Overview of Prospect Statuses

Last updated: September 23, 2026

In the Buzz system, each prospect added to a campaign is given a designated status reflecting the progression of their path within the campaign. That's why understanding how prospect statuses work is crucial.

When prospects are uploaded to a campaign via CSV, the system automatically assigns their initial status based on detected prior contact history with your account. Prospects without previous interactions will be placed in NEW status, while those with existing engagement history may be assigned to CONTACTED, CONNECTED, REPLIED, or other appropriate statuses depending on their interaction record.

All statuses are grouped into three main categories:

  1. Prospect Communication – tracks outreach and engagement progress (NEW, CONTACTED, CONNECTED, REPLIED, UNREACHABLE) Once connected, these prospects are treated as 1st-degree connections by the system, regardless of what degree they were when originally added to your campaign. For NEW status, prospects already existing in other campaigns within your workspace will not be added again by default. To add prospects that exist in other campaigns, enable the Add Prospects from Existing Campaigns option in your campaign settings.

  2. Lead Status – identifies prospects based on their qualification level (LEAD, CUSTOMER, EXCLUDED)

  3. Pending – indicates when an action cannot be completed due to a specific Stuck reason.

Troubleshooting PENDING Status Issues

While the PENDING status indicates that an action cannot be executed due to a specific stuck reason, the following common scenarios and solutions can help resolve these issues.

Common Placeholder Data Issues

A frequent cause of PENDING status is missing or incorrectly formatted placeholder data in campaign steps. For example, if a step includes a custom placeholder such as {{First Name}} or {Industry} but the prospect's data does not include values for these fields, the campaign cannot execute that step.

To resolve placeholder issues:

  • Check the campaign step for placeholders and ensure that the correct placeholder format is used, such as {first_name} instead of {{First Name}}.

  • Verify that all prospects have the required data fields populated.

  • After making corrections and saving the campaign, the prospect will move out of PENDING status and the step will execute according to system limits and working hours.

LinkedIn Connection Booster Requirements

Prospects may receive the status Active Connection Booster required to send connection request when LinkedIn requires the recipient's email address before allowing a connection request.

This typically happens when:

  • The prospect has configured their LinkedIn privacy settings to accept invitations only from people who know their email address.

  • LinkedIn triggers additional security measures because of few mutual connections or temporary account thresholds.

Solutions:

  • Enable the Use connection requests booster (API Booster) setting in your campaign to bypass this restriction.

  • If you have LinkedIn Premium, send an InMail to these prospects instead of a connection request.

Email Step Troubleshooting

If prospects are stuck in PENDING status when email is the first step in your campaign, review the email verification settings, available email types, and specific stuck reason.

After making these adjustments, prospects should move from PENDING to NEW status and proceed through your campaign sequence.

Critical Limitations and Troubleshooting for Prospect Statuses

EXCLUDED Status Limitation

When prospects have an EXCLUDED status due to Blacklist restrictions, they will remain excluded even if you move them between campaigns. To make excluded prospects active again, you must clear the relevant entries from your Blacklist.

  1. Navigate to the Prospects tab.

  2. Apply the EXCLUDED filter to view blacklisted prospects.

  3. Select the prospects you want to restore, or use the top-left checkbox to select all.

  4. Click Actions > Remove from blacklist.

Outside of Campaigns

  • Removing a campaign: When you delete a campaign, all prospects that were part of it will no longer be associated with any campaign and will move to “Outside of Campaigns.”

  • Removing a prospect from a campaign: When you manually remove a prospect from a campaign, they will be placed in the “Outside of Campaigns” section.

  • Fetching a conversation from Social Platform Inbox: If Buzz imports a prospect’s conversation from your Social Platform inbox but that prospect is not assigned to any campaign, they will be classified as “Outside of Campaigns.”

Prospects in “Outside of Campaigns” cannot be moved automatically back to their original campaigns. However, you can manually move them into existing campaigns or create a new campaign and move them there.

“No required email type” Error

Prospects may get stuck with the error “No required email type” if a campaign step is configured to send to Work emails but the prospects only have Personal emails available. To resolve this, adjust the campaign step to send to the available email type or add the required email type for the prospects.

CSV Upload Troubleshooting

If you upload prospects via CSV and they do not appear in your campaign, they may already exist in other campaigns. To add them to the new campaign, enable the Add prospects from existing campaigns toggle in your campaign settings. If you want to interact with these prospects again despite previous conversations, also enable the Recontact prospects toggle.

Default Visibility Note

By default, the Prospects list omits prospects that are Outside of Campaigns, as well as prospects with PENDING and EXCLUDED statuses.