Campaign Contact States Explained

Purpose

Contacts in a campaign move through states: Active, Queued, Paused, Replied, Finished, Bounced, and more. Understanding these states helps you know who's still in the sequence, who's done, and why someone stopped receiving emails. This article walks through every state and what triggers each transition.

Quick Reference: Contact States

Dashboard Counts

On the campaign dashboard you'll see:

• Total Contacts — All contacts ever added.
• Contacts Remaining — Still in the sequence (not finished/paused/replied/bounced).
• List Health — % deliverable (safe + low risk).
• In Progress — Actively moving through the sequence.
• Finished — Completed or otherwise done.
• Paused — Manually or automatically paused.

Business Outcome States

Some contacts get labeled with business outcomes (from AI or manual tagging):

These are informational — they don't change whether the contact receives emails. The sequence logic (reply, unsubscribe, bounce, completion) controls that.

What Stops a Contact From Receiving Emails

1. Reply — When a contact replies, replied is set and they're removed from the sequence. Banner: "This contact has replied and will not receive any more automated emails."
2. Unsubscribe — Opt-out removes them. "This contact has unsubscribed and will not receive any more emails."
3. Bounce — Hard or invalid bounce stops sends. Banner varies by bounce type (invalid recipient, policy block, soft, etc.).
4. Sequence complete — Reached the last step. "This contact has finished the sequence and will not receive any more automated emails."
5. Manual pause — You paused the contact.
6. Step failure + "Pause contact" — The failure handling setting paused this contact.
7. No LinkedIn/Twitter match — For social steps: missing URL, invalid URL, or no identity — step is skipped; contact continues based on failure handling.

Sequence queue and step priority (campaign details)

In the campaign details panel, the Contacts in Sequence section includes Processing order:

• Super Send prioritizes later sequence steps (higher step numbers) before earlier steps when many contacts are waiting. That helps contacts who are already deep in the sequence move forward first.
• When contacts are spread across multiple steps, the panel shows a short queue snapshot: earliest active step, how many contacts are at later steps (ahead in the send queue), and the deepest active step. Counts follow the same actionable sequence steps the send engine uses (decorative-only nodes like start/stop notes are not included).

This is not a strict “you are #37 in line” queue — send windows, capacity, and channel limits still apply — but it explains why someone on an early step may wait while a large group at later steps is processed first.

Processing, Queued, Idle

On the contact card you may see:

• Processing (blue) — Actively being processed.
• Queued (yellow) — Waiting for next send window or step.
• Idle (gray) — Not currently in an active send window.

Next step — Shows the step number the contact is on (if in progress).

Completion Forecast

For capacity planning, contacts may show:

• on-track (green) — Normal flow.
• at-risk (yellow) — May not complete in time.
• oversubscribed / no-capacity (red) — Capacity constraints.
• finished — Done.

Resuming a Paused Contact

If a contact is Paused and you want them to continue:

1. Open the campaign → Contacts tab.
2. Find the contact.
3. Select them → Resume from the bulk actions (or use the contact detail view).

They'll re-enter the sequence at their current step.

Expected Result

You can tell at a glance who's still getting emails (Active/Queued), who's done and why (Replied, Completed, Bounced, Paused), and who needs attention (Failed). Use the Events tab to trace the exact reason for any contact's state.

Related Articles

• Campaign Events and Statuses
• Campaign Not Sending Checklist
• Replies and Sequence Behavior

Updated on: 03/04/2026