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Search Results for: marketing cloud growth

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  • Getting Started, Marketing Cloud, Setup & Admin, Technology

Getting Started with Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced, A Guide for Account Engagement Users

Product Note: Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced are editions of Marketing Cloud Next and have also been referred to as Agentforce Marketing.

If you are an Account Engagement User, you’ve likely been hearing for months that Account Engagement Orgs can get free access to Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced Edition with their current contract. There have been numerous webinars, blog posts, and speaking topics exploring the features and functionalities of Growth and Advanced, and encouraging you to get started, but we’ve all been missing one key element. It wasn’t until Sercante’s recent Dreamforce recap webinar that someone said, “The Implementation Guide is 53 pages long, how do we actually get started, and what is required to just test the platform?”

This question struck me as a no-brainer once someone said it out loud. Of course, 53 pages of implementation steps are overwhelming! This new platform is uncharted territory for a lot of Marketing users, so it totally makes sense that users feel a bit nervous and confused about where to start. So, let’s talk through the base implementation you need to just test out the platform and see if it is a good fit. 

Step 1: Data 360

Before you implement Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced Edition, you need Data 360 (formerly Data Cloud). If your org doesn’t already have this tool, you have a couple of options:

  1. Salesforce Foundations
    1. Foundations is a $0 SKU that allows you to “access the powerful AI capabilities of Agentforce and discover key features in Agentforce, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, and Data Cloud — all at no cost”. This SKU includes 250k credits for Data Cloud, more than enough to get started
  2. Free Data Cloud SKU
    1. Salesforce also offers a free Data Cloud SKU to help orgs get started. This also includes 250k credits.

Once you have Data 360, set it up by going to Setup > Data Cloud Setup and select Get Started.

A screenshot hovering over the gear settings icon in Salesforce and clicking Setup.

This will take 5-15 minutes to run, and your page should auto-refresh once complete. Next, select Assign Permissions. Assign your user both the Data Cloud Architect (fka Data Cloud Admin) and Marketing Cloud Admin permission sets.

Finally, back on the Data Cloud Setup page, select Connect an Org and install the Sales Cloud Standard Data Bundle. 

A screenshot of the Data Cloud Setup screen with a red rectangle pointing out the Connect an Org button, underneath the Assign User Permissions step.
A screenshot showing the Standard Data Bundles and clicking the dropdown arrow to install.

This is going to ensure Data 360 has access to all the Salesforce Objects you’ll need, we will deploy this Data Bundle in a bit. 

Step 2: Enable Marketing Cloud

Next, we are going to set up Marketing Cloud, navigate to Setup > Assistant Home. The Assistant Home page guides you through the required and recommended tasks as well as gives you an overview of where you are in the setup process. We’re going to jump around a bit, but make sure you come back to this page if you decide to fully deploy Growth or Advanced Edition later. 

Select Go to Basic Settings. The first four tasks should kick off and complete on their own, the only step you’ll need to do is select your data space. Most orgs will just have the “default” data space to work with, at least until the Business Unit feature is available (expected in Spring ‘26). Marketing Cloud will auto-enable once the data space is selected. If it does not, select Enable Marketing Cloud.

Step 3: Data Streams

Next, select Update within the “Install the Marketing Data Kits” section. This will take 5-10 minutes to finish running. Don’t worry if initially some of the data kits fail, just select Refresh or Retry to try them again. Once all the data kits have successfully been installed, we will go into Data 360 to deploy them.

First, we want to take care of the Sales Cloud Data Bundle we installed earlier.  

  • Navigate to the App Manager >  Data Cloud > Data Streams
  • Select New
  • Select Salesforce CRM, then Next
  • Select the Sales Standard Data Bundle
A screenshot of the Data Streams selection where we select Standard Data Bundles.

  • Select Next, then Deploy

Next you’ll deploy the data kits. Use the instructions in the Manually Deploy the Updated Data Streams section here for guidance. You’ll need to do this about 5 or 6 times to ensure all the data kits are deployed.

Step 4: Identity Resolution

Now we’ll set up our Identity Resolution Ruleset. This step will create the Unified Individuals that Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced use (similar to how MCAE uses Prospects). Creating Unified Individuals and running Identity Resolution Rulesets uses Data 360 credits. How many credits depends on:

  1. The number of records it is ingesting (likely just your Leads and Contacts, unless you have other data sources connected) 
  2. How many rulesets you have per object (I recommend having just one for the Individual Object)
  3. How often the ruleset runs

Back on our Setup > Basic Settings page, you should see a Generate Ruleset button in the “Configure Identity Resolution Rulesets” section. Select this and give the system a few minutes to run, a green banner should appear when complete. 

A screenshot of the Basic Settings page where you will see the Generate Ruleset button. It's under the Configure Identity Resolution Rulesets section.

Your new Identity Resolution Ruleset should autopopulate in the Unified Individual Object dropdown. 

If you want to manually build an Identity Ruleset or build a Ruleset for Accounts (Advanced only and needed for Account Scoring), use this help article. 

Step 5: Add Additional Users

Ok we’re done with the highly technical stuff, now let’s add some users and get to the fun features! Your Growth and Advanced users will need a couple of different permissions depending on what they need to do in the system.

Permission Sets

To use Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced users will need either Marketing Cloud Admin or Marketing Cloud Manager. You can also set up your own permission set or even create an Identity License profile for users without an existing Salesforce license. 

If your users need to work with the Data 360 side of things, they will also need a Data 360 permission set. The comparison chart in this help article always helps me pick the right one.

Workspace Contributors

Next, add users as contributors to your “Content Workspace for Marketing Cloud”. This article outlines the steps. The available roles for contributors are:

  • Content Admin: Manage users and sharing settings, create and publish all content in a CMS workspace, and assign a default brand to a marketing workspace.
  • Content Manager: Create and publish all content in a CMS workspace and assign a default brand to a marketing workspace.
  • Content Author: View, edit, and create all content in a CMS workspace. They can’t publish content.

Site Contributors

This is needed if you are going to work with Landing Pages during your testing. This article outlines the steps. The available roles are: 

  • Experience Admin: These contributors can do just about everything in an assigned Experience Builder site. They can access Experience Builder, can manage contributors, and publish the site.
  • Publisher: These contributors help you build and publish the assigned Experience Builder site. They can access Experience Builder, and they can publish the site. They can’t manage contributors. They have read-only access to the Experience Workspaces Administration | Contributors tab.
  • Builder: These contributors help build the assigned Experience Builder site. They can access Experience Builder. They can’t publish the site or manage contributors. They have read-only access to the Experience Workspaces Administration | Contributors tab.
  • Viewer: These contributors have read-only access to Experience Builder in an assigned site. They can’t publish the site or manage contributors. They have read-only access to the Experience Workspaces Administration | Contributors tab.

The remaining setup items depend on what you’d like to test out in Growth and Advanced. 

Try out AI Features

There are a lot of Agentforce and Einstein features you can enable within Growth and Advanced. Using these features does consume credits, but I wouldn’t let that stop you from testing and exploring their capabilities. Have a plan around who is testing and what they are testing, so you don’t duplicate work and credit usage. 

Enable Gen AI for Campaign and Content Creation

For the Generative AI features of Growth and Advanced, we will need to enable Einstein and add some topics to the default Agentforce Agent. 

  1. Navigate to Setup > Einstein & Agentforce > Agentforce & Gen AI
  2. Select Go to Einstein Setup
  3. Toggle the switch for Turn on Einstein
  4. Back on the Setup > Einstein & Agentforce > Agentforce & Gen AI page, select Go to Agent Studio
  5. Toggle the switch for Agentforce to on
  6. Wait for your screen to refresh or manually refresh
  7. Toggle the switch for Enable the Agentforce (Default) Agent to on
  8. Select the dropdown arrow next to your Agent and select Open in Builder
  9. Deactivate Agent if already activated
  10. Select the New dropdown
  11. Select Add from Asset Library
  12. Select the Content Creation and Marketing Cloud: Campaign Planning assets
    1. If you are an MCE user, you can also select Journey Decisioning
  13. Select Finish
  14. Select the dropdown arrow next to your new topics and select View Details
  15. Select This Topic’s Actions
  16. Ensure the actions outlined in the Enable Marketing-Specific Topics and Standard Actions in Agent Builder section are present. If they are not, use this article to manually add them
  17. Once done, Activate your Agent

Note: Any users who need access to use these features will need the “Access Agentforce Default Agent” permission set.

Activate Einstein Segment Creation 

Einstein Segment Creation allows you to use natural language prompts to build segments within Data 360. Use this help article to enable Einstein Segment Creation. You will also likely want to enable:

  • Approximate Segment Population
  • Navigate the Attribute Library More Intuitively
  • Segment Preview
A screenshot of the Feature Manager screen in Setup with all of the following features Enabled: Approximate Segment Population, Einstein Segment Creation, Navigate the Attribute Library More Intuitively, and Segment Preview.

Enable Additional Einstein Features

Einstein Send Time Optimization, Einstein Metrics Guard, Einstein Engagement Frequency, and Einstein Scoring are all just one click each to enable and all the instructions are consolidated in one help article.

Build and Personalize Assets

Enable Personalization to Test Dynamic Content

If you would like to test out Dynamic Content in Growth and Advanced, you will need to enable Personalization and configure your Data Graph. I recommend setting up your Data Graph first, Cate Godley wrote a really great blog post that will walk you through this process. Finally, use the Set Up Personalization steps here to complete the process. 

Configure a Brand

Setting up a Brand in Growth and Advanced will let you auto-style your Marketing Assets and update the branding within Marketing Assets en masse. Check out Ambre Juryea-Amole’s blog post on setting up a brand for guidance on using this feature. A couple of additional features have been added since Ambre wrote her post; we can now configure a Brand Identity and Tone, which will be used by Agentforce when generating content, and assign a default Brand to the CMS workspace. 

Dig Into Reports

Set up Marketing Performance

To dig into campaign metrics and content, install Marketing Performance using this help article. Once installed, you will have a Marketing Performance tab within the Marketing Cloud Growth/Advanced app where you can view campaign, channel, and content insights. 

A screenshot of the Marketing Performance tab.

You can also view an individual’s campaign Performance reports on the left side of the Campaign view. 

A screenshot highlighting the Performance menu options in the campaign view on the left-hand side, below Flows.

Note: Any users who need access to Marketing Performance reports will need the “Tableau Next Included App Business User” permission set.

Connect Analytics

Finally, install the Analytics packages for access to preconfigured dashboards and reports on your Marketing activities. This article walks you through everything you need to do to get Analytics up and running. 

What’s Next?

The above steps are enough to get you started, so you can test Growth and Advanced and determine if you want to use it alongside Account Engagement. Additional implementation steps will really depend on what you want to use Growth and Advanced for, but here are some likely paths forward. 

If you’d like help implementing or exploring Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced, reach out to the Sercante team!

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  • Data Management, Marketing Cloud, Pro Tips, Technology

Building Data Graphs in Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced Edition

Product Note: Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced are editions of Marketing Cloud Next and have also been referred to as Agentforce Marketing.

Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced Edition (aka Marketing Cloud on Core or just Marketing Cloud) offers incredible capabilities to marketers in so many areas. From AI powered segmentation, scheduling and sending SMS in a nurture campaign, and unprecedented abilities to tailor your marketing content to the audience viewing it, Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced Edition can help marketing teams large and small automate their marketing efforts. All of these amazing capabilities rely on the power of one key feature of Data Cloud – the Data Graph. 

Data Graphs allow you to combine and transform data from multiple Data Cloud Data Model Objects (DMOs) into a single view. This read-only Data Graph can then be used in a variety of ways through API, automations, and Salesforce applications, like Marketing Cloud. In fact, a Data Graph is a requirement for using personalization (and some automations) within Marketing Cloud – the objects and fields you select when creating this graph are the same objects and fields that you’ll have access to when adding personalization to your marketing content or powering your automations. 

Your Data Graph needs to have a specific shape to successfully send your emails. If you have Marketing Cloud Advanced Edition, you’ll also need to ensure that Einstein Engagement Scoring and Einstein Engagement Frequency features have been enabled before building. This blog will help you understand the steps needed to take to create and edit your Data Graph for Marketing Cloud.

Things to Consider Before Building a Data Graph

Once upon a time editing a data graph wasn’t possible, which meant gathering all of the information you’d need to reference in your marketing efforts before building your first graph. Now it’s entirely possible to edit your data graph, but I’d still highly recommend you gather your requirements ahead of time, so let’s think about what you’ll need.

What fields do you need for personalization?

Personalized marketing content is the name of the game, so the first thing to consider is what fields you’ll want to reference in any personalized marketing content. This should include things like First Name, Last Name, Title, and Account but you should also consider what custom fields you may want to reference, like the name of a product or webinar they’ve attended.

Are there any fields you’ll need for segmentation?

The segmentation capabilities in Marketing Cloud rely on the fields that are included in your data graph, so next up it’s time to think about how you’re planning on segmenting your prospects for email, SMS, and/or WhatsApp sends and automations. Common things to include could be industry, region, and address data. Make note of the fields and the object that those fields are on. For example, if you want to pull in industry, that field is likely on the Account Object. Keep in mind that anything you include here must have some relationship to the individual included in the segment. 

What will you need for your automations?

The last thing you’ll need to consider is any information you might need for your flows. What information will you be basing your automation decisions on? Things to consider include campaign membership or status, email engagement, and geographical information.

Have Advanced edition? Turn on Einstein Features (if applicable)

Marketing Cloud Advanced Edition includes Einstein Engagement Scoring and Einstein Engagement Frequency. Be sure to enable these features before building your data graph! 

Confirm the fields are in Data Cloud

Now that you have your field requirements determined, the next step is to make sure all these fields are mapped to your Data Streams. These field mappings take the new information ingested in the data stream and map it to the appropriate fields and objects in the Data Model Object (DMO) to create or update the appropriate records. Head to the Data Streams tab in Data Cloud and confirm all the fields you listed earlier are mapped to the appropriate DMOs. Check out this help article for some data mapping best practices.

Be sure the Data Cloud Connector can View All fields

One of Salesforce’s core tenets is trust, and that extends across all layers of the Salesforce ecosystem. This means that the connector between Data Cloud and Sales Cloud has minimum access to information in your Salesforce system. Make sure all the fields you’re including in your data graph are visible to Data Cloud by going to the Data Cloud Salesforce Connector Permission Set and updating the object settings to include the View All and Read permissions for every object you’ve listed. This ensures that all objects and fields are able to be ingested into Data Cloud.

Building the Standard Data Graph for Marketing Cloud 

We have a step by step blog on building a data graph for personalization, but as a quick refresher, here are the steps you’ll need to take and things to keep in mind. 

  1. Go to Salesforce Setup > Marketing Cloud > Assisted Setup > Reporting and Optimization > Customer Engagement
  2. Click on “Go to Data Graphs”
  3. Create a new data graph from scratch
  4. Use the default data space
  5. Select the Unified Individual as your Primary Data Model Object
  6. Ensure your data graph has the following shape:
  • Unified Individual (Primary Data Model Object)
    • Unified Link Individual
      • Individual
        • Contact Point Email
        • Contact Point Phone
  1. Make sure all the objects and fields on your lists are included in the data graph
    1. The following fields must be selected during the Data Graph setup:
      1. Individual ID from ‘Individual’
      2. Email Address from ‘Contact Point Email’
      3. Telephone Number from ‘Contact Point Phone’

But what if you have Advanced?

If you’re using Marketing Cloud Advanced Edition, be sure to include the Email Engagement Score (Unified Individual > Unified Link Individual > Contact Point Email) and Email Engagement Frequency (Contact Point Email & Contact Point Phone). 

Add in SMS 

By now, your data graph should look something like this, give or take the Email Engagement Score, Email Engagement Frequency, and SMS options. To include SMS in your Data Graph, be sure to include the Contact Point Phone and the Message Engagement options, as shown below.

Message Engagement gives you lots of options for monitoring how your SMS marketing is doing. Use this to monitor engagement with your SMS messages, the messages you’re sending, links, subscription information and more!

Bringing in Custom Fields and Objects

Okay, so we’ve covered adding in all the standard objects and fields you’ll need for your standard personalization and automation needs, but what about the custom objects that you may have in your organization? These may be objects from integrations, or ones you’ve created to help manage campaigns or customer orders. 

To bring this information into your Data Graph for use in your marketing, you’ll need to ensure that there’s a connection to the Individual in some manner. What does that mean? An easy example is an Opportunity – Opportunities are connected to the Individual via their Account in Salesforce. Select the top level item in your Data Graph, then use the + option to drill down to the object you’re looking for. Once you’ve gotten your object added on the graph, use the right side of the screen to select the fields you want to include in the graph.

Deploy Your Data Graph

Now that you’ve built your graph, the next step is to save and build, then deploy your graph. Click on Save and Build then choose your refresh interval. Keep in mind that every refresh will consume credits! The right refresh interval will depend on how you’re planning on using the Data Graph, but typically the daily refresh rate works well for marketing needs.

Head Back to Setup to Deploy Your Graph

From Salesforce Setup, type Reporting and Optimization in the Quick Find box and navigate to the Customer Engagement option. In the Configure Basic Personalization section, use the drop down menu to select the Data Graph you just created.

If prompted, confirm that you want to update your data graph by clicking the Update button.

Get Personalizing with Your Data Graph!

Now that you’ve built and deployed your Data Graph, you’re able to use the information in your personalization and automation efforts across Marketing Cloud. This powerful tool combines information from across your Salesforce organization into a single place of reference for Marketing Cloud to use that will update automatically on a planned schedule.

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  • Marketing Automations, Pro Tips

Automating Campaign Names in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition

Product Note: Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced are editions of Marketing Cloud Next and have also been referred to as Agentforce Marketing.

One of my all time favorite hacks is using flow to generate consistent campaign names in Salesforce. With the release of Marketing Cloud Growth Edition and the move to a more campaign-centric model, I wondered if this old trick would still work. Like any good consultant, I created a demo org and did some testing. Stick around to find out what I learned.

Campaign-Centric Approach

If you have not played with Marketing Cloud Growth yet, let’s set the stage. Marketing Cloud Growth has a very campaign focused workflow for creating new marketing initiatives. I really like this structure as all components are visible and accessible in a single location. This includes the content (emails/SMS messages/landing pages), segment, and the flow (this is a big change too – flows are used to send messages).

Campaign Anatomy

Marketing Cloud Growth uses the standard Salesforce campaign object, but the look is different when accessed from the Marketing app. The campaign is divided into sections containing the flow, start trigger, and content. This makes it easy to access everything in one place.

When campaigns are created, content and flow names are derived from the campaign name. This is another great out-of-the-box feature designed to make reporting easier by relating linked assets. It’s this feature that inspired my test.

Campaign Types

Before we get too deep into testing, let’s consider the types of campaigns that we’ll be creating. Most of us are accustomed to using the default or customized version of the campaign type picklist on the campaign page layout.

Marketing Cloud Growth campaigns are used for emails and nurtures, but they are also used for forms. Based on this, you might want to consider adding some more values to your type picklist to mirror the templates.

Example Type Additions

  • Single Email
  • Message Series
  • Form
  • Single SMS Message

Let’s Get Testing!

Now that the baseline is set, let’s get testing. The goal of this test is to do the following:

  • Determine if flow can be used to update the campaign name in Marketing Cloud Growth based on a standardized naming convention.
  • Confirm that the standardized naming convention will also be applied to the campaign components (flows and content).

1 ) Determine Campaign Naming Convention

I’m keeping my convention pretty simple, but you can use whatever structure best suits the needs of your organization. My structure is as follows:

2) Update the Campaign Object

There are a few updates that need to be made to the campaign object. We’ll take them one by one.

1. Customize Type picklist values and update API names to 3-digit codes (these are what will be included in our campaign names)

2. Update page layouts to make needed fields required

3. Create a formula field on the campaign object to calculate the standardized campaign name

  • Field Name: Campaign Name – Calculated
  • Formula: Text(Year(StartDate))&”-“&LPAD(Text(Month(StartDate)),2,”0″)&” “&Text(Type)&” “&(Name)

3) Create the Flow

This a straightforward record-triggered flow based on the campaign object that updates the name field on the campaign with the value from the Campaign Name – Calculated field.

Start Element

Flow Canvas

Update Records Element

4) Activate and Test

Test 1: Signup Form

The campaign, landing page, form, and flow were all generated using the correct naming convention.

Test 2: Message Series

The campaign, emails, and flow were all generated using the correct naming convention.

Takeaways

Linking campaign names and components makes consistent naming conventions more important than ever. I’m excited that my favorite hack still works and will be even more valuable going forward.

Like all good things, there is one “gotcha” to watch out for. Whether using this solution or the default functionality, the names of campaign components are generated at creation and are not updated if the campaign name is later changed. My advice is to ensure you have the correct campaign name before choosing your campaign template (from the “Let’s build your campaign.” screen).

If you have any questions about Marketing Cloud Growth or this solution, feel free to reach out!

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  • Data Management, Pro Tips, Strategy

Using Data Cloud Credits in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition: A Guide for Account Engagement Users

Product Note: Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced are editions of Marketing Cloud Next and have also been referred to as Agentforce Marketing.

Like many people in the Salesforce ecosystem, you may be intrigued by the announcement of Marketing Cloud Growth Edition — especially since access to the platform is available to current Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) users on the “Growth Edition” tier. However, a key differentiator between the platforms is that Growth Edition gives marketers access to Data Cloud credits.

In this post, we’ll explain how Account Engagement users can tap into those Data Cloud credits through Growth Edition, the differences between both platforms’ billing models, and strategies for marketers to follow while using Data Cloud credits.

Understanding the Consumption-Based Billing Model

Whether you’re a marketer, an operations manager, an admin, or something in between, there’s a lot to look forward to as functionality moves into Salesforce core. For example, consider the flexibility of segmentation with Data Cloud and leveraging Einstein AI to supercharge your campaigns. 

As you start to explore this toolset and feature set, however, there is an important mindset shift in the structure of the product to be aware of.

Like Data Cloud, Marketing Cloud Growth Edition is a consumption-based toolset. That means your team’s feature usage within the platform determines how many credits are used and what your organization will pay each billing cycle.

Back up a second — Account Engagement has usage limits, too?

Yes, Account Engagement has certain feature limits. If you’re an admin, you’re probably familiar with navigating to the usage tab and checking your mailable prospect database or how many repeating engagement studios you have in play (if you’re not, check out our blog post on monitoring your mailable database). 

How does the Account Engagement billing model differ from Growth Edition’s?

Outside of total mailable database count and feature limits based on your edition, segmentation and email sending are generally open season for users. Dynamic lists can be run and emails can be sent to your heart’s content. 

The Einstein toolsets available in the more premium editions of the platform also generally run for the whole database and have no specific consumption considerations.

In comparison, Marketing Cloud Growth Edition is structured so there are credits for many of the core actions taken. This aligns with the structure of Data Cloud, which serves as the segmentation engine for Growth campaigns. 

Marketing Cloud Growth Edition Standard Credits

For new setups of Growth Edition, these are the standard credits provisioned:

  • 10K Marketing Unified Profiles
  • 240K Data Cloud Credits
  • 10K Segment and Activation Credits
  • 1TB Data Cloud Storage
  • 180K Emails/year
  • 20K Einstein Co-Create Requests for email content generation

These numbers may depend on your edition and specific agreement with Salesforce, and all of these areas can be extended with additional credits. 

Other business segments may have Data Cloud

Also worth considering — Data Cloud is not solely a marketing tool, and Data Cloud may already be in use by other divisions of your organization. But don’t fret, that’s a good thing!

A key benefit of the toolset and moving to Growth is gaining the ability to align customer experience processes across all departments.

Is there an easy way to monitor my consumption-based credits?

Glad you asked! Yes, Salesforce released a feature called Digital Wallet to help admins keep track of consumption-based tools.

The Consumption Card tab can be accessed by users with appropriate permissions and provides an overview page to monitor credit usage.

This page also includes access to insights that help you understand how usage is trending over time and where you might need to plan for expansion.

How do I go about strategically using these? What is a “credit” worth, anyways?

Different considerations are at play for different consumption metrics within Marketing Cloud Growth.  Email send credits and Einstein Co-Create credits are relatively straightforward — the total number of emails launched and uses of AI copy generation for the content, respectively. 

Where complexity lies is the data harmonization and segmentation process in Data Cloud and credits needed there — calculated based on rows in your database used and processed for different actions.

You can see a more detailed breakdown of the calculations here. 

Data Cloud Credit Usage Examples for Growth Edition Marketers 

In practice, these areas are likely where a marketer will consume Data Cloud credits.

Data Harmonization and Unified Individuals

  • Target Audience: As opposed to “prospects” within Account Engagement, users create segments in Data Cloud for Marketing Cloud Growth Edition campaigns via Unified Individual profiles.

    Instead of 1:1 syncing with a lead or contact, these unified profiles can link multiple data sources to create a 360-degree view of the customer, with data from Salesforce and external data sources. 
  • Identity Resolution: To make sure these unified profiles are accurate to your map of data, identity resolution rules are created in Data Cloud to join datasets by the relationships you define.

    The harmonization process this executes does utilize Data Cloud credits, so data complexity here can affect the requirements for this process. Learn more about the process in this Trailhead!
  • Growth Edition also includes a set of features for incorporating consent per channel into this profile, determining whether the individual can be sent communications and helping you maintain privacy and compliance for your audience.

Pulling and Refreshing Segments

  • Segment Creation: When you create a new segment or modify an existing one, Data Cloud Credits are used to execute the data queries that define the segment criteria. This process involves filtering and aggregating large volumes of data to isolate specific audiences.
  • Segment Refresh: To keep your segments up-to-date, you’ll need to refresh them regularly. Each time you perform a refresh, credits are consumed as the system reprocesses the data to ensure the segment reflects the most current information.

Using Einstein’s AI Capabilities 

Note: this refers to Einstein Features within Data Cloud, not Einstein Co-Create content generation within Marketing Cloud Growth. You can get more on the specific rate consumption for AI models with Data Cloud here.

  • Predictive Scoring: Einstein AI can analyze historical data and predict future behaviors. Utilizing predictive models or scoring capabilities consumes Data Cloud Credits based on the complexity and volume of data processed.
  • Recommendation Engines: Whether you want to personalize content or recommend products, Einstein’s recommendation engines leverage AI to analyze user behavior and preferences. This process also requires Data Cloud Credits, reflecting the computational resources needed for these advanced features.
  • Automated Insights: Einstein provides actionable insights and analytics by examining trends and patterns within your data. Accessing these insights involves credit consumption, especially when dealing with extensive datasets or detailed analyses.

How to make the most of your Data Cloud credits

To make sure you’re using Data Cloud as efficiently as possible, keep the following considerations in mind.

  • Efficient Querying: Optimize your segment queries to be as efficient as possible. Reducing the complexity of queries or breaking them into smaller, more manageable tasks can help conserve credits.
  • Scheduled Refreshes: Instead of frequent manual refreshes, schedule them during off-peak times or based on data needs. This reduces unnecessary credit usage while ensuring segments remain accurate.
  • Strategic AI Usage: Use Einstein’s AI capabilities strategically. Prioritize features that deliver the most value for your marketing goals and ensure that the credit expenditure aligns with your objectives.
  • AI Models Management: Regularly review and refine AI models to maintain their accuracy and relevance. Properly trained models can yield better insights, maximizing the return on your credit investment.

Take advantage of the consumption-based model to understand what you’ll need as you scale

Hopefully, this gave you a good introduction to the concepts needed to monitor and understand credit usage as you consider using Marketing Cloud Growth Edition and Data Cloud alongside Account Engagement.

 Don’t let this scare you off — while there are new concepts to learn, the toolset opens possibilities for marketers ready to use data to create the best possible customer experience and segmentation. 

As the “Growth” name implies, it sets your business up for cost-efficiency in the short term and scalability in the long term. As you continue to scale and incorporate new data sources and channels, there’s a more defined method to ingest this data, improve your personalization, and predict the impact to your costs over time. 

As you explore more, please check out our FAQ article on Marketing Cloud Growth or send us a message if you have any other questions.

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  • Emails & Forms, Marketing Automations, Pro Tips

Building a Message Series Flow in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition

Product Note: Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced are editions of Marketing Cloud Next and have also been referred to as Agentforce Marketing.

I’m not going to be the guy who says “I told you so,” but Flow Builder has officially expanded from being an automation tool used exclusively by Salesforce Admins into the realm of marketing. Flow Builder is the engine used by Marketing Cloud Growth Edition to send emails and SMS messages and perform other automated tasks. If you’re not familiar with Flow, that’s OK. In this post, we’ll walk you through the process of building a message series with Flow in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition.

Getting Started

If you are new to flow, I would encourage you to take a moment to read Heather Rinke’s post An Introductory Guide to Salesforce Flow for Marketers before going any further. This is a great overview of flows and will provide context to the topics that we’ll be discussing.

If you have questions about Marketing Cloud Growth Edition, I’ve got you covered there too. Check out Erin Duncan’s post All the FAQs on Marketing Cloud Growth Edition for all your answers.

Building a Message Series

Confirm User Access

Marketing Cloud Growth (aka MCG) includes two permission sets out of the box. It also requires that users be added as a contributors to the CMS workspace and the Marketing Landing Pages site (see the Implementation Guide: Marketing Cloud Growth for more details).

NameDescription
Marketing Cloud AdminAccess to Salesforce Setup, Data Cloud Setup, and full control on campaigns, segments, and flows. Access to MCG’s setup assistant is also being added as part of the Winter ‘25 release.
Marketing Cloud ManagerFull control to manage campaigns, segments, and campaign (non-admin) flows.

User Permissions in Marketing Cloud Growth

It All Starts With A Campaign

One of the things that I really like about Marketing Cloud Growth is the campaign-centric approach. This is very logical and easy to use.

To get started navigate to the Campaigns tab in the Marketing App and click the New button. After completing the fields on the campaign page layout, you’ll be presented with the screen below. This is where the fun begins!

We’re going to select the Message Series option as that’s our goal for today.

Pro Tip: If you see this message when clicking one of the “Where do you want to start?” options, go back up and confirm your user access. Chances are you have not been added to the CMS as a contributor.

After selecting the Message Series option, you’ll notice that Marketing Cloud Growth has created your campaign, email templates, and a basic flow. This automation is a real time-saver and provides a great starting point for marketers.
  

Flow Access

You can access the pre-built flow by clicking the “Open Flow” button within the campaign or by searching for “flow” in the App Launcher. This is a basic Segment-Triggered flow that sends an initial email, waits a specified period, and then sends a follow-up message. It’s a good starting point, but you’ll likely need to customize it to meet your specific requirements.

Customizing Your Flow

Flow Capabilities

If you are a Salesforce Admin who has experience with flows, you’ll immediately notice that this is not the same version of flow that you are accustomed to. Marketing Cloud Growth uses a streamlined version of Flow Builder and different trigger methods (Segment-Triggered and Form-Triggered). Most elements are available, but there are some limitations. See Marketing Cloud Growth Campaign Flows vs. Salesforce Flows by Lucy Mazalon for a great overview. Some limitations that stood out to me were the inability to access the Toolbox or create formulas, but don’t stress too much as this is a new product and capabilities will be expanded in future releases.

Pro Tip: Marketing Cloud Managers can access and edit flows, but their permissions are limited compared to Marketing Cloud Admins. Key missing elements include assignment, get records, and loop functions.

Current Capabilities

Set Schedule 

Unlike Record-Triggered flows, Segment-Triggered flows run on set schedules. This is due to the linkage with Data Cloud and its consumption-based pricing model. Credits are used when segments are processed so it’s recommended that segments only be refreshed prior to sending a communication or at intervals relevant to data updates (if data is added weekly, don’t refresh daily).

The schedule can be set by clicking + Set Schedule in the Start element. From there you’ll have the option to run once or set a recurring schedule.

Select Segment 

Speaking of segments, they can be added to the flow from the Start element by clicking + Select Element or directly from the campaign page by clicking Select Segment. I prefer adding the segment from the flow start element as it provides some additional features that I find very handy. 

After selecting a segment from the Segment dropdown, a summary of the segment is provided. The population, description, last publish date, and publish schedule are also displayed. If the segment population seems too large or too small, you can access and edit the segment rules. Keep in mind, any edits to the segment will be applied wherever the segment is used.

The final consideration is the republishing schedule. You can immediately publish the segment before running the flow (to make sure the most recently added individuals are included) or default to the publishing schedule defined in the segment. The interface design helps make the decision very easy by clearly displaying the segment publish schedule so you can make an informed decision.

Pro Tip: If you see that your segment is not set to refresh, it’s important that you select the “immediately before running the flow” option. If this option is not selected, you risk missing newly added individuals.

Update Wait Elements 

Flow includes three wait elements that provide a lot of flexibility. These elements can easily be added to your flow by hovering over the circle between elements, clicking the + sign, and then entering “Wait” as the search criteria.

One big advantage over Account Engagement’s Engagement Studio is the ability to have wait times down to the minute in the Wait for Amount of Time and Wait Until Event elements.

Apply Branch Logic

Branch logic can be added using the Wait Until Event or a Decision element. Let’s look at both.

Wait Until Event

This element allows you to monitor for an action in the flow and then branch based on the engagement. As an example, you could monitor for individuals who clicked a link (and link or a specific link) in the first email in your series and then branch based on the interaction (or lack thereof). This can also be applied to SMS messages.

Decision Element

This decision element is another way to apply branch logic by specifying criteria for outcomes. The cool thing here is that you are not limited to two branches, additional outcomes can be added as needed creating multiple branches.

The actual resource fields accessible in decision elements are somewhat limited right now. This is certainly an area to keep an eye on as it will become even more valuable in future releases.

Vary Communication Methods

Another great thing about Marketing Cloud Growth is the ability to easily integrate SMS messages into flow. This is a great way to try a different outreach method if individuals don’t respond or to customize nurtures based on individual preferences.

In the example below, the intent is to get individuals to engage (click). After sending two emails and not getting a response, an SMS message is sent to see if a different communication method gets the desired interaction.

Learn More About Marketing Cloud Growth Edition & Flow

Marketing Cloud Growth is an exciting new offering from Salesforce and it’s only going to get better with each release. If you would like to learn more about this product, be sure to check out our Marketing Cloud Growth Edition Bootcamp.

Getting hands-on with flow is something that I highly recommend. Fortunately, Trailhead has a wealth of flow-related training available for free. Here are a couple of recommendations to help get you started.

Finally, Data Cloud is at the core of segmentation in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition. The Data Cloud Basics for Marketers trail is a great way to learn some of the benefits and key terms of Data Cloud that you will run across.

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  • Getting Started

Salesforce Winter ‘25 Highlights: Marketing Cloud Growth Edition

Product Note: Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced are editions of Marketing Cloud Next and have also been referred to as Agentforce Marketing.

The Salesforce Winter ‘25 Release Notes are out! Let’s dive into what’s new in the Winter ’25 Release for Marketing Cloud Growth Edition.

Streamlined Setup

First things first. Salesforce is working to make Marketing Cloud Growth (aka MCG) easier to manage and keep updated as additional features and functionalities are added. With the Winter ’25 release, users with the Marketing Cloud Admin permission set can now access the setup assistant for easier implementation of MCG. All Data Kits can also be updated with the click of a button on the Marketing Data tab. 

Some Data Kits do require you to then deploy the update within Data Cloud’s ingestion data streams. See this help article for guidance. 

Dynamic Content

I love seeing my favorite Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) features show up in MKG! With this release, MCG users can now build Dynamic Content for email subject lines, email preheaders, and email components and even use Einstein Co-Pilot to help with the copy. 

While in the Email Builder, users can create content variations and determine the logic for when a variation is shown.

Event-Triggered Campaigns

A new Campaign template is coming to MCG that will enable Marketers to easily send event-based email messages to their audience. This new campaign can be used when a prospect or client performs an action, such as making a purchase. MCG can then personalize the email with event data. For our “making a purchase” example, the email could contain the order confirmation and details about said order. 

Einstein Co-Pilot

Einstein Co-Pilot continues to expand across Salesforce applications to not only deliver a consistent user experience, but also answer questions and generate content that is grounded in your unique data. Einstein Co-Pilot is generally available for MCG as part of the Winter release and can assist in generating campaigns and copy. If you have already implemented MCG and are currently using Einstein Co-Create, you will need to make some changes to switch to Co-Pilot. Steps to make the switch are coming soon. 

Brand Tone and Identity

Marketing Cloud Growth’s Brand Guidelines are being extended to include Brand Identity and Brand Tone. These brand details help Einstein Co-Pilot better generate content that matches your unique brand and allows you to quickly revise content using a different tone when needed. 

Opportunity Influence

Similar to Campaign influence, Opportunity influence will assist marketers in identifying which campaigns were impactful for opportunities. First-touch and last-touch attribution models will be available as part of the Winter release, allowing marketers to report on which campaigns are most effective during the different stages of the customer’s journey. Opportunity influence will require some backend setup and configuration for accurate reporting, so stay tuned for a more detailed blog post once this feature is available!

And more!

That is a LOT of updates, and I’m happy to see it! What is your favorite feature coming to Marketing Cloud Growth in the Winter ‘25 release? Let us know in the comments.

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