Contacts and campaigns

Contacts are the people your clients’ agents call. Campaigns dial a list of contacts with one agent, inside the hours and days you set, and retry the ones who didn’t pick up. Together they let you run reactivation, reminder and follow-up outreach for your clients.

Plan: Adding, importing and editing contacts, and running campaigns, require a plan that includes campaigns — by default Agency and Agency Pro.

Agency owners, agency admins and client admins can manage contacts and campaigns. Client members can view them. Clients see the Contacts page as “Leads & Contacts”.

Add contacts#

Add one contact

1. Open Add contact
   Go to Contacts and click “Add contact”.
2. Enter the details
   “Phone number” is required, in international E.164 format with the country code (for example +14155550123). Name, Company and Email are optional. Separate multiple tags with commas.
3. Save
   Click “Add”.

Import a CSV

1. Switch into the client
   Use the workspace switcher to open the client’s workspace.
2. Choose the file
   Go to Contacts, click “Import”, and pick your CSV. Format it as described below.
3. Check the result
   Numbers already in the workspace are updated; new ones are added; invalid rows are skipped.

You can also pull contacts from HubSpot or GoHighLevel and keep them in sync. See Import and sync CRM contacts.

CSV import format#

Files must be UTF-8 (a byte-order mark is fine), up to 5 MB and 10,000 rows. Split larger files. Column headers are not case-sensitive.

• Duplicate numbers within the file are skipped.
• If a number already exists, non-empty values in the file overwrite its fields, and tags are added to the existing ones.
• For numbers outside the US, include the country code, or import from the campaign builder, which lets you choose the phone region.

Find and manage contacts#

Use the segments “All contacts”, “Contacted”, “Never contacted” and “Do-not-call”. Search by name, phone, email or company. Filter by Source (Manual, CSV, CRM, Inbound) or Tag, and sort by Newest, Name or Last called.

Bulk actions

Select contacts to see the bulk bar:

Contact profile

Click a contact to open its profile: the information captured on calls, a timeline and the call history. Use “Mark DNC” or “Allow calls again” here.

Do-not-call#

A contact marked do-not-call shows “Outbound calling is blocked.” Their history stays for reporting and compliance. Campaigns check do-not-call right before each dial, and blocked contacts are marked Skipped.

• GoHighLevel imports mark DND contacts as do-not-call. HubSpot imports never do, so mark those yourself.
• A CRM sync can add a do-not-call block but never removes one.
• Any team member who can manage contacts can mark or clear do-not-call, even without a plan that includes campaigns.

Export contacts#

Click “Export” to download contacts.csv (up to 10,000 rows) with the columns e164, name, email, company, tags and dnc. Tags are joined with |.

Before you run a campaign#

Create a campaign#

Go to Campaigns and click “New campaign”. The builder has four steps: Setup, Audience, Schedule and Review.

1. Setup

2. Audience

Either upload a CSV or select existing contacts.

• Upload: drop the file on “Drop your contact CSV here” (up to 5 MB and 10,000 rows). Under “Map your columns”, choose the column for Phone number (required), Full name, Email, Company, Tags and Do not call. Set the “Phone region” (US, CA, GB, AU, KE, ZA, NG or IN) used to read numbers without a country code, then check the “Data preview”.
• Existing contacts: select contacts from the client’s workspace. Do-not-call contacts and contacts from other clients aren’t eligible.

Uploaded contacts are saved into the client’s workspace when you continue past this step, even if you don’t finish the campaign.

3. Schedule

4. Review

Check the summary, including when it starts, and click “Create draft”. Nothing dials until you start the campaign.

Scheduling a start time

With “At a scheduled time”, press “Start” on the campaign any time before the scheduled moment. It moves to Scheduled and begins dialing on its own at that time. Calls still only go out inside the calling window and on the calling days. To change the time, edit the campaign while it’s scheduled.

Calling hours and local time#

The calling window is applied in each contact’s own local time, with daylight saving handled. A window of 9 AM–8 PM means a call can start from 9:00 but not at or after 8:00 PM local time.

• For US and Canadian numbers, local time comes from the area code.
• For other numbers, or an area code we don’t recognise, the campaign’s “Timezone” is used.
• Before each dial we check the calling window, calling days, do-not-call and the recent-contact cooldown.

Start, pause and stop#

Open the campaign from Campaigns to see its status and actions.

• “Edit” is available while a campaign is a draft, scheduled or paused.
• “Delete” is always available. Deleting a running campaign stops it first.

If a campaign won’t start#

A client’s plan limits, such as a free-plan quota or an overage cap, can also stop a campaign from starting or resuming.

Contact statuses and retries#

The campaign page shows a status breakdown, the share of contacts completed, the schedule and dialing settings, and a contacts table with each contact’s attempts, outcome and status.

Which outcomes are retried

Tips#

• Run a small campaign of your own numbers first to hear the agent and check the calling window.
• Add post-call analysis fields such as appointment_booked so you can measure results. See Build an agent.
• Send campaign outcomes to the client’s CRM with Post-call automations.
• Start with a modest Simultaneous calls value so the agent and your Retell concurrency aren’t overwhelmed.
• Keep the recent-contact cooldown on so people aren’t called by two campaigns on the same day.
• Review results in Calls and reports.