Lead statuses explained
Every lead in a campaign carries one status. It tells you where the lead is in the sequence and whether OutreachFox will send them anything else. You see statuses in the campaign Contacts tab and c…
Draft — written from product facts + domain knowledge; UI labels to be verified before publishing.
Every lead in a campaign carries one status. It tells you where the lead is in the sequence and whether OutreachFox will send them anything else. You see statuses in the campaign Contacts tab and can filter on them with the Status dropdown. This article lists each status, what triggers it, and what happens to the lead next.
Sequence statuses
| **Status** | **Meaning** | **Will more emails be sent?** |
| **Not contacted** | Lead is in the campaign but step 1 has not been sent yet. | Yes, when the daily new-contacts limit and schedule allow. |
| **In progress** | At least one step has been sent and the lead is waiting for the next step or a reply. | Yes, until the sequence ends or the lead replies. |
| **Completed** | Every step in the sequence has been sent and the lead never replied. | No. |
| **Paused** | You paused this lead manually. | No, until you resume the lead. |
| **Stopped** | You stopped the lead, or a condition in the sequence ended it. | No. |
Response statuses
These are set automatically when OutreachFox reads the reply in the sending mailbox. A reply stops the sequence for that lead.
| **Status** | **Meaning** | **Recommended action** |
| **Replied** | Any human reply was received. The AI reply category (below) says what kind. | Read and answer within a day. |
| **Interested** | Reply classified as positive: wants a call, asks for more information, agrees to next step. | Book the meeting. Move to your CRM. |
| **Not interested** | Reply classified as negative: declines, "no thanks", "remove me". | Do not re-add to future campaigns. |
| **Out of office** | Auto-responder detected. | Sequence continues after the return date; no action needed. |
| **Wrong person** | Lead says they are not the right contact, often naming someone else. | Add the referred person as a new lead. |
| **Unsubscribed** | Lead clicked the unsubscribe link or asked to be removed and was marked as such. | Nothing. The address is suppressed across all campaigns. |
Delivery statuses
| **Status** | **Meaning** | **Recommended action** |
| **Bounced** | The receiving server rejected the email (hard bounce: address does not exist; soft bounce: mailbox full, temporary block). | Remove hard bounces from lists. Verify the rest of the list if bounces exceed 3%. |
| **Blocked** | The sending mailbox refused to send, usually because of a daily limit or authentication failure. | Check the mailbox under **Mailbox**. |
How statuses interact with AI categories
Replied is the umbrella status. The AI reply categorisation (see Set up AI reply categorisation and create custom categories) assigns a category such as Interested, Not interested, Out of office or a custom one. The campaign Status filter exposes the most common categories directly so you can jump to them.
Tips
- Filter Interested every morning; those leads are your pipeline.
- Filter Bounced after day one of any new list. A clean list bounces under 2%.
- Do not delete Not interested or Unsubscribed leads from Contacts; keeping them is what stops you emailing them again from another campaign.
- Use Out of office as a signal that the address is real and monitored; these leads convert well on the next follow-up.
Troubleshooting
- Lead stuck on Not contacted for days: the campaign is paused, the sending schedule has no window today, or the daily new-contacts limit is reached. See Why did my campaign pause or stop sending?
- Lead replied but status is In progress: the reply came to a mailbox that is not connected to OutreachFox, or came from a different address. Mark the lead as replied manually from the lead's activity log.
Related articles
- Check lead statuses and replies inside a campaign
- Set up AI reply categorisation and create custom categories
- Pause, stop or delete leads in a campaign
- Managing bounced leads and cleaning your lists
- Why did my campaign pause or stop sending?
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