or Email (set at creation, cannot be changed) |
| Contacts | Recipients uploaded from a CSV, JSON, or XML file |
| Template | The message content, with optional personalisation variables |
| Schedule | Manual (you start each run) or Repeat (runs are created and started automatically) |
| Sender | For SMS when the organisation uses Sender Selection; the phone number or alpha sender ID all messages send from |
| Created by | The user who created the campaign, so ownership is clear when several people manage campaigns |
| Status | Whether a run is currently active (Ready to Run or Run In Progress) |
Campaign Types
| Type | Delivery provider | Template format |
|---|---|---|
| SMS | Twilio | Plain text with variable insertion |
| SendGrid | HTML via design or code editor, with sender settings, attachments, and unsubscribe links |
Each campaign uses a single channel. You cannot mix SMS and email recipients in the same campaign. The campaign type is shown in the campaigns list and campaign detail views.
Campaign Schedules
When you create a campaign you choose how its runs are triggered:
- Manual: nothing sends automatically. You create and start each run yourself. Best for one-off sends or campaigns without a fixed timetable.
- Repeat: runs are created and started automatically on a cadence you define (daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly). You can still create and start runs manually at any time.
See Scheduling for the full set of repeat rules, the calendar preview, and how to skip individual occurrences.
Campaign Status
At the campaign level, status reflects whether a run is currently active:
- Ready to Run: no run is currently active. The campaign is idle and available to run.
- Run In Progress: at least one of the campaign's runs is currently active (preparing, warming up, or sending).
The detail and history of each individual send live on its run, which has a richer set of statuses. See Campaign and Message Statuses.
What You Can Do with Campaigns
| Action | When available | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Create | Any time | Start the campaign wizard to build a new campaign |
| Edit | Any time, including while runs are sending | Modify the template, schedule, and (Sender Selection) sender; contacts and channel cannot be changed |
| New run | Any time | Create a run and choose whether to start it now or later |
| View schedule | Repeat campaigns | See a calendar of upcoming runs and skip individual occurrences |
| Delete | Not available while the campaign has a Run In Progress | Remove the campaign and its associated runs |
Why You Can Edit but Not Delete During a Run
Editing and deleting are deliberately gated differently, and the reason is the run snapshot:
- Editing is never blocked. Every run sends from its own snapshot of the campaign, taken when the run was created, so changing a campaign cannot reach a run that is already sending. Your edits apply to runs created afterwards. See Editing a Campaign.
- Deleting is blocked while a run is in progress. Deletion removes the campaign along with every run and message belonging to it — including the run that is still sending. There is no snapshot to fall back on, so the active run must finish, or be stopped, before the campaign can be deleted.
Most run-specific actions — starting, scheduling, cancelling, duplicating, monitoring, exporting and retrying — happen on a run. See Campaign Runs.
Concurrency and Throughput
Runs are not limited to one at a time, on a channel or on a campaign:
- Any number of runs can send in parallel. There is no per-campaign or per-channel limit, so a run is never blocked waiting for another run to finish — including another run of the same campaign.
- Throughput is managed by sending capacity. Under Sender Pool capacity is based on the messaging service pool; under Sender Selection, rate limiting is calculated per sender. A run on a sender with no other active runs sends immediately, while runs sharing a sender share that sender's throughput between them.
- High-priority messages jump the queue. When a run starts, its high-priority messages are dispatched ahead of normal-priority messages in other active runs.
Capacity and Queue Visibility
A live capacity indicator on the campaigns page shows, per delivery channel, how many runs and messages are currently in progress, how many are queued, and how much capacity is available. When you start a run you also see roughly how many messages are ahead of yours in the queue and an estimated wait time, so you can judge when your run will actually begin sending.
Where the Rest Lives
The pages in this section follow the campaign lifecycle, from Creating a Campaign through to Terms and Conditions. The material a campaign depends on, or produces, sits in its own section: