Why Salesforce and Marketing Admins Work Better Together

How often do your Salesforce and marketing platform admins talk to each other? 

• Very little
• Not at all
• Only when things go wrong  

If you selected any of the above, you’re not alone. 

I’m here to tell you, no matter how awkward or challenging starting that conversation may be, it’s one that needs to happen (and continue) sooner rather than later. Having a solid bridge between Salesforce marketing and Sales Cloud admins will (I promise!) make both your lives so much easier. Here’s why…

Benefits of marketing and Salesforce admins working together 

#1 Keep your data clean in both places

Whether you’re using Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) or the OG Marketing Cloud, the way data flows between your marketing automation platform and Salesforce was probably one of the reasons you purchased the tool. So, let’s keep it flowing. 

By working together you can avoid the following pitfalls:

• Duplicate fields
• Data being overwritten 
• Sync errors (Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot)):
  • Fun fact – most common sync errors can be avoided by knowing the Salesforce set up.
    • Field values = prevents invalid picklist errors
    • Expected data = Prevents validation  rule errors
    • Field types = Prevents invalid field format errors 

If both admins are communicating, you can ensure any updates that happen are accurately reflected in both systems.

#2 Prevent loss of access for users and systems 

When marketing and Salesforce admins stop working together, systems can stop working together. 

True story, I’ve worked with clients who have seen automations stop working and users unable to access the systems and data because of updates that the other admins were not aware of — permissions, profiles, field accessibility. When these changes are not communicated, frustrations can arise and time can be wasted looking into the cause. 

Additionally, If you’re using a sandbox environment, understanding the refresh schedule can help prevent loss of work when it’s unexpectedly refreshed. 

Include both admins in conversations around any updates in either system. The changes may not affect the opposing team but it’s good to know just in case.

#3 Experience Team and Business Benefits

The above are all technical reasons why marketing and Salesforce admins should be best friends. But, we haven’t even touched on the business and team building benefits, which are huge.

Here are a few reasons why:

• Improve productivity. Stop looking for the cause of a problem but rather plan for the update as a team.
• You can help advocate for each other with other decision-makers. We are both on the same team and we should both want the same thing. But when one team of admins is working on something and leaves the other out, they can be left to play catch up and try and figure out what’s going on… increasing the frustration and silo.
• Ultimately, it comes down to $$$ –  Two sets of admins working independently = Mo $ Mo time
• Teach each other. The great thing about being an admin is that every day is a school day, we are always learning about the latest tools, security updates and new ways of doing things. Let’s share that knowledge. Get to know what the other team does and find out how you can help each other and make each other’s lives easier.

How to build relationships between Salesforce admins

So what can you do to improve or build a relationship between marketing and Salesforce admins?

• Documentation, documentation and yes, more documentation. Having a record of changes that have been made and how that change relates to the other system will be a huge help in marketing and Salesforce admins working together. 

• Schedule a regular sync up and use this time as a feedback loop, planning session. This can be monthly or quarterly, depending on how often changes are made. Here are some questions you can ask during these meetings:
  • What plans do each admin have for the month ahead?
  • How will this impact the other team?
  • Consideration you hadn’t thought about
  • What does each team need to do to prepare? How long will it take to get things in order? 
  • What’s not working at the moment and what can be done? 
• Create a joint Slack, Teams, Google Hangouts channel. Whatever your choice of instant messaging channel, use it to inform admins on both sides of any upcoming changes. Use it to post reminders, questions, updates. This will become your go to place to find answers and work with your admins. 
• Consider an overview training session of your respective platform. Does your Salesforce admin understand the impact on Marketing cloud when field visibility is changed in Salesforce? Probably not. Work with them to help them understand the implications of such changes. They simply may not know what affects the connection between Salesforce and Marketing Cloud.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to just give Marketing admins Salesforce admin access? 

Yes and no… If you’ve read our blog on Why Should Marketing Admins Have Salesforce Access?, you would have noticed a lot of very good reasons as to why marketing admins should have salesforce access. This is great if you can hand out this access but what happens when you can’t? Should each admin go their separate ways, never to speak again? Absolutely not! 

Even if you can get Salesforce access you should still be opening up communication between yourself and other Salesforce admins.

Strengthen those relationships between marketing and Salesforce admins

Creating a harmonious relationship between both marketing and Salesforce admins starts with the basics… communication and understanding for each other’s roles. When this is followed the benefits can be huge, both personally and technically. 

What tips do you have for improving the relationship between both admins? Let us know in the comments.