Uploading Contacts

Contact quality is one of the biggest drivers of campaign performance. A clean upload gives you better pickup rates, cleaner reporting, and fewer avoidable launch problems. A messy upload creates confusion before the first call even happens.

For most teams, this is the moment where campaign quality becomes real. If the contact file is wrong, no script or number strategy can fully rescue the result.

Before you start

• Source file is approved by campaign owner.
• Each row has one unique contact.
• Required fields are present (name or identifier, phone number, timezone if needed).
• Consent/suppression policy has been checked.
• You know how duplicates should be handled before import.

Who should own this

• SDR Lead: source list quality.
• Sales Ops: mapping and import validation.
• Compliance owner: suppression and consent checks.
• RevOps or CRM owner: confirms any IDs or fields needed for writeback.

Upload contacts step by step

1. Prepare CSV with clean headers and one contact per row.
2. Open campaign contact upload and add the file.
3. Map each source column to the correct Callaro field.
4. Preview first rows and fix formatting errors before import.
5. Start import and wait for completion status.
6. Review rejected rows and fix or remove invalid contacts.
7. Confirm final import count matches expected campaign size.

What the important upload decisions mean

1. Source file structure: One row should represent one real contact. Extra notes or merged records make validation harder and reporting less trustworthy.
2. Phone number formatting: Standardized phone numbers reduce avoidable failures and make troubleshooting simpler.
3. Timezone field: This matters when your contacts span more than one region and your campaign schedule depends on local calling windows.
4. Duplicate handling: Decide in advance whether you want to suppress duplicates, merge them elsewhere, or split them into separate campaign logic.
5. Segment separation: If two segments should be measured differently, upload them into separate campaigns rather than mixing them in one file.

What good looks like

• Import counts match what the campaign owner expected.
• Rejected rows are low and easy to explain.
• Field mapping is clear enough that anyone reviewing the import can understand it.
• The team trusts that successful calls will be tied back to the right contacts and downstream workflows.

Common mistakes and troubleshooting

1. Stop launch if the import is still running, incomplete, or failed.
2. Download and review the import error report before changing the campaign itself.
3. Correct data issues such as phone formatting, missing required fields, duplicates, or broken timezone values.
4. Re-import only the corrected subset if the failure is small and isolated.
5. Re-upload the full file if failure rates are high enough that you no longer trust the source list.
6. Escalate to an admin if valid rows continue to fail after you have corrected the file format.

Final checklist

• Imported count and expected count align.
• Failed rows are reviewed and resolved.
• Duplicate handling is documented.
• Campaign is safe to launch.

Related articles

• Creating a campaign
• Setting call schedules and time zones
• Campaign settings reference
• What gets logged automatically after every call