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This quickstart runs a deliberately tiny campaign. Two contacts, one phone call each, during business hours. The point is not the result. The point is to see every piece of the machine before you trust it with a real list.
You need an outbound agent first. If you do not have one, start with Create your first outbound agent.

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Before you start

Two things block campaign creation. Get them out of the way now, or you will hit a wall halfway through.
1

A phone number

A campaign has to place calls from somewhere. Buy one under Numbers if you have not already.
2

A campaign schedule

A schedule decides which days and hours the campaign is allowed to contact people. A default one exists, Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 7:00pm Pacific Time. You can use it as is. See Campaign schedules.

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1. Prepare a two contact CSV

Make a file called first-campaign-test.csv with two rows.
to_number is the number the campaign will call. first_name becomes available to your agent, so it can greet people by name.
Use phones you actually own. This campaign will really dial them.

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2. Create the campaign

Go to Campaigns and click New Campaign. Give it a name such as Test - first outbound campaign and click Create. You land on the campaign with five tabs across the top: Overview, Communication, Contacts, Activity and Settings. This is not a wizard. You can move between tabs in any order, and nothing goes live until you press Start.
The campaign is saved as Draft and stays there until you start it. Work through the tabs in the order below and click Save as you go.

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3. Set the schedule and the caller number

Open Settings. Two things matter here. Under Schedule, pick your campaign schedule. The days, hours and timezone appear underneath so you can check them at a glance. Under Outbound Settings, set Calls will come from to the number you want as the caller ID. This one is required. Leave it empty and the campaign will not start. Further down, Exit Criteria lists the three conditions that pull a contact out of the campaign automatically. They are fixed and you cannot change them:
  • The contact answers a call from this campaign.
  • The contact asks to stop receiving communication on any channel.
  • The contact’s number is unreachable.
That first one matters more than it looks. A contact who answers is done, and will not be called again by this campaign. That is usually what you want, and it is worth knowing before you wonder where your follow up went.

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4. Build the outreach flow

Open Communication. Add a step and set its type to Phone call, then choose your outbound agent. For this quickstart, stop there. One step, one call per contact. You can optionally override the agent’s opening line or voicemail message for this campaign only, without touching the agent itself.
Resist adding a follow up step on your first run. One step is the fastest way to find out whether the basics work.

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5. Import your contacts

Open Contacts and choose Upload a CSV. Select first-campaign-test.csv. You then map your columns onto the campaign’s fields. To number is the one that must be mapped. Drag your to_number column onto it, and map first_name as well so your agent can use it. Skip contacts with duplicate phone numbers is on by default. Leave it on. After importing you should see two rows in the contacts table, with their source and the date they were added.

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6. Start it

Back on Overview, check the counts read what you expect: two total contacts, your one step, your number. Start and Schedule Start stay greyed out until the campaign has everything it needs. If Start will not light up, something is missing, usually the number or the contacts. Click Start. The badge moves from Draft to Running.
The campaign list shows a different word than the campaign page for the same state. A running campaign reads Running on its own page and Active in the list. A stopped one reads Stopped on the page and Inactive in the list. Same campaign, two vocabularies.

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7. Watch it run

Overview carries the headline counts: total contacts, scheduled, exited, errored, plus Step metrics broken down per step. Activity shows what the campaign did and when. For the calls themselves, go to Calls, where you can filter by campaign, open any call, read the transcript and see its outcome.
Campaign statistics can lag by up to four hours. If your counts look stale right after a call, they probably are. The Calls page is live.
You can stop the campaign at any time from the campaign page.

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Before you run this for real

The test campaign above is harmless. Volume is not. Three things to do before you point a campaign at a real list. Register your business. We use this to provision your outbound setup with our telephony partners so your numbers are configured for deliverability. Register here, and include the numbers you plan to use. Do not overload one number. Roughly 100 calls per day per number is the guideline. Past that, add numbers and spread the traffic. Ask us. If you want a second pair of eyes on dialing strategy or deliverability, book time with the team.

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Where to go next