Last Updated on April 18, 2024 You probably already know, that contact count is one of the main variable cost drivers of your Salesforce Marketing Cloud license. However this is also one of the factors which is most in your control. Let’s revisit what the contact count actually is: A contact in Contact Builder is an individual added to any contact database in Marketing Cloud Engagement. A contact can be someone who received a message from any Engagement tool, such as GroupConnect, Journey Builder, MobileConnect, or MobilePush.Marketing Cloud combines contacts from all sources based on the Contact Key value. The …

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Last Updated on February 22, 2024 We are tracking clicks in our emails, but is there a way to track clicks on links from Cloud Pages? Salesforce Marketing Cloud Admin Wouldn’t it be fantastic, if your click tracking wasn’t limited to just emails? I have been asked more than once, if it is possible to track clicks performed on Cloud Pages. And while SFMC does not offer any standard functionality for this, we might be able to build a simple although custom solution. First, we need to understand how email tracking works. You might have seen that all your links …

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Last Updated on January 17, 2024 Idea for this article came, as few other before this one, from an interesting discussion on one of the online Salesforce communities. I realised, that not everyone is looking for deeply technical explanation of SSJS based consent management, or building cross cloud LWCs. Sometimes it is what might seem trivial, which provides more value to some of the less experienced Trailblazers out there. This is why I have compiled this overview of how to track the engagement throughout the funnel – all the way from building your audience, and towards converting or abandoning your …

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Last Updated on January 10, 2024 Are you panicking, realising it is now 2024, and Google along with Yahoo will start enforcing some added protection mechanisms to safeguard their users against spam? Do you feel your engagement rates at risk, asking yourself what they mean by one-click unsubscribe? Let me calm you down and explain that you, as a Salesforce Marketing Cloud user, are already compliant potentially without even realising. Even though Salesforce is doing their best to ensure you being compliant, it is ultimately your responsibility. I have listed potential pitfalls under each item below. Sender Domain Authentication Firstly, …

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Last Updated on December 15, 2023 Working with time zones in Marketing Cloud, especially in SQL, is not always easy. We have multiple time zones in there, depending on where you look. Here is a good unofficial (compiled in best effort) overview of where which time zone applies: Whenever you need to adjust the time zone in your queries, you need to observe that SFMC system time is actually hard coded to UTC-6, NOT CST. You might have been doing an approximate timezone conversion, which was usually done by using the DATEADD() function to add the needed number of hours. …

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Embark on the intricate dance between technology and marketing. Join us to simplify and optimise your tech investments, breaking free from the chains of banal trends. Discover the hidden potential in processes and get practical solutions — no more Rolls Royce platforms for newsletters!!!

Last Updated on January 17, 2024 I am seeing large numbers of questions, asking how we can sync large volumes of data from Marketing Cloud and into Sales Cloud. Well, let me start by asking you a question: Do you really need the data to be physically in Sales Cloud? Or do you want it to be presented in Sales Cloud? Well, that was actually two questions… What are your options? There is quite a difference to these two scenarios. Firstly, let’s talk about storage. A single record in Sales Cloud is about 2kb. Multiply it by tens, maybe hundreds …

Showing SFMC data in Sales Cloud Read More »

How to connect with the top Salesforce Marketing Cloud experts across the globe, to get started on your learning path toward becoming a trusted expert? There are numerous communities out there, with dedicated experts, who will help you along the way.

Sender Authentication Package (SAP) features include Private Domain for Email sending, Custom Domain for CloudPages, Account Branding with view-as-webpage, link and image wrapping, Dedicated IP Address, and Reply Mail Management. While these features can be purchased individually, the view-as-webpage, link and image wrapping that brands your account only comes with SAP.

Have you ever created an email where you have tens of different offers in separate dynamic content blocks and wondered how you would report back the click data from the blocks? Are you using Ampscript to present highly individualised emails, and lost track of your click rates for those particular offers? Then Impression Region tracking is the right solution to stay on top of your engagement data.

There are ways of building lead scoring functionality with tools available in every edition of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. I will share with you some fundamentals on lead scoring in general, how it is used in Salesforce Pardot, and how you can build it in Marketing Cloud.

Last Updated on November 13, 2023 Why is deleting contacts important? With privacy having rightfully increasing focus, you should ensure that you don’t store and process more data than needed, in your Salesforce Marketing Cloud environment. But what is a Contact and how are they being counted? Salesforce explains it quite well in this article. Deleting contacts in Salesforce Marketing Cloud is important for several reasons: Overall, deleting contacts in Salesforce Marketing Cloud is essential for maintaining data privacy, improving database management, optimising email deliverability, enhancing reporting and analytics, and delivering a better customer experience. It helps you stay compliant …

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Last Updated on July 5, 2023 This is indeed a big topic, which I will do my best to cover in a single short answer here. This all comes very much down to your consent and identity data model. How many options for subscriptions will you be offering your subscribers?How many objects (data extensions) will you be using? – Will it only be a single master data extension, with boolean fields for consent and subscriptions? This can quickly and easily be solved using the Upsert Data REST endpoint. You will also need to use similar API to fetch the existing information …

Preference Center in Marketing Cloud Read More »

How can you be sure, that your emails make it all the way to the recipient’s inbox? Spoiler: keeping an eye on bounce rates is not enough. Let me introduce you to Inbox placement. It refers to the ability of an email message to successfully land in the recipient’s inbox rather than being diverted to a spam or junk folder. It is a measure of the deliverability and effectiveness of an email campaign.

Last Updated on December 15, 2023 Imagine a world, where you only have Salesforce Marketing Cloud. No Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, or other applications which you would normally consider a system of record for identity and consent. Especially when looking at the Consent Data Model of Salesforce: The Salesforce Consent Data Model is the standard data model for managing consent at multiple levels, from global preferences to more granular controls. This data model, the foundation of Salesforce’s long-term view of consent, considers the individual’s entire experience, not just a single contact point. Any record that relates to an individual can …

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Although most implementations are successful and provide solid ROI to the organizations, I have also seen a failure or two. It is first of all, a question of not getting the expected value from the significant investment, which Salesforce Marketing Cloud is.

Last Updated on April 14, 2023 Let’s have a look at the problem below: I am brand new to AMPScript and have a complicated use case I’m hoping somebody could help with. I have data that is being imported into SFMC that relates to offers that a customer may receive. In that data extension, some customers may receive all 5 offers, while others will only receive one. Is there a way to show content blocks for individuals who qualify (as listed in the data extension) and collapse and hide content for those that don’t qualify? Someone new to Marketing Cloud …

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There can be some confusion on how and when to use Private Domain on Marketing Cloud vs a Sender Authentication Package. It took me some time to understand this myself, and I will share some key findings here.

Last Updated on March 30, 2023 Did you read my post about using multiple email addresses for a single subscriber? Here I explained how important it is to ensure, that the email address stored in All Subscribers list is identical to the email address in your sendable data extension, when working with Salesforce Marketing Cloud: When a send to a data extension occurs, the following process occurs at sendtime, under normal circumstances: If the value does not exist, a new record is created: The related Subscriber Key field value is set as Subscriber Key on the All Subscribers list and the value …

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Last Updated on March 30, 2023 Sometimes you find yourself in a situation, where a single Contact Key needs to provide multiple email addresses. This could have multiple causes, like providing both a work-email as well as a personal email. While you are able to store these emails in a data extension within Marketing Cloud, using both of them with same Contact/Subscriber is not as straightforward as you would think. In order to understand the multi-email address scenario per Subscriber Key, it is vital to understand the logic behind email address in a sendable data extension vs. email address in …

Can you have one Contact/Subscriber with multiple email addresses? Read More »

Last Updated on April 18, 2024 So, you have started using Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and spotted that little menu, listing Email Recommendations and Web Recommendations. But what is this all about, and how can you come around to build a useful implementation? One of my favourite use cases for this, is lead scoring. Introduction You can use Einstein Email Recommendations to observe customer behavior, build preference profiles, and deliver the next-best content or product. You can also refine recommendations to match your business rules. Recommendation content surfaces in placeholders for recommendations on your website. Email recommendations are delivered as a …

Behaviour based segmentation with Einstein Read More »

Last Updated on March 31, 2023 Email authentication helps to ensure that an email message was sent by the domain it claims to be sent from, and that the message has not been modified in transit. Authentication is the effort to equip messages with enough verifiable information so that recipients (ISPs and end consumers) can recognize the nature of each message automatically. Authentication technology allows the receiver of an email and the ISP to confirm the identity of the sender. Authentication is the answer to the following questions: Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s Private Domain and SAP products provide you with full …

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Last Updated on March 20, 2023 If you can reply yes to both of the points above, you have come to the right place. The following solution will give you a tool to keep an eye on your automations, and trigger a notification in a selected Microsoft Teams channel, as illustrated above, so you can take appropriate actions, but also use the teams notification to initiate a dialogue with appropriate members who might not have access to Marketing Cloud. The process is following: The backbone of the automation monitor is the Automation_Status data extension having following structure: Name Type Not …

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Last Updated on March 31, 2023 I have an existing SFMC setup, with a warm private IP address and an authenticated domain already. I am launching a new product and therefore want to set up a NEW sending domain to send from. If I want to start sending from it, using new sender domain, will I need to purchase a new Sender Authentication Package (SAP)? Salesforce Marketing Cloud Admin It might be useful to list few differences (and similarities) between SAP and a Private Domain, prior to getting to the point. Sender Authentication Package (SAP) is best thought of as …

How do I brand my sender in Salesforce Marketing Cloud? Read More »

Last Updated on February 8, 2024 DMARC, which stands for “Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance”, is an email authentication protocol. It builds on the widely deployed SPF and DKIM protocols, adding a reporting function that allows senders and receivers to protect and monitor fraudulent use of a domain in email. DMARC allows domain owners, including ISPs and webmail providers, to publish a “policy” that can have restrictions on where their domain can be utilized. Yahoo, for example, can restrict the use of the yahoo.com domain in from addresses. Their restriction effectively prevents anyone from using a yahoo.com from address …

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