Outbound campaign
An outbound campaign is a coordinated program that places calls to an eligible group of contacts using defined timing, conversation, retry, and outcome rules.
The campaign combines several elements: a contact source, eligibility and suppression checks, a calling schedule, the conversation to run, the number used for caller identification, and the dispositions recorded after each attempt. Campaigns can support reminders, lead follow-up, customer outreach, research, collections, or other approved purposes, but the purpose should be explicit because it determines the script, data, and contact rules.
For AI phone calls, each connected call starts an agent flow with relevant contact context. The agent should identify the reason for the call, verify information only when needed, handle expected responses, and produce a clear outcome. A live conversation, voicemail, no answer, busy signal, wrong number, opt-out, and technical failure are different outcomes and should not be grouped as simply “completed” or “failed.”
An outbound campaign is not the same as a predictive dialer. A campaign defines who may be called and what should happen. A dialer defines how call attempts are paced and connected. A campaign may use one-at-a-time dialing, a power dialer, predictive dialing, or another method. With AI agents, capacity still matters: the system should not begin more calls than it can handle without delay or abandonment.
Before launch, teams should remove duplicates, validate required fields, apply suppression rules, and decide which time zone controls the calling window. The retry policy should specify what happens after each disposition, how long to wait, and when to stop. Consent, disclosure, do-not-call, and quiet-hours requirements vary by context and jurisdiction, so the business should review the rules that apply to its campaign.
Measure outcomes across both contacts and attempts. A high number of attempts can hide low live-contact or completion rates. Useful reporting separates unique contacts reached, requested actions completed, voicemail outcomes, opt-outs, wrong numbers, retries, and unresolved technical failures.
In practice on ThunderPhone
ThunderPhone campaigns can retry voicemail outcomes according to the campaign's retry policy. When voicemail is detected, the configured behavior can let the agent prompt decide what to do, hang up, or leave a configured message.