Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) occupies a central position in the Salesforce ecosystem, offering a robust platform for managing multi-channel marketing campaigns. This article will guide you through the different aspects of SFMC, starting with an overview of the available studios and the essential resources for making the most of this powerful solution.
We’ll also explore how to integrate SFMC with the rest of the Salesforce ecosystem using connectors, and how to structure your organization with Business Units.
You’ll discover the benefits of Distributed Marketing, as well as the approval processes needed to ensure control of your campaigns. In addition, we’ll cover crucial topics such as confidentiality and consent management, as well as how to use the preference center to better manage communications with your customers.
Finally, we’ll take a look at other alternatives in the Salesforce universe, giving you the complete picture for choosing the solution that best meets your organization’s specific needs.
Understanding the Cloud Marketing Ecosystem
The origins of Salesforce Marketing Cloud
The Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) ecosystem was born of the acquisition of ExactTarget, a pioneering email marketing platform. Today, SFMC is a cornerstone of the Salesforce ecosystem, offering a complete suite of solutions for managing multi-channel marketing campaigns. At the same time, Salesforce has acquired other tools, such as Pardot, now renamed Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, and more recently introduced a new solution, Marketing Cloud Growth, aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
A journey similar to e-Commerce (B2C and B2B)
Salesforce has followed a similar trajectory to its e-commerce offerings. For B2C, the offering is based on DemandWare, while for B2B, it has evolved from a CloudCraze base to an in-house solution called B2B Commerce Lightning.
Are there any confused people in the room?
Don’t worry, Salesforce’s product nomenclature pirouettes aren’t about to stop, but it may be useful to know where these solutions come from to find out what they’re made of, and to find documentation on any of them.
This hybrid approach, combining acquisitions and in-house development, enables Salesforce to offer flexible solutions tailored to the varied needs of businesses.
Independence from Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Unlike other Salesforce products, SFMC is totally independent of the Salesforce core. You have to log in via a separate URL (exacttarget.com), and access is managed through a different architecture, based on specific business units, applications and roles, rather than the typical Salesforce profiles and permission sets. This mismatch can make integration complex for teams used to the Salesforce core.
No Sandbox and Alternative Solutions
SFMC does not have sandboxes for testing, which is often an obstacle for technical teams. However, alternative solutions do exist: some companies offer paid access to an SFMC instance to enable teams to familiarize themselves with the platform without committing significant resources from the outset.
Want to find out more about integrating Salesforce Marketing Cloud into your business? Contact our experts for a free consultation!
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Key Tools
The Essential Tools: Content Manager, Email Studio & Co.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers a range of specialized tools for managing multi-channel marketing campaigns:
- Content Manager: Centralize digital asset management for your campaigns.
- Web Studio and CloudPages: to create and manage specific web pages.
- Journey Builder: Designs and automates personalized customer journeys, reinforcing engagement throughout the customer lifecycle.
- Email Studio: Manage email marketing campaigns with great efficiency.
- Automation Studio: Automate various marketing tasks to improve productivity.
- Audience Studio: Segment audiences for more precise targeting.
Roles and responsibilities
Tools such as Content Manager, Web Studio, Journey Builder, and Email Studio are generally the responsibility of Cloud Marketing specialists, while Automation Studio and Audience Studio require advanced technical skills, often managed by specialist developers.
Complementary tools
Salesforce Marketing Cloud also includes additional tools, such as :
- Social Studio: (being phased out by Salesforce) For social network management.
- Interaction Studio: A personalization application.
- Advertising Studio: For advertising management.
- Mobile Studio: For sending SMS and other mobile communications.
Resources and skills required
SFMC Specialist and Developer
To maximize the use of HDFS, we recommend two distinct types of resource:
- Cloud Marketing Specialist: Must master core studios and have skills in communication, analysis, project management and marketing beyond the tools themselves. Good organization is also crucial.
- Marketing Cloud Developer: In addition to knowing the Salesforce core, this role requires mastery of Automation Studio, Audience Studio, as well as skills in SQL (instead of SOQL), AMPscript, server-side Javascript (SSJS), and HTML.
Development Tools for Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Development tools in SFMC can seem outdated, and external calls are often complex. Mastery of tools such as Postman and VS Code is a major asset. Package Manager, although limited, can save precious time by automating certain tasks.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Connectors
Marketing Cloud Connect: The link between Salesforce and SFMC
Salesforce Marketing Cloud operates independently of the Salesforce core, which raises the crucial question: how do you integrate Salesforce data into SFMC? The answer is Marketing Cloud Connect. This connector synchronizes data between the two platforms, providing a seamless integration.
Strategic choice: Mono-Org or Multi-Org?
When you plan to connect several Salesforce organizations to SFMC, you need to choose between a single-org or multi-org version of the connector. But once you’ve made your choice, it’s irreversible. Mono-org simplifies configuration and bidirectional flow, but limits possibilities.
System user management: Configuration and synchronization
Use of the connector requires the creation of system user accounts, on both Salesforce and SFMC sides, for each pair of instances to be connected. This configuration is essential to ensure proper data synchronization.
Advantages and consequences of Custom Fields
The connector automatically updates certain Marketing Cloud objects in Salesforce, including specific fields in the Lead and Contact objects. However, if you’ve had the bad idea of developing custom fields for this purpose, you’ll probably have to do some refactoring to ensure compatibility with SFMC.
Need help configuring Marketing Cloud Connect? Talk to one of our consultants for personalized assistance.
Connect SFMC to the Salesforce Core
A one-way process
When setting up the connector between Salesforce and Marketing Cloud, the flow of information between the two platforms is usually one-way, especially with a standard configuration. You can easily extract contacts and leads from Salesforce to Marketing Cloud using Journey Builder by selecting Salesforce as the data source. However, the reverse, i.e. transferring information from Marketing Cloud to the Salesforce core, can be more complex.
Exploiting internal data via Data Views
Marketing Cloud has an internal database called Data Views, which stores crucial information such as details of email bounces, clicks and opens. Exploiting this data to feed back into Salesforce requires specific technical skills.
Solutions for efficient downflow
To facilitate the downstream flow (from Marketing Cloud to Salesforce), several approaches are possible:
- API calls: Use API calls to retrieve data from Data Views and transfer it to Salesforce or third-party systems.
- Journey Builder as Data Source: Integrate the data collected via Journey Builder directly into Salesforce, although this method may need to be adjusted depending on the complexity of the data to be processed.
Technical Skills Required
These solutions, while effective, require advanced technical skills. Your team needs to be comfortable using APIs and have a good understanding of the structure of data in Marketing Cloud to successfully implement these flows reliably.
Business Unit Management
How to structure Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Business Units (BUs) create a virtual structure in Salesforce Marketing Cloud. The parent account remains at the top of the hierarchy, but a complex tree structure can be built underneath, offering configurations and access tailored to each BU.
Cost and tree structure
Each BU has its own logical space, compensating for the absence of sandboxes in SFMC. However, the cost of US$5,000 per BU must be taken into account. It is advisable to have only one BU for your User Acceptance Test (UAT) and/or integration instance, in addition to the production BU.
Package Manager
Package Manager can be used to move components between BUs, following the tree strategy defined by the development team.
Precautions for Sandbox refreshments
The multi-org connector makes it possible to manage this structure, but your Salesforce development team needs to be trained in the technical implications, particularly during sandbox refreshes which can disrupt the configuration of system user accounts.
Distributed Marketing
Customization and Governance
Distributed Marketing is a relatively new solution that enables your partners to benefit from your marketing campaigns while personalizing the messages. This concept can transform your company’s governance by delegating certain responsibilities to local teams or partners.
Facilitating Adoption by Marketing Teams
Distributed Marketing is particularly useful for companies where marketers are not experts in system access management, and where the SFMC ecosystem can seem complex. This solution enables users to remain in the classic Salesforce environment while using SFMC’s campaign tracking capabilities.
Licensing and Multi-Org Integration
The Distributed Marketing connector is independent of the SFMC connector. You can choose to use one without the other, depending on your specific needs. It’s important to note that Distributed Marketing licenses are tied to Salesforce core licenses, which can cause problems in complex multi-org configurations.
Example of a Multi-Org Scenario
If you have several Salesforce instances and want to consolidate your marketing data, Distributed Marketing can complicate license management. For example, if you have three Salesforce organizations and 45 Distributed Marketing users, the consolidated instance will need 45 core user licenses to integrate them, which could be restrictive.
Approval process in CDFS
How to control your marketing campaigns?
Sending large-scale communications without prior control can be risky. CDFS offers an approval process for involving reviewers to validate content before it is sent out, but it is limited to content approval, which may not be sufficient for complex campaigns.
Control optimization with Distributed Marketing
By using Distributed Marketing, you can take advantage of Salesforce’s robust approval processes to ensure greater control over communications, going beyond simple content validation.
Privacy and Consent Management
Consent Management in CDFS
Managing consent and privacy is essential for business communications via HDFS. Complying with regulations such as the RGPD is imperative, even if you’re based in North America, as similar laws are emerging in regions such as California and Quebec.
Using the Salesforce Repository
Salesforce offers a sophisticated repository, with 27 objects dedicated to consent management, accessible via the Individual object. This functionality, which has been in place for over six years, enables you to store detailed information on communication preferences and authorizations, without impacting your storage limits.
Preference Center
Managing Opt-Ins and Preferences
The Preference Center in SFMC is crucial for managing opt-ins and customer interests. Using a double opt-in process, you can obtain permission from your identified targets to send them relevant information, and then refine your communication according to their specific interests.
Privacy Center
In a single-org configuration, SFMC offers a standard Preference Center which, although basic, can do the job. However, for multi-org configurations, it may be necessary to create a customized Preference Center. Salesforce now offers a Privacy Center, making it easy to manage preferences and privacy, with automatically generated preference pages.
Make sure you respect your customers’ communication preferences. Contact us to set up your Preference Center.
Alternatives to Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Account Engagement (Pardot)
As previously mentioned, Salesforce offers several solutions to meet the diverse marketing needs of businesses. Account Engagement (formerly known as Pardot) is one such alternative. Unlike Marketing Cloud, Account Engagement is better integrated into the Salesforce core, making it an attractive option for companies looking for a more accessible solution.
However, Account Engagement has some limitations compared with Marketing Cloud. It focuses mainly on lead scoring and lead nurturing, with an emphasis on email marketing campaigns. If you need to leverage other communication channels or manage complex multi-channel marketing campaigns, Marketing Cloud remains the more robust solution.
Marketing Cloud Growth
Salesforce recently announced the launch of Marketing Cloud Growth, a new solution designed specifically for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Unlike Marketing Cloud, this solution is directly integrated into the Salesforce core, making it easy to set up and use. Although we don’t yet have many details on this new offering, it could represent an interesting alternative for companies looking for a lighter, more affordable marketing solution. The solution is due to be rolled out in North America later this year, and in the rest of the world next year.
How do you choose the right solution for your needs?
In summary, while Account Engagement may be a more integrated and easy-to-use option for less complex email marketing campaigns, Marketing Cloud remains the most comprehensive and versatile solution for companies looking to manage sophisticated multi-channel campaigns. As for Marketing Cloud Growth, it represents a new opportunity for SMBs to benefit from Salesforce’s marketing expertise without the complexity of a fully independent platform.
It’s essential to assess your company’s specific needs before choosing the solution that’s right for you.
