Best practices: how to pause Outreach campaigns for the holidays

The Holidays are here and this best practices post outlines the various options you have to pause Outreach campaigns while youre out-of-office or wish to pause outbound emails to prospects.

Leverage Outreach's Federal Holidays Exclusion Feature

If you have our Exclude Federal Holidays feature turned on, Outreach will automatically turn off email sends for the appropriate upcoming holidays: 12/25 (Christmas Day), 12/26 (Christmas Observed), 1/1 (New Year's Day), and 1/2 (New Year's Day Observed).

To learn more about turning this feature on or other details about how it works, visit our Help Article. Note: when turning on the Federal Holiday exclusion, this will not apply to prospects currently active in sequences, we recommend following option #1 below to update active scheduled sends. See the Help Article for more information.  

Pause Campaigns for an Extended Period

Many Sales Reps will be out-of-office for additional time beyond just the holidays, if youd like to pause Outreach campaigns for additional time, here are two recommended methods to use:

Option #1 - For sequences that heavily utilize manual emails, manually re-schedule all 'scheduled emails from your Outreach outbox.

From the Outreach outbox or emails tab in the sequence view:

• Click into the "scheduled" emails and find emails scheduled for the dates you'd like to avoid delivering on. 
• Bulk re-schedule the emails for the day of your choosing by clicking on the clock button.

Option #2  - For sequences with a heavy amount of automated emails, the easiest way is to simply pause your sequences.

This can be done either by disabling each sequence (which will impact all prospects within that sequence) or you can pause specific prospects. We recommend tagging these sequences, so after the holidays you know the specific ones to turn back on.

Note: this is very easy to manage, but be advised that scheduled emails with manual customization will be lost when a sequence is turned off. This includes any personalization that was added to a scheduled email.

If you have a significant amount of customization, we recommend method #1.

Please let us know if you have any questions or need help. Reach out to support@outreach.io 

Happy Holidays!