Erin Duncan, Author at The Spot

Getting Started, Marketing Cloud, Setup & Admin, Technology
November 10, 2025

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

Erin Duncan

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:

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
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:

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

Navigate to Setup > Einstein & Agentforce > Agentforce & Gen AI
Select Go to Einstein Setup
Toggle the switch for Turn on Einstein
Back on the Setup > Einstein & Agentforce > Agentforce & Gen AI page, select Go to Agent Studio
Toggle the switch for Agentforce to on
Wait for your screen to refresh or manually refresh
Toggle the switch for Enable the Agentforce (Default) Agent to on
Select the dropdown arrow next to your Agent and select Open in Builder
Deactivate Agent if already activated
Select the New dropdown
Select Add from Asset Library
Select the Content Creation and Marketing Cloud: Campaign Planning assets
1. If you are an MCE user, you can also select Journey Decisioning
Select Finish
Select the dropdown arrow next to your new topics and select View Details
Select This Topic’s Actions
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
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!

Emails & Templates, Getting Started, Marketing Cloud, Technology
September 19, 2025

Everything to Know About the Marketing Cloud Next Email Builder

Erin Duncan

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

Marketing Cloud Next offers an intuitive, drag-and-drop email builder packed with smart features that streamline the email creation process. In this blog post, we’ll walk through the key features and functionality of the Email Builder—everything from layout and design features to personalization and testing options—so you can confidently build, preview, and send your first email.

Before we dive into using the builder, let’s have a quick overview of the builder and its different sections:

A screenshot of the Marketing Cloud Next Email Builder with the components labeled 1 - 5. 1: View Mode, 2: Components Panel, 3: Row, 4: Canvas, and 5: Property Panel.

View Mode – Use this to switch between Desktop and Mobile view. You can also show or hide the HTML code in this section.
Components Panel – This section displays the available components for the email. This section will include standard components as well as layout components and, after the Winter ‘26 release, any reusable content blocks created in your org.
Row – All Components are placed in rows. These are the editable sections of your email.
Canvas – Add components by dragging and dropping them onto the canvas.
Property Panel – Displays what can be changed and customized for the currently selected row. When no row is selected, this panel allows you to select a brand, specify your email details, and set your preheader and subject line. You can also specify styling for the email as a whole or configure your email’s data source.

Customizing a Component

Let’s dive into the features and options when building a component. We’ll drag-and-drop a Paragraph component into our email for this section.

The editing options vary depending on which component you have selected, but the Paragraph component shows a good variety of the options. Let’s talk about these from Left to Right

Container Component – this helps you toggle between the component and the container the component resides in. For example, if you wanted to change the background for the container entirely, select the Container Component to switch from the Paragraph component to its container. The Property panel on the right will change as you toggle between these two items.
Component Type – the next section will just display which type of component you are currently working with (button, divider, heading, etc.)
Draft with Agentforce (aka Agentforce Sparkles [insert jazz hands here]) – this option allows you to use Agentforce to write or revise your email content. If a Brand is associated with your email, Agentforce will even use the Brand Identity and Tone specified in the brand when generating content. Agentforce also gives you the option to revise the content by your key message or target audience (which is defined in the Campaign Brief), change the tone of the content, or increase/decrease the content length, all within the Agentforce window.

A screenshot of all the actions available when drafting with Agentforce.

Formatting Components – The next couple of components are pretty universal to WYSIWYG editors, so we’ll cover these quickly. We have:
1. Indent
2. Bold
3. Italize
4. Underline
5. Strikethrough
6. Link
Merge Fields – Here you can populate required information, like your organization’s address or email preference center link, or insert fields from your Data Graph to personalize the email to the recipient. If your team has merge fields they want to use again and again, create and save a Reusable Expression in your CMS for quick access here.
The final three icons all deal with things you can DO with the component, from left to right, we have
1. Drag
2. Duplicate
3. Delete

Styling your Email

If you’ve set a default Brand for your CMS workspace, your email will be autobranded before you even start building. However, if you need to apply or switch your brand, you can do so at any time from the Property Panel.

When building your email components, you can access the Style of said component in the right side Property Panel. This will display what is auto-styled from the Brand as well as what can be edited without straying from the Brand specifications. You can override the branding by changing the style options to “custom”, just keep in mind that if the Brand itself later changes, those changes will not automatically update any components where the styling has been overridden.

A screenshot of overriding the branding by changing the styling options to custom.

Personalizing your Email

Beyond Merge Field, you also have two great personalization options in the builder: Dynamic Content and Email Repeaters.

Dynamic Content allows you to create variations in your email and specify when those variations appear. For example, you can change your email heading text depending on if the recipient is a prospect or a customer. When you have a component selected, the Dynamic Content option will appear in the Property Panel. Learn how to set up Dynamic Content variations from our previous blog post.

A screenshot of the Dynamic Content option appearing in the Property Panel.

Email Repeaters allow you to show a series of items customized to the recipient. For example, we could display upcoming events that the reader may be interested in attending and tailor which events we display based on the Marketing Tech the reader is interested in.

A screenshot using Email Repeaters in the Marketing Cloud Next Email Builder.

Email Repeaters require a Data Source, but you can learn how to set those up here.

Testing Your Email

To test your email first, toggle between the Desktop and Mobile views within the View Mode to make sure your email looks great on both. Then ensure you’ve customized your Subject Line and Preheader text. You can edit your Subject Line and Preheader both above your email or in the Property Panel on the right. You can also insert Merge Fields or Dynamic Content into both.

A screenshot showing where you can edit your Subject Line and Preheader, both above the email or in the Property Panel on the right.

Then select Preview from the top right corner. You’ll need to select a published Segment with at least one recipient in order to preview the email.

A screenshot showing how to select a published Segment with at least one recipient to preview the email.

Next select the Test tab and enter the test email recipient and the From Name and Address. Your From Address needs to match the authenticated DKIM domain in Marketing Cloud.

The final step will be sending your email, which can be done in a couple of different ways, but all revolve around using Flow. See some of the resources below for help building and activating a Marketing Cloud Flow:

Email Builder FAQ

Can we create reusable Email Templates for Marketing Cloud? Yes, this feature is coming as part of the Winter ‘26 release.

Can we view or edit the HTML of Marketing Cloud Emails? Yes, in the View Mode, you can toggle between the drag-and-drop builder and the HTML of the email. Here you can view the HTML, if you want to edit your email via HTML you can select Convert to HTML. However, once an email is converted to HTML, it cannot be converted back, so be careful! My guess is that this will change with future releases.

Can we use Custom Fonts with Marketing Cloud Emails? Only if you build your emails via HTML, or you could build an email with the drag-and-drop builder, convert it to HTML, then add the custom font code. However, this isn’t ideal. I believe Custom Fonts will be supported in a future release though.

Should Account Engagement users start using this builder? I’ll have to give you the annoying consultant answer of “it depends”. Account Engagement orgs can use the Marketing Cloud builder but, without Marketing Cloud also installed, it has some limitations that I don’t love. However, Account Engagement users can also get free access to Marketing Cloud Growth/Advanced as part of their Account Engagement license, so my recommendation would be to install Marketing Cloud Growth/Advanced and give the new builder a shot.

Can I build an email in the Marketing Cloud Drag-and-drop builder and copy the email HTML to Account Engagement? I was asked this recently, and you know what, that could work! However, proceed with caution and test often. I briefly gave this a shot, and the email in Account Engagement turned out pretty OK. I had to do some tweaking and had to replace the merge tags, but it looks like a viable solution in a pinch. Marketing Cloud specific features, like Dynamic Content based on personalization points, Cross Object Personalization, Repeaters etc. will not translate, but the structure and styling of the email should be pretty good.

Do Keyboard Shortcuts work with this builder? Yes!

Final thoughts

Marketing Cloud Next’s Email Builder delivers a streamlined, drag-and-drop experience that helps marketers craft personalized communication at scale with the help of AI, Agentforce, Dynamic Content, and Cross Object Personalization. The more familiar you are with its features, the more you’ll see what’s possible for creating even better communication experiences for your audience.

When you’re ready to start building, refer back to this guide—and if you’d like help with navigating your next steps in the meantime, reach out to the Sercante team, we’ll help you map out your next steps for success.

Getting Started, Marketing Cloud, New Features
August 13, 2025

How to Use AI in Next Gen Marketing Cloud to Elevate Your Campaigns

Erin Duncan

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

If you’ve ever built a marketing campaign, you know the drill: after agreeing on your brief, you still need to draft emails, nail the design, run approvals, and put it all into motion. That process often takes weeks, or even longer. And while you and your team have your heads down in the mechanics, there’s less bandwidth for the personalization and creative thinking that truly builds connection with your audience and drives growth. Which is why leaning into your tech stack and using the latest solutions, such as Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced, to streamline the campaign creation process, so your team can be freed up to focus more on the human element, is critical to continue to scale and grow in this modern age.

Product experts and Marketing Champions, Erin Duncan and Heather Rinke led a webinar, Elevating Your Campaigns with Next Gen Marketing Cloud, to walk you through how to use Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced to streamline your campaign creation process. In their session, they dive into the platform and take you through step by step from prompt to flow to email creation and Path Experiment configuration. Watch the full webinar on-demand and get the highlights to start exploring how you can lean into the latest tech to scale your marketing efforts and create personalized, seamless cross-channel experiences that build deeper relationships with your audience.

Elevating Your Campaigns with Next Gen Marketing Cloud
Watch On Demand

What is Next Gen Marketing Cloud?

Let’s take a step back and level set on what we mean by Next Gen Marketing Cloud. “Next Gen Marketing Cloud” refers to the latest Marketing Cloud platform, Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced. However, at Connections 2025, you may have also heard the term “Marketing Cloud Next”, this is an umbrella term for all of the latest Marketing Cloud offerings and refers to the combined functionality of features from Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced, Marketing Intelligence, Loyalty, and Salesforce Personalization.

Other terms that have been used are Marketing Cloud+ and Account Engagement+. This refers to using the combined features of Marketing Cloud Engagement and Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced (Marketing Cloud+) and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced (Account Engagement+).

Marketing Cloud Next is “a strategic reframe of marketing itself”. Its vision is to end “no-reply marketing” and help companies provide a better overall experience for their audience. The Venn diagram below illustrates how these product features work in conjunction with each other and the different product names that may be used when these products are used together.

A Venn Diagram of all the Marketing Cloud product names and how they relate to each other

Using AI to streamline campaign creation in Next Gen Marketing Cloud

Campaigns can take weeks for a marketing team to plan and launch. According to Email Vendor Selection, 35% of marketing teams take up to two weeks just for their email production process and 5% take over a month. Meaning the more that marketers can find ways to help streamline and fast-track the process, the better, which is where the AI features of Next Gen Marketing Cloud can help.

By folding AI into the campaign workflow—from brief to email draft to segmentation—it dramatically shortens campaign turnaround time. That means your team can spend more of that precious time dialing in personalization, tweaking messaging, and creating marketing that feels human—not just efficient.

Starting with a strong campaign prompt

To use the AI features in Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced, start by drafting your campaign. First select Draft with AI, then Create a Brief and provide your prompt, AI will draft your campaign brief in seconds.

The campaign brief will include your campaign title, description, key messaging, and the target audience. Your campaign brief will only be as good as your prompt, which is why it’s important to make sure you include all the right details.

Best practices for prompts:

Be specific about audience, channel, timing, and tone.
Use clear, conversational language without unnecessary jargon.
Include parameters such as word count, required inclusions/exclusions, and target personas.

Example prompt:

“Create an email campaign inviting marketers who have engaged in the last 12 months to our ‘Elevate Your Campaigns with Next Gen Marketing Cloud’ webinar on July 10th at 1 PM ET. Highlight how attendees will learn to apply AI at each stage of campaign creation.”

Therefore, before you create your prompt, make sure you and your team are aligned on the overall strategy for the campaign so that you can provide a clear detailed prompt.

A GIF of a user walking through how to use the Draft with AI feature to use AI to create your campaign in Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced.

Watch the full Agentforce for Marketing demo

Editing your campaign emails in Next Gen Marketing Cloud

After you review and edit your campaign brief, click Next to view the emails and SMS messages that have been created based on your prompt and campaign brief.

You can click into each message and edit the subject line, pre-header text, and the body paragraphs to ensure the messaging is exactly the way you want it. You can also provide feedback with a thumbs-up or thumbs down so the system can learn and grow each time it generates content. Again, depending on how well you specified your audience, tone, and channels in the prompt will determine how much editing and tweaking you’ll have to do.

Using Einstein Engagement Frequency to manage audience saturation

After fine-tuning your messages, configure your audience segment. An important piece of creating experiences that build meaningful connections with your audience is not over saturating them, which is where Einstein Engagement Frequency can help.

Einstein Engagement Frequency helps ensure contacts receive the right amount of communication by analyzing their engagement to generate a personalized engagement frequency score and then classifying their engagement. The classifications are as follows

Saturated
Almost Saturated
On Target
Under Saturated

Excluding Saturated contacts helps to ensure that you’re not emailing or messaging your audience too much, and this Einstein feature makes sure the evaluation is done automatically, so you don’t have to spend time tracking this manually.

Testing with Path Experiment

Another way to elevate the campaign experience for your audience is to test different journey options and lean into what is resonating and driving the most engagement.

Path Experiment is available for Marketing Cloud Advanced and expands on traditional A/B testing by allowing up to 10 different paths within a single experiment. You can test variations in content, channels, or cadence to see what produces the strongest engagement.

For example, you could create two paths consisting of an email followed by a wait period and then an SMS message. In the second path, you can add as many variations as you would like, such as adding a testimonial quote to the email, making the wait period longer, or adding a discount code to the SMS message, and then see which path performs the best.

A screenshot of a path experiment in Next Gen Marketing Cloud showing two paths with an original email, 1-day wait period, and an SMS message on the left path with a revised email, a wait period of 1 week, and an SMS message with a discount on the right path.

Engaging your audience with SMS

Next Gen Marketing Cloud supports multiple SMS approaches:

Long Code SMS – cost-effective, supports international, suited for smaller sends.
Short Code SMS – faster sends for large audiences, higher provisioning cost, and longer provisioning time.
Conversational SMS – enables two-way communication using Flow automation or chatbots. Conversational SMS is available for Advanced Edition with the Digital Engagement add on.

This flexibility allows you to select the right SMS format for your organization depending on your needs and strategy. For further guidance on setup, read Erin Duncan’s article on SMS provisioning and Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced, it takes you through all the steps and considerations for success.

The path to start using Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced features

The platform you have now will determine what your next steps might look like to start diving into Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced.

Announced at Connections 2025, Marketing Cloud Engagement customers will get access to Marketing Cloud Growth/Advanced around Dreamforce (October 2025), more details around how and when customers can start diving in further with the platform is coming. Here are the requirements:

Salesforce CRM Enterprise Edition or higher
Data Cloud
- Free Data Cloud available
Credits to fuel Next Gen Marketing Cloud
- Credits are available with Salesforce Foundations

The best action to take now is to learn and build your strategy for how your team will start taking advantage of Next Gen Marketing Cloud features once you get access.

The announcement for Marketing Cloud Account Engagement customers getting access to Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced features came back in October 2024. Our experts led a session, Unlocking Next-Gen Marketing: How to Activate New Features Available for Account Engagement Customers, on all the capabilities that marketing teams can start tapping into with Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced. Watch On Demand.

Here are the requirements to keep in mind:

Salesforce Enterprise Edition or higher
Current edition of Account Engagement
Data Cloud
- Free Data Cloud available
Credits to fuel Marketing Cloud on Core
- Some credits are available with Salesforce Foundations

Elevate your campaigns with Next Gen Marketing Cloud

The AI capabilities in Next Gen Marketing Cloud offer significant efficiency gains for campaign creation. By starting with a clear prompt, using audience saturation data to manage send frequency, testing multiple engagement paths, and incorporating multi-channel outreach, marketers can deliver more relevant, timely, and effective campaigns. Giving your audience personalized, seamless experiences that build deeper connections and ultimately drive growth for your business.

This technology is at our fingertips. It’s up to us to educate ourselves, know what it can do, and start exploring and using it to help us all do what we do best more efficiently and give our customers the engagements they’re expecting. But the path to navigating all of this can be challenging, so if you would like an expert guide to achieve success, reach out to the Sercante team.

Getting Started, Marketing Cloud, Setup & Admin, Technology
March 19, 2025

SMS Provisioning and Marketing Cloud on Core

Erin Duncan

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

As someone who primarily focuses on B2B and Account Engagement, I’ll admit I was a little lost the first time I approached the topic of SMS and Marketing Cloud Growth Edition. SMS was just not regularly part of my Marketing world, so trying to figure out the difference between Long Code and Short Code, go through the provisioning process, and advise others on which code is right for them felt overwhelming. However, thanks in large part to my B2C and Marketing Cloud Engagement focused co-workers, I now have a good handle on this topic and want to make sure others in the community can too!

Long Code versus Short Code

The first thing to make sense of is the two types of SMS codes within Marketing Cloud on Core, their provisioning process, and which type is right for you.

Note: For some countries only one type of SMS code is currently supported (for example, only Short Code is available for Canada). If you are outside of the US, ensure you check the SMS Rate Card to see which SMS Codes are currently supported for your country.

Long Code

Long codes are a good choice for businesses that want to send messages to a smaller number of customers or create a more personal touch. Long Code SMS is also

More cost-effective and take less time to set up
Needed for International SMS
Needed for Conversational SMS
Has a longer send time (roughly 1 sec per message per recipient)

In summary, if you are sending delivery updates, appointment or event reminders, customer service communications etc. Long Code is likely the better choice.

Long Code Provisioning

Long Code Provisioning takes between 4-6 weeks and is a multi-step self-service process.

Step 1: Request a Brand

You’ll need to compile some basic info about your company for this form and then wait roughly 5 business days for the Brand to be approved (aka verified).

Step 2: Request a Campaign

After your Brand is “verified” you can then request a Campaign. This step is a little more complex and you’ll need to provide some sample SMS messages for the form. Campaigns take roughly 10 business days to be approved (aka registered).

Step 3: Request a Code

Once your Campaign is “Registered” you can complete the final step of requesting your Long Code. This step should only take 2 business days to complete.

Short Code

Short codes are the preferred method for organizations sending high volumes of SMS and expect very fast delivery times.

Short codes are also country-specific. A short code is only able to send messages to and receive messages from, same-country phone numbers. US short codes can only send to US phone numbers on US carrier networks that have approved that short code.

Short codes are the better choice if you intend on sending promotional messages to a large audience, such as sending limited-time offers and discount codes to all your current customers.

Short Code Provisioning

Short Code Provisioning takes an average of 12 weeks to set up and can only be done through a Mobile Approved Partner. Each partner has their own fees for Short Code Provisioning, but you can expect anywhere between $8k-$15k for this process.

That was a lot of information, could you put it in a chart?

You got it!

Scenario	Long Code	Short Code
Provisioning Timeline	4-6 Weeks	12+ Weeks
Provisioning Cost	None, Self Service	$8k-$14k
Purpose	Small sends, personal touches	Large sends, promotions
Supports International Recipients	Yes	No
Supports Conversational SMS	Yes	No
Send Speed	Slow – 1 sec per message per recipient	Fast – can handle large sends quickly

SMS Credits

Both Short and Long Code SMS require Salesforce Messaging Credits to send SMS. Credits are consumed differently based on their multipliers (which can change so ensure you check the multipliers page for the most up to date info). For example, US Short Codes currently have a multiplier of 4 and Long Code a multiplier of 5. Based on 15K text sends, Short Code US requirement will be 60K of Credits , Long Code: 75K of Credits.

SMS and Consent

Consent for SMS channels can’t be imported until after the SMS Code has been provisioned. Once provisioned you can proceed with importing existing consent records to tie opt-ins and opt-outs to your unified individuals. Ensure your phone numbers use the E164 format in your consent files!

What’s next?

After your SMS code has been provisioned and you’ve imported your Consent Records there are a few additional setup steps you’ll want to tackle before you start sending:

Create a Branded Domain – This allows you to shorten URLs sent via SMS into personalized links.
Vet your SMS Brand – Improve your sending reputation by validating your identity.
Set up Analytics – Ensure you’ve installed the SMS Analytics packages

New Features, Release Notes
January 10, 2025

Salesforce Spring ‘25 Highlights: Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Erin Duncan

While we were all preparing for the New Year, Salesforce was busy getting the Spring ‘25 release notes posted! Let’s dive into what this release has in store for Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (f.k.a Pardot) users.

Support for the Enhanced Email Builder is Being Phased Out

Support for the Enhanced Email Experience, aka the Account Engagement Lightning Email Builder or the Drag-and-drop builder, is being phased out—meaning that Salesforce is only committed to fixing significant issues going forward, the builder will still be available for use.

If you saw the release notes right after they were published, they did say that the Enhanced Email Builder was going to be fully retired, but this retirement has since been put on hold.

Again, users of the Enhanced Email Experience can continue to use this builder, but users also have the option to use the New Email Experience (aka the Marketing Cloud Builder). Salesforce has provided a comparison of the three builders here. Keep in mind that the New Email Experience will continue to get updates every release.

Once this new release is available I will do a deeper dive into using the New Email Experience as an Account Engagement User, so keep an eye out for more info!

Einstein Generative AI supports additional languages

Einstein Gen AI, aka Einstein Assistant, has been expanded to support five new languages: French, German, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish. Einstein Assistant helps users create landing pages, forms, and email copy and is available to users with Advanced or Premium Editions of Account Engagement.

A screenshot of the Einstein Generative AI assistant.

Easily Enable Marketing Cloud from within the Account Engagement Optimizer

During Dreamforce ‘24, Salesforce announced that all Account Engagement orgs with a current edition (Growth, Plus, Advanced, or Premium) can get access to Marketing Cloud Growth or Advanced Edition at no additional cost. This new platform runs on Data Cloud and can be used alongside Account Engagement to bring more features and functionalities to the Marketing tech stack. The Spring ‘25 release introduces a streamlined setup process for Account Engagement orgs, enabling them to deploy Marketing Cloud Growth or Advanced Edition via the Account Engagement Optimizer.

Additional Visibility into Email Send Issues

It’s always frustrating when an Account Engagement email fails to send to a prospect and the error message is vague at best. With the Spring release, List Email will provide more reasons on why a send fails and will help point you to configuration issues that can help prevent additional failures. The new Failed Email Sends table will be available in the Account Engagement Optimizer and will display the Prospect’s name, company, failure reason, and other details.

Additional Updates

It’s now even easier to connect Account Engagement to Data Cloud with new automatically created Data Streams.
Copying Assets to Salesforce’s CMS now includes Landing Pages and inline CSS for Forms. Also, orgs can now use V5 of the Account Engagement API to expedite copying Email, Forms, Files, and Landing Pages to CMS.

Which Spring’ 25 Account Engagement features are you most excited about? Which features do you want to know more about? Let us know in the comments!

Career Development, Community, Community Spotlight
October 3, 2024

Introducing the 2024 Salesforce Marketing Champions: Sercante Edition

Erin Duncan

Congratulations to the 2024 Salesforce Marketing Champions! We are honored and excited that some of our own Sercante dragons were selected as part of this prestigious group. Let’s get to know our new Marketing Champions.

What is a Marketing Champion?

Before we meet our new Champions, what exactly is a Salesforce Marketing Champion? Marketing Champions are nominated by the Trailblazer community for their expertise in the marketing industry, their wealth of knowledge with Marketing Cloud, and for actively helping other members of the Trailblazer Community grow and thrive.

We also want to send a BIG congratulations to the entire Salesforce Marketing Champion class of 2024! See the complete list here.

Meet our new Marketing Champions

Aaron Stayman

The Spot Author page
Linkedin
Location: New York, NY
Why are you excited about joining the Marketing Champions Program?
- I am honored and excited to join my peers in this year’s class, and I am eager to learn from the expertise of others. I hope that my presence shines a spotlight on the incredible capabilities of Marketing Cloud Intelligence as a tool for marketers looking to utilize data for decision making.
Favorite Salesforce Tool:
- Marketing Cloud Intelligence (f.k.a. Datorama), it’s how I entered the Salesforce ecosystem and still the tool I love to dive into in new and exciting ways every day.
Something Fun:
- I am a board game fanatic-my favorite games are Star Realms, Splendor, Business Walrus, and Monikers (depending on the crowd). When I want a lively evening out, I enjoy concerts and Broadway shows (Guternberg! The Musical! is a somewhat recent favorite).

Ambre Juryea-Amole

The Spot Author page
Linkedin
Location: Reading, PA
Why are you excited about joining the Marketing Champions Program?
- Content is in everything marketers touch. I’m excited meet other content marketers through the program and create a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to the marketing tools we use.
Favorite Salesforce Tool:
- Engagement Studio Programs (Account Engagement/Pardot) – I love all the creative use cases beyond standard prospect nurtures. At the same time, it’s got that user-friendly aspect that makes it easy to turn nurture strategies into Engagement Studio Programs.
Something Fun:
- My happy place is skanking in circle pits at ska and punk shows. A couple of my faves in 2024 were Voodoo Glow Skulls, Folly, The Interrupters, NOFX, The Bouncing Souls, Lagwagon, Catbite, and We Are the Union.

Cara Clanton Pope

The Spot Author page
Linkedin
Location: Atlanta, GA
Why are you excited about joining the Marketing Champions Program?
- I have been following and learning from my fellow Marketing Champions for years. When I first got started in the ecosystem I remember reading their blogs, being amazed by their knowledge, and just wanting to be part of this esteemed group. I am excited to continue to learn but to also give back to the community. I hope to continue to bring analytics and reporting for marketers to the forefront.
Favorite Salesforce Tool:
- I am a CRM Analytics/ B2B Marketing Analytics girly all the way 🙂. I love being able to help customers analyze their marketing efforts. This sounds dorky, but genuinely being able to make a really awesome dashboard that shows how hard the marketing team has been working legitimately makes me excited.
Something Fun:
- I sang in an a cappella group in Atlanta for 10 years! Even though I am retired now, they are still some of my closest friends! I even sang for President Barack Obama in college!

Heather Rinke

The Spot Author page
Linkedin
Location: Peterborough, Ontario
Why are you excited about joining the Marketing Champions Program?
- I have learned from and admired this group of awesome people for a long time. Not just their knowledge, but their willingness to help support others in the community. I’m thrilled to join this group, to continue to learn, and also to give back and pay it forward to help others learn.
Favorite Salesforce Tool:
- Salesforce Flow! I’ve been a #flownatic for years and love to build cool solutions for marketing teams. I have been so excited about how this tool has evolved and enjoy digging in and trying out what’s possible.
Something Fun:
- I took up pottery a few years ago and it’s become my favourite way to get away from the computer, chill out, and get my hands dirty.

Theron Troxel

The Spot Author page
Linkedin
Location: Adams, Nebraska
Why are you excited about joining the Marketing Champions Program?
- I’m excited about joining the Marketing Champions Program because it offers an incredible opportunity to network with and learn from some of the best minds in the Salesforce marketing ecosystem.
Favorite Salesforce Tool:
- There are so many, but I find myself using Sercante’s HTML to Email Text Converter daily.
Something Fun:
- I’m a huge fan of arcade and pinball machine restoration. You can find me elbow-deep in wiring, schematics, and bringing vintage games back to life!

Repeat Sercante Marketing Champions

We’re super proud of our new Marketing Champions. But let’s all take a moment to recognize members of the Sercante team who were named Marketing Champions in the past (once you’re in, you’re in for good) and are already seasoned pros when it comes to championing marketing for Salesforce.

Connect with the Salesforce Marketing Champion Community

One of the qualities of a Salesforce Marketing Champion is that they put themselves out there to be helpful to the greater Salesforce community. Champions frequently write blog posts, speak at Salesforce events, lead user groups, answer questions in Slack and trailblazer communities, etc. Consider this your invitation to connect with Marketing Champions!

Follow Marketing Champions on Twitter and Linkedin with #MarketingChampions
Connect with Champions in the Trailblazer Community or in Slack in the Pardashians Community
Check for Trailblazer Community Groups in your area
Attend a Community Conference or World Tour event

Learn from Marketing Champions during MarDreamin 2024