High-Volume, High-Impact: The Smart Way to Run Outreach Campaigns in Salesforce
Outbound customer campaigns in Salesforce can drive growth across upsell, retention, collections, and other business objectives. However, executing these campaigns effectively—without missing customers or overwhelming your team—requires a structured approach.
This guide helps Salesforce admins and sales leaders determine the best model for managing outbound campaigns. By aligning campaign structure with team responsibilities and performance tracking, you can ensure every customer interaction is efficient and impactful.
Key Decisions When Designing Your Outreach Campaign
Before selecting a campaign model, consider the following:
1. Target Audience
Are you reaching existing customers (e.g., retention, upsell) or prospects (e.g., lead generation, cold outreach)?
Will you need to track customers at risk of churn or prioritize high-value accounts?
2. Outreach Channel
Will the campaign rely on marketing automation (e.g., Pardot, Marketing Cloud) or direct outreach by sales reps?
Are you using a mix of phone, email, SMS, or in-person interactions?
3. Ownership & Assignment
Should outreach be assigned to a specific rep (e.g., Account Manager) or be handled by any available team member?
Will assignments be pushed automatically or pulled manually from a queue?
4. Outreach Cadence & Follow-Up
How many touchpoints should each customer receive (e.g., one-time email vs. multi-step engagement)?
Do you need automation to enforce follow-ups and track progress?
5. Conversion & Next Steps
What actions should follow a successful outreach?
Creating an Opportunity or Order in Salesforce?
Processing a payment or updating a related system?
Logging the outcome in a structured way?
Are users equipped to execute these actions efficiently?
6. Tracking & Metrics
What are the KPIs for the campaign? Common metrics include:
Contacts Attempted vs. Contacts Reached
Conversions (e.g., sales closed, renewals completed)
Revenue Impact (total deal size or influenced pipeline)
Engagement Metrics (email open rates, call response rates)
The answer to the six questions above will help determine which Salesforce objects to use for your campaign (e.g. Leads, Contacts, Tasks, and/or Campaign Members), but also what tools to use (e.g. Queues, Assignment Rules, Sales Engagement Marketing Cloud, etc.)
Using Salesforce Campaigns & Campaign Members
Salesforce Campaigns provide a structured way to organize outbound efforts:
Define outreach initiatives, track costs, and measure success.
Use Campaign Hierarchies to roll up results (e.g., "2025 Upsell Campaigns" → "January Outreach").
Campaign Members support both Leads and Contacts, allowing for targeting both prospects and existing customers.
Utilize Campaign Member Statuses to track progress (e.g., "Attempted Contact," "Interested," "Converted").
While Salesforce Campaigns aren’t required, they streamline reporting and execution. If you're working with lists of Leads or Contacts, you can manage them without Campaigns, but you'll need alternative tracking methods.
Outbound Campaign Execution Models
1. Marketing Automation
Best for: Large-scale email & digital campaigns with minimal rep involvement
Solution:
Sync campaign data with a marketing platform (Marketing Cloud, Pardot, or others).
Automate email/SMS outreach and track engagement (opens, clicks, conversions).
Provide sales reps with visibility into customer interactions.
Pros:
Fully automated outreach at scale.
Engagement data syncs back to Salesforce.
Enables personalized messaging without manual effort.
Cons:
Less effective for urgent, high-touch, or multi-channel campaigns.
Requires integration with a marketing automation tool.
2. Outreach Tasks
Best for: Simple, one-touch outreach campaigns
Solution:
Create Tasks for each customer touchpoint.
Assign Tasks to named reps or a queue for team-wide access.
Automate Task creation based on Campaign Members or other criteria.
Pros:
Lightweight and easy to implement.
Works well for short-term, one-off outreach needs.
Cons:
Does not support multi-touch campaigns or advanced tracking without customization.
3. Leads-Based Campaigns
Best for: Multi-touch campaigns requiring structured outreach
Solution:
Model outreach targets as Lead records with dedicated Record Types and Status values.
Assign Leads to reps directly, via Omni-Channel, or through a pull-based queue.
Use Lead Conversion to indicate successful outreach (e.g., converting into an Opportunity or merging into an existing Contact).
Pros:
Manages both prospects and existing customers in a structured way.
Supports multiple assignment methods.
Enables detailed tracking of outreach stages.
Cons:
May create duplicate records for existing customers (use Duplicate Rules to mitigate).
More complex than Campaign Member-based approaches.
4. Cadence Management (Sales Engagement)
Best for: Multi-step, multi-channel outreach campaigns
Solution:
Enroll Leads or Contacts into a structured outreach cadence.
Automate assignment and tracking.
Use Salesforce Sales Engagement (formerly High Velocity Sales) or third-party tools.
Pros:
Supports automated, structured multi-touch campaigns.
Enables branching logic for different response scenarios.
Works with both Leads and Contacts.
Cons:
Requires Sales Cloud Enterprise or Unlimited Edition for Sales Engagement.
More complex setup compared to Tasks or Leads-based outreach.
Choosing the Right Model for Your Team
The right approach depends on your business needs:
| Use Case | Best Approach |
|---|---|
| Large-scale email/SMS outreach | Marketing Automation |
| Simple, one-touch campaigns | Tasks |
| Multi-touch, structured outreach | Leads |
| Advanced, multi-channel engagement | Cadence Management |
For most teams, a hybrid model works best—using Campaigns for organization, Marketing Automation for scalable messaging, and Tasks, Leads, or Cadences for structured rep-driven outreach.
Next Steps: Optimize Your Outreach Strategy
Need help designing or optimizing your Salesforce outreach campaigns? Feel free to reach out, I can connect you with recommended partners for this type of design.
Related Reading: Determine how to identify segments for your outreach campaigns (churn risks, high value customers) from your back-end data.
