Like many big software companies, Salesforce has an honor they bestow to most influential supporters. They call this the Salesforce MVP program. The Trailblazer Community team recently announced the 2023 Salesforce MVP program inductees, and we were thrilled to see many of our favorite marketing voices on the list.
Marketers don’t always get the recognition they deserve, which is why we’re on a mission to showcase all of the amazing things marketers do. We’re especially excited to highlight the people who are shining the limelight on Salesforce marketing tools for a change.
Background of the program
If you haven’t already noticed, there’s a whole lot to learn about using marketing automation and CRM tools. Salesforce does everything they can to make resources available to customers so the tools are easier to use and customize, but everyone learns in their own way.
Sometimes we need real people who have been working closely with these tools to teach us what’s possible with them. (You know, like, other customers and people with an outsider’s perspective)
That’s where the Salesforce MVP program comes in. These are all people who share what they know about the platform and personally connect with others who are still learning.
According to the Salesforce MVP Code of Conduct, MVPs are “lifelong learners who go above and beyond to share their expertise and help the entire community succeed… [and] leaders in the Trailblazer Community who encourage each other, celebrate others’ successes, work collaboratively to make our community and the world a better place, and have a lot of fun along the way!”
Wondering how people get a spot in the program? Here’s how the process works:
Salesforce opens nominations for MVPs around November each year.
Community members either self nominate or can share stories to nominate others.
Current MVPs do not need to take action, they are automatically reviewed for renewal.
The Trailblazer Community team completes the first round of nomination reviews.
Then, the nominations go through a second round of reviews from a team of Salesforce employees who are active in the Trailblazer Community
After that, current Salesforce MVPs provide feedback to new nominations and nomination renewals.
The Trailblazer Community team completes a final review before the Salesforce leadership team makes final calls and approvals.
The 2023 Salesforce MVP Class
Congratulations to everyone who was selected to join the 2023 Salesforce MVP Class!
MVP Name
MVP Name
Aaron Crosman
Michael A. Grandel
Andy Engin Utkan
Mihoko Yamashita
Ankit Taneja
Oleh Mykytyn
Asterisk Loftis
Patricio Sapir
Ben LaMothe
Phaneendra Arigachetta
Gian Piere Vallejos Bardales
Rachel Park Brayboy
Johann Furmann
Samantha Shain
Kannan Narayanan
Skye Tyler
Kristi Brown
Swati Taunk
Kristin Hubbard
Thomas Theunen
Lilith Van Biesen
Vicki Moritz-Henry
Maham Hassan
Warren Walters
Marketers Who Made the New 2023 Salesforce MVP List
We were thrilled to see two people we know from the Salesforce marketing community who made the list. Special congratulations to Ben Lamothe and Vicki Moritz-Henry and thanks for all the work you do for the community!
In fact, we know these two MVPs thanks to their work with the MarDreamin’ conference. Both have presented at MarDreamin’ in past years and have contributed in other ways.
Our team reached out to them to get their thoughts on their new Salesforce MVP honors. Here’s what they had to say:
Ben Lamothe
“Being selected as a Salesforce MVP is an honor and is truly humbling. Giving back to the Salesforce and Account Engagement (Pardot) Trailblazer community that has changed my life and given me so much, is so important to me.”
Vicki Moritz-Henry
“When I transitioned careers into Salesforce, I was astounded by how supportive the community was. There were so many people who encouraged, mentored and taught me over the years. I honestly wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for them. My motivation is to spread that impact and be that same person for others.”
Andrea Tarrell Added to the Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame
Last but most certainly not least, we wanna send a huge congratulations to the person who started this whole blog (and Sercante) in the first place. Andrea Tarrell has been an influential voice in the Salesforce community for close to a decade, and she’s served as a Salesforce MVP enough years for Salesforce to add her to the MVP Hall of Fame in 2023.
Launching The Spot for Pardot blog is only a small fraction of everything Andrea has contributed to Salesforce Trailblazer Community through the years. She’s spoken at countless events including Dreamforce, Connections, Dreamin’ conferences and user group meetings. Andrea even launched the first virtual conference for marketers on Salesforce in 2020 — MarDreamin’ (formerly ParDreamin’).
Keep being helpful and the rest will fall into place
The Trailblazer Community team received over 2,400 MVP nominations in 2023, so of course some people were disappointed to learn they weren’t among the 24 new MVPs who were selected. The most important takeaway though is to keep going! While the MVP program brings inherent benefits along with it (i.e. free entry to conferences, getting asked to participate in high-profile marketing content), the true benefit is that helping others helps you, too.
When the community grows, we all grow together. And there’s room for us all to be successful in the community. So, keep sharing what you know. Start a Salesforce blog (or you can write for this one!). Apply to speak at community events. Volunteer with a Salesforce mentorship program, like Merivis, for instance.
The possibilities to give back are endless. Tell us how giving back to the tech community has enriched your life in the comments section.
We’re getting ready for TrailblazerDX 2023 (formerly TrailheadDX) — which was previously known as the big Salesforce community conference event for anyone who builds on the Salesforce platform using developer or declarative solutions. However, we’re finding that people who fill roles from all corners of the Salesforce ecosystem are traveling to TDX in recent years. That can include Salesforce admins and general users, consultants, and analysts in addition to developers and architects.
In this post, we’ll cover all the things our marketing friends should know about the 2023 TrailblazerDX conference.
2023 TrailblazerDX Details
TrailblazerDX is taking place March 7-8, 2023, in San Francisco as well as virtually through Salesforce+ live streams and on demand after the event ends. Salesforce is expecting around 25,000 attendees who can choose from 200+ technical sessions, product demos, workshops, and hands-on learning.
Go here to check out the official Salesforce description for the event.
If you’re a marketer or support a marketing team from any one of those roles and nerd out about the backend of Salesforce, then there’s a good chance you’ll want to catch a few TrailblazerDX sessions this year.
Sercante Team TDX Sessions
Team Sercante will be out in full force at TrailblazerDX. If you’re going to be there in person, let us know so we can meet up to chat.
You can find our dragons dropping knowledge during these sessions:
Account Engagement Extensibility: Automation to the Extreme
Learn how to expand communication channels and expand the event experience with marketing app extensions. Discover how to reduce manual efforts with API V5 for Flow.
Customers are constantly changing and your data needs to evolve with them. Learn how to make every digital moment smarter using the power of unified data within Data Cloud for Marketing.
Learn how an admin, architect, consultant, and developer approach critical design decisions. See how each role evaluates challenges when solving for specific user needs.
Review Salesforce reports and dashboards and introduce learners to the world of CRM Analytics. Compare product features, uncover nuances, and take your analytics insights to the next level.
Learn to unlock value across the implementation journey for Data Cloud, Salesforce’s customer data platform, from use case discovery to data ingestion, unification, segmentation, and activation.
New to the Salesforce ecosystem? Building professional connections and strong relationships requires work. Learn how to forge your own path and create your community with Salesforce.
Speakers:
Najee Bartley, Marketing Cloud Consultant, Jaimee An LLC
Marketing is as hot as a firecracker, but how do you ignite that spark? Marketers need to constantly be plugged in. Learn about the power of brand advocacy and nurturing community to achieve success.
Learn the foundations of successful cross-cloud architecture across the Lightning Platform, Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Data Cloud from data mapping to integration to environment management.
Speakers:
Craig Poirier, Sr. Director, Slalom
Mike King, Sr. Director, Global Salesforce Commerce, Slalom
Gillian Reynolds, Slalom
Deep Dive into Marketing App Extensions for MCAE (Pardot)
In this session, we will examine the different use cases for MCAE External Actions & Activities and demonstrate how to leverage external actions within Engagement Studio to send a webhook.
Learn how Copado leverages Sales Cloud to connect and power ABM journeys across digital ads, BDR outreach, automated nurtures, sales engagement, and field programs.
In this session we will cover the programming languages available on the Marketing Cloud Platform and how to use them. We will explore AMPscript, SSJS, GTL, SQL, and more.
During this session you will learn the five stages of the data lifecycle, common mistakes, how Salesforce can support your data lifecycle and actionable advice for optimizing the data lifecycle.
Data is the key to personalizing customer journeys. Learn how to activate data from the Customer Data Platform to inform, activate, and alter journeys in Marketing Cloud Engagement.
In this session you’ll learn how dynamic content and personalization can reduce unneeded friction points in the buyer’s journey. Powered by Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot).
Businesses need to streamline customer journeys across channels. Learn to create customized conversations with Salesforce CRM and Vonage communications APIs and bring together data, systems and users.
Speakers:
Oscar Rodriguez, Senior Director Global Solutions Engineering, Vonage
Increase Productivity: Customizing the Marketing Cloud
Learn how to leverage Package Manager and custom activities to supercharge your customer engagement with Marketing Cloud and empower your marketing teams to do more.
Speakers:
Mark Rosato, Senior Solution Engineer, Salesforce
TrailblazerDX 2023 Musical Guest: Fallout Boy
Did we mention Fallout Boy is the TDX musical guest this year?
Those of us who aren’t attending IRL are fighting the FOMO in hopes that the show will be broadcasted live on Salesforce+.
So, TrailheaDX was known as the developer conference, but TrailblazerDX opens the doors for everyone on the Salesforce platform to learn how it works.
And while marketers don’t always get the attention they deserve, we see lots of exciting things on the horizon for our pals. It’s especially evident at this year’s TrailblazerDX conference.
Attending TrailblazerDX in person?
If you’re lucky enough to catch TrailblazerDX in person this year, then we should meet up!
Visit this page to let us know you’re going. We’ll reach out to find the perfect time to talk. And remember to say “hi” to our dragons who are part of the following TDX sessions:
Discover How Data Cloud for Marketing Unifies Customer Data | Learn More
Account Engagement Extensibility: Automation to the Extreme | Learn More
Evaluate and Make Critical Design Decisions | Learn More
It’s been a few weeks since Andrea Tarrell and I spoke at Salesforce World Tour NYC about the journey to getting Salesforce certified. As someone with five years of experience in the ecosystem, I have been able to earn many Salesforce certifications along the way and have always wanted to help others achieve their certification goals as they have helped me.
That’s why I am still so happy I was able to join Andrea as a co-presenter. Our team was excited to share our certification journeys and knowledge with the community, and we hope this post that recaps our World Tour presentation is helpful as you work toward earning Salesforce certified designations.
Jordyn Jaffer and Andrea Tarrell presenting at Salesforce World Tour New York in December 2022.
Salesforce Certified 101
If you’ve been in the ecosystem for a little bit, then you’re probably familiar with the process of becoming Salesforce certified and what certifications are available. But, you should still pay attention.
The Salesforce certification program is constantly evolving. What used to be a collection of a handful of certifications has expanded to over 40 certifications across Salesforce roles over the years. The certifications are typically connected to a specific role customer and partner role persona that Salesforce has defined.
Salesforce Certified Persona Roles
Salesforce certified personas are spread across six roles:
Admin
Developer
Marketer
Designer
Consultant
Architect
These certifications are globally recognized achievements that Trailblazers can earn to highlight their expertise and skills in a specific topic or product. Varying in skill level from the initial Salesforce Administrator exam up to the Technical Architect board review, there are plenty of certifications for you to consider in your journey.
Check out the amazing visual on this page, which our friends at SalesforceBen put together to highlight the different certification pathways available to you.
Certification Exam Details
Each exam typically consists of 60-65 multiple choice questions. You’ll notice that each exam provides a specific percentage of questions you need to answer correctly to successfully pass the exam.
These passing percentages are important to pay attention to as you prepare for your exam date. For example, you may be able to pass the Data Architect exam with only 58% of the questions correct, but the newer Business Analyst certification needs 72% correct for you to pass.
For those who have attempted exams but might not have passed, some exams are moving toward just 3 multiple choice answers for each question and could make the experience easier for those who have a hard time picking the best answer for each question.
Why Should You Get Salesforce Certified?
So now you have some knowledge of what Salesforce certifications are, but you might be wondering “why should I bother getting certified?”
Boost Your Career
As mentioned earlier, Salesforce certifications are widely recognized and can even potentially help when transitioning into other careers. That’s because they showcase transferable industry skills. They are also considered a resume-worthy accomplishment that will definitely help you stand out in the job market.
According to a survey from the 2022-23 Mason Frank Careers and Hiring Guide, 86% of respondents said Salesforce certifications help professionals stand out in a competitive job market, and 90% of Salesforce certified respondents said their certifications make them more marketable.
For myself and many others, certifications have become a source of personal gratification. If you are doubting yourself when it comes to a specific topic, it’s amazing when you’re able to prove to yourself and to others that you have the knowledge of that Salesforce topic.
It is worth noting that going after a Salesforce certification with minimal experience is not usually advised as a certification can never stand in the way of actual experience of a Salesforce product/feature. Finally, certifications showcase your commitment to your personal and professional development and can ultimately provide you an opportunity to boost your earning potential.
Story Time! How We Got Our Salesforce Certifications
Andrea and I have had very different experiences when it came to our Salesforce journeys, as with everyone else. But I love that our journeys have slightly connected as we both strive to provide the best experience to our clients at Sercante.
I knew who Andrea was, especially since we were both based in Atlanta for two years. But I never imagined working for her company or speaking next to her at a Salesforce event.
This is why I love when trailblazers share their journeys; people realize that they can have similar experiences as long as they show a willingness to learn and lean on the community. Who knows, maybe you’ll join us at Sercante in the future as well… (we’re hiring!)
Andrea’s Certification Journey
Andrea Tarrell, CEO and founder of Sercante and The Spot, began her Salesforce career as most of us have: as an accidental admin.
Working as the one-woman marketing department for an insurance brokerage, Andrea was tasked with learning Salesforce at HNI Risk as the company didn’t have a Salesforce administrator at the time.
Andrea wasn’t interested in getting a certification during this time because she didn’t see the value in them. But, she started to appreciate the Salesforce ecosystem when she caught the Salesforce bug at Dreamforce in 2011. “Without exaggeration, attending Dreamforce was truly a pivotal moment in my career trajectory,” Andrea said. This was also her first introduction to Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), and the experience led her to implementing Pardot at HNI shortly after.
Joining the Salesforce Partner Community
During the Summer of 2016, Andrea decided to leave the Wisconsin area to head down to Atlanta, Georgia without any jobs or friends in place. She later joined the Salesforce partner, Configuro, as the Pardot practice lead and director of marketing and suddenly had a reason to get certified.
Salesforce consultancies usually request their employees get certain certifications to determine their tier ranking in the Salesforce AppExchange. So, Andrea knew she had to make up for lost time.
Over the course of a year at Configuro, she achieved six Salesforce certifications, including the retired Marketing Cloud Social Specialist certification. During this time, she also leaned on the Trailblazer Community heavily to network as much as she could.
Founding a Salesforce Consulting Firm
After starting The Spot for Pardot (now officially The Spot) in September 2017, Andrea started to consider opening up her own consultancy as well. Sercante was born and has grown into a nearly 70-employee consultancy with expertise in Salesforce, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), Marketing Cloud Engagement (OG Marketing Cloud/Exact Target), and various other services such as analytics and digital services.
Andrea noticed a new fire to continue learning things relevant to her clients early on and achieved an additional six certifications over the course of a few months. She has also been named a Salesforce MVP as well as a Salesforce Marketing Champion and serves on a few Partner Advisory Boards as she continues to strive to make marketers successful on the Salesforce platform.
Still not sure about getting Salesforce certified? Read Andrea’s hot take on the value of certifications in this blog post.
My Certification Journey
Similar to Andrea, my Salesforce career began right out of college when I moved down to Atlanta, Georgia to join the Atlanta Braves as a CRM and Analytics Trainee.
The Braves were using Microsoft Dynamics at the time, and they were beginning their migration to Salesforce. While completing data analysis tasks, I started to learn Salesforce on my own when I saw a need within the organization.
Getting Promoted to an Accidental Admin Role
By the time we went live with the implementation in July 2018, I was promoted to CRM specialist and served as the Salesforce and Pardot admin while working closely with the newly hired Salesforce developer. I went for my first certification in December of that year. Then I tackled three more in an effort to prove to myself and my coworkers that I was worthy of the Salesforce and Pardot admin role.
When I decided to move on from my role at the Atlanta Braves, I took three certifications in the same weekend (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Advanced Admin) to bolster my resume for future roles right before I left Atlanta.
Focusing on Community
In December 2019, I moved back up to Boston, Massachusetts with no job prospects in place. Thankfully, I was able to find a job with my alma mater, Northeastern University.
During this time, I took a step back from my focus on learning to focusing on getting more involved in the Salesforce community. I was happy to serve as a co-leader of the Boston Women in Tech community group.
The community group leadership role inspired me to apply for a spot in the inaugural Salesforce Marketing Champion class, to which I was accepted. It was definitely a shock to me at the time since I was no longer in a marketing-related role when I worked at Northeastern. That’s why I worked to earn my Pardot Consultant certification. I wanted to prove that I was worthy of being a Marketing Champion.
After achieving the Pardot Consultant certification, I earned one more certification during two years at Northeastern: Education Cloud Consultant. I ended my time with Northeastern just one certification shy of my ultimate 10 certification goal.
Becoming a Salesforce Consultant
Now onto my third and current Salesforce job. I started my consulting career with Sercante in September 2021. I came in with certification goals in mind, but working at Sercante has provided me with a new perspective on certifications.
My focus should not only be on my personal growth, but also on the company’s growth as we look to take on new clients with different needs. I went for three certifications in the first few months to reach my goal of 10 and display some of the more recent experience I had, such as Experience Cloud from Northeastern, and Nonprofit Cloud from my first major Salesforce implementation at Sercante.
Now as I have moved into a more technical role at Sercante and have failed exams that I was nowhere ready to take (looking at you CPQ Specialist), my career and certification goals have become more defined. I am now looking to move toward the Application Architect and B2B Solution Architect certifications over the next year while continuing to learn new features and products to serve my clients’ needs.
If you want to learn more about my overall Salesforce journey and my answer to the commonly asked question: “Can someone have too many certifications?” stay tuned for more articles from me. You can also get my take on how to keep imposter syndrome at bay in this blog post.
Tips for Success
Now that you’ve learned about Andrea’s and my certification journey, you may be wondering what certification you should work toward. While I believe everyone’s journey is different and do not need to follow the same path, we wanted to highlight which certifications are best to start with depending on which role path makes the most sense for you.
Which Salesforce Certification to Earn First
Here’s where you should start on your Salesforce certification path depending on the type of role you currently hold or are looking to fill.
Regardless of which role path you take, we also recommend that you start with the new Salesforce Associate certification as a great introduction to the Salesforce platform as a whole. Read a guide to earning that certification in this blog post.
How to Study for Salesforce Certification Exams
When if comes to studying for your exams, there are multiple places you can go to get the expertise and knowledge you need to take the exam:
Trailhead: This should be your first stop on any certification journey as you’ll be able to find the following for nearly every certification. View all Salesforce credential guides here.
Certification Exam Guides
Certification Trailmixes
Superbadges
Community User Groups: There are user groups all over the world that are run by members of the community, similar to myself. The discussion topic of the meetings vary by time of year and by group, but some might be specific to certain certifications. I helped develop an annual (virtual) certification camp amongst the Boston groups that have met two years now and already have plans to come back in Fall 2023 to tackle another certification. Find all Trailblazer Community Group listings here.
Training Courses: You will find many training courses out there, but I highly recommend you look at reviews and make sure the content in the course is accurate. If you are in the marketing space, I highly recommend you check out one of Sercante’s training courses in the new year. I’m taking the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Bootcamp Course starting in January and would love to see some of you there as well!
Salesforce Certification Days: These are half day webinars that Salesforce periodically runs for multiple certifications such as Admin, Sales Cloud Consultant, Platform Developer 1, and more.
Amplify Study Groups:Amplify is a nonprofit organization that amplifies historically excluded voices in technology, and those who support them, to become fearless leaders. They offer study groups to their members, typically on a seasonal basis, for certain certifications. You can also sign up to be a facilitator for these study groups as well if you’re looking to share your knowledge. Become a member here.
Blog Posts: This one might seem obvious as you’re already on our blog site, but many Salesforce blogs share articles on specific certifications to help provide tips and tricks on how to pass them. Here’s the blogs that Sercante has produced so far:
Consultant Tips to Passing the Business Analyst Exam by Jordyn Jaffer (Upcoming)
Next Steps Toward Getting Salesforce Certified
We hope the resources and perspectives in this post are helpful to you as you work toward your own Salesforce certifications.
Hot Tip:Check out this page to read more about the certification journeys of my colleagues.
We would also love to hear from you on your certification journeys! Please leave a comment below or mention us online using the #certificationjourney hashtag.
Wondering if we recorded MarDreamin’ 2022 sessions and keynotes? Well look no further. We have all the MarDreamin’ replays you seek.
MarDreamin’ is a Salesforce community conference that unites marketers for four days of virtual learning, networking, and fun. It’s jam-packed with so much content that it’s impossible to watch it all live.
Luckily for you, all sessions were recorded with the exception of one. We’ll give you an overview of the highlights and top it off with information about watching all the MarDreamin’ replays.
How to watch all MarDreamin’ replays
Eh, we’ll get straight to the best part. Visit this page and complete the form to get access to all MarDreamin’ 2022 sessions and keynote replays.
Every session and keynote is in there with the exception of one. The Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) Roadmap session was not recorded.
However, Salesforce delivers a few of these Marketing Cloud roadmap sessions each year. Keep an eye out for the next one by clicking here to become a The Spot subscriber. The monthly newsletter includes a calendar of upcoming events like these periodically scheduled Salesforce roadmap sessions.
MarDreamin’ 2022 Overview
The conference took place November 1-4, 2022, inside the Goldcast virtual summit platform. More than 2,500 attendees signed up for the MarDreamin’ event from 65 countries.
It included three learning tracks based on which tools attendees use and a fourth that served as a catch-all for strategy and career sessions.
The tracks were:
Marketing Cloud Engagement
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot)
Salesforce platform & Analytics
General/Administrative
Here’s what went down each day of MarDreamin’ 2022.
MarDreamies Award Winners 2022
Marketing teams deserve recognition for the not-always-glossy work they do behind the scenes to build, manage, and report on marketing campaigns. And that’s the goal of the MarDreamies Awards.
Here’s who won the 2022 MarDreamies Awards, which were announced during the MarDreamin’ After-Party on Day 2 of the conference.
MarDreamin’ Day 0 Overview (Pre-conference Training Workshops)
The unofficial first day of MarDreamin’ was for people who purchased passes to attend the pre-conference training workshops. It included nine course sessions and one panel session from which attendees could choose to watch live.
Back to Basics: How To Maximize Your Efforts Through Automation in MCAE (Pardot)
Kick Off Your First Welcome Series with Journey Builder (Marketing Cloud)
Connected Campaign and ROI Reporting Strategies for MCAE (Pardot) and Sales Cloud
Building Dynamic B2B Customer Journeys Within MCAE (Pardot)
Getting Started With Lead Routing in MCAE (Pardot)
Going Beyond B2BMA: Use CRM Analytics to Create Custom Dashboards
Seasons of Change: Trends, Tips and Tricks to Thrive In the Salesforce Ecosystem [PANEL]
The Day 0/Workshop Day panel session included diverse perspectives from people with valuable insights into working in the Salesforce ecosystem. Attendees heard from Vicki Moritz-Henry, Erick Mahle, Renee Davis, Kate Perez, and Joanna Rotter.
Here’s a little gift for you… go watch the replay of this panel session by clicking here to get free access to all MarDreamin’ sessions. Sign up, and then you’ll find it in the list of all session replays.
MarDreamin’ Keynote and Panel Session Highlights
The week of MarDreamin’ balanced inspirational and skill-building content for marketers with a bit of fun mixed in. Because, you know, that’s what MarDreamin’ is all about.
These are the keynote and panel session highlights. You can watch full replays of all sessions and keynotes (with the exception of the Pardot Roadmap session) for free by completing the form on this webpage.
Keynote – Belonging: How to Build a Support Network & Find Your People
It can be a lonely existence for marketing technologists and changemakers trying to transform their organizations. If we do our job right in the world of marketing automation, our jobs look easy — and we don’t always get the respect, appreciation, and support we need from others when that happens.
This keynote kicked off MarDreamin’ by talking about the power of networks and community. We talked about how to give and get support, navigate the various groups in the ecosystem, and how we can all be a part of building community in and outside of our teams.
Exploring B2B Marketing Trends and Best Practices With Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
Learn how our panelists have built and put into play dynamic processes in their organizations using Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) to improve their B2B Marketing. In this session, we will also explore Pardot’s newest features and how to use them within your own organization to maximize your output.
Does It Integrate With __? Tips To Getting The Most Out Of Your Integrations (In Pardot)
Learn from our panelists on how to improve the efficiency of your marstack by leveraging integrations across your marstack and what to do when things “don’t integrate as we expected”. In this session, we will also explore a roadmap of how to tackle a new integration project and how to leverage the Pardot API to access data beyond Salesforce. This will be a good guide of what a marketer needs to know when talking to technical folks.
The Road To Email Compliance: The Basics, Challenges, and Gotchas
Learn how our panelists implemented marketing compliance solutions in their own organizations. In this session, we will explore the basics of different options you have as an Administrator to capture and process marketing consent and what are some lessons learned from the process by our panelists.
Bring the Magic to B2B Marketing with Genie and Account Engagement
Learn how Salesforce Genie allows marketers to meet customer demands amid privacy changes and asks to do more with less. We will share how Account Engagement’s new API enhancements and extensibility features lay the foundation for bringing the magic to B2B marketing.
Plus an exclusive fireside chat with Jay Wilder, VP, Product Marketing, Marketing Cloud at Salesforce and Eric Zenz, SVP, Product Management, Marketing Applications at Salesforce.
Supercharge Data-Driven Experiences with Customer Data Platform
Top brands are using Customer Data Platform (CDP) to make every customer interaction smarter, easier, and more efficient. Learn how to unify data to build a single source of truth and drive personalization at scale.
Featuring:
Jenny Smith, Salesforce
Jill Katz, Salesforce
Andrew Lee, Salesforce
MarDreamin’ Session Highlights
The MarDreamin’ 2022 conference welcomed over 60 speakers who delivered 55 speaking sessions. The content of the sessions ranged from Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement and Account Engagement to Analytics, the Salesforce platform and general marketing strategies.
You can find information about each of the session tracks and what they included by following the links below.
Here are a few screenshots and descriptions from key MarDreamin’ sessions. Remember, you can watch all session replays by clicking on this link and completing the form.
7 Tips To Bridge The Gap Between Sales And Marketing
It’s time for sales teams and marketers to realize they’re all working toward common goals — to keep customers happy and smash revenue targets. And we all know that sales and marketing teams that work together do more with less and shine brightly in the customer’s eyes.
In this session, get 7 actionable insights to use when building relationships between sales and marketing teams through shared technology tools. You’ll learn how to make the best decisions for your tech stack and how to encourage open communication between the teams.
This presentation is especially valuable for companies currently implementing Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), but it is also relevant for teams with existing implementations.
Featuring:
Sharon Taylor, PMMI Media Group
Breaking Borders: Going Global With Marketing Automation
Over the last few years, Salesforce has cemented Pardot / Account Engagement its as a strong competitor in the enterprise B2B Marketing Automation space, moving away from a historically SMB focus. But, when your teams are based across the globe, how can you really build a successful multi-regional marketing strategy?
Join this session to learn how to:
Structure and organize a global MA platform
Balance global collaboration with regional independence
Run a well-organized operation
Empower your people
Leverage the full suite of tools in MC Account Engagement for a truly global marketing automation strategy
Featuring:
Sarah Kelleher, Nebula Consulting
Reporting Capabilities Differences SFDC vs B2BMA
This presentation will be focused on when to use what tools including use cases and best practices. Determine what each system is best at reporting on (and when you might need to move on) is top of mind for marketers and leadership teams. We’ll dive into de-mystify reporting across platforms.
So, you’ve signed on to become a Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) customer. Now what?
This session covers 10 steps to get you from beginner to where you want to be with Pardot marketing automation.
You will learn how to:
Identify where you are in your usage of marketing automation
Visualize a clear roadmap to fully maximize the system
Understand how to use automation or a faster sales cycle
Increase the tool’s return on investment (ROI)
Featuring:
Ryan Cammisa, Cloudtegic
A Beginner’s Guide To Administering Marketing Cloud Engagement
This session is for anyone new to the world of Marketing Cloud administration. You will learn about the foundational components of administering and managing a Marketing Cloud Engagement environment.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
Users
Business Units
Security
Process Automations
FTP Data
You will walk away with knowledge to effectively manage your Marketing Cloud Engagement org.
7 Tips for Securing Marketing Cloud Engagement in a Hybrid Work Environment
Two big takeaways from the pandemic era are that workers can be productive when working from home and that the vast majority expect to continue to work remotely (at least partially).
While there are plenty of benefits associated with a hybrid work environment, security is not typically thought of as one of them.
In this session we’ll discuss the security capabilities of Salesforce Marketing Cloud and how they can be used to secure your environment — no matter where your team is working from.
Why Salesforce Admins Should Get To Know Marketing Cloud
Salesforce as a platform continues to evolve and enhance its capabilities. It is made up of a few clouds and the lines between them continue to blur.
Marketing Cloud has traditionally been the furthest removed from its sibling “core” clouds. However, this is changing. Two of the bigger initiatives that are driving Marketing Cloud closer and closer to the other clouds are CDP and Personalization. Both these tools will have large impacts on our CRM data.
Learn about these initiatives and why Salesforce admins should get acquainted with Marketing Cloud.
Featuring:
Chris Zullo, Allcloud
Embrace A First-Party Data Strategy For Sales And Marketing
Third-party cookies are being phased out by most web browsers in the next year, and marketers must adapt to a new environment. In the new normal, using first-party data can become a true competitive advantage.
Natasha and Jaime will show you how to build a first-party tracking cookie strategy across your whole tech stack, relying on Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud and MuleSoft as a foundation. We will present engagement strategies for mobile using event data, and show valuable examples of ROI strategies you can take to the boardroom.
Featuring:
Jaime Lopez, Aiven
Natasha Martin, Love’s Travel Stops
How the Right Message Can Increase Conversions
Discover the strategies and best practices that world-class marketing teams leverage to send the right message and increase conversion. We’ll also reveal how to prepare your team for the future of audience segmentation, and how to build a tech stack that will get the job done.
Featuring:
Jonathan Van Driessen, DESelect
How To Bring Pardot Capabilities Into Salesforce Flow
The Marketing Cloud Account Engagement V5 API allows external systems to work with Pardot data. But, what if that “external system” is actually our Salesforce Sales Cloud instance?
We have the Salesforce Connector to get things done between Pardot and Sales Cloud. And, thanks to the V5 API, we can extend that functionality by treating Sales Cloud as an external system.
This session will walk you through Flow Actions for Pardot, which is an app you can install in your org to get started with Salesforce flows for Pardot activities. You’ll leave with an understanding of how to install the app and use it to bring a range of Account Engagement (Pardot) capabilities into Salesforce Flow designer.
Turn Marketing Into a Recession-Proof Competitive Advantage
Get five marketing strategies to work smarter and rise above your competitors, even during economic downturns. We’ll equip you to execute ABM, nail nurture campaigns and prove your worth.
Here are a few screenshots from sessions that took place on MarDreamin’ Day 2.
Building Connected Pardot Campaigns: 6 Steps For Success
When a new marketing campaign is about to drop, marketers are usually rushing to get things set up in Pardot and live asap. However, this usually results in key elements being missed and ultimately impacts reporting for connected Salesforce campaigns.
In this session, Triana will talk you through a campaign setup checklist that will help ensure your data aligns correctly in Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) and Salesforce and you don’t miss a thing!
Steps include:
Salesforce Campaign setup
Mapping out the campaign journey
Aligning marketing assets to your campaign
Considerations for offline activity
UTM tracking Testing that your setup is tracking correctly
Featuring: Triana Jarman, MarCloud Consulting
Building An ABM Strategy With What You Have
There are a lot of tools that promise account-based marketing (ABM) success. But you can implement an effective ABM strategy with the tech stack (and team!) you have.
In this session, we will review how to build out an ABM strategy with Salesforce and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot). We’ll uncover ways to get sales and marketing aligned so you can deliver the right-channel messaging to the right-person at the right-time.
Topics covered include:
Creating your target account list and key buyer groups with sales using account persona insights, scoring, and grading.
Determining the best mix of channels, engagement points, and building personalized assets with HML and dynamic content.
Measuring the success of your strategy with engagement history and campaign influence.
Featuring: Kelly Ryan, Sercante
Using Account Engagement (Pardot) Engagement Studio For Complex Lead Routing
Engagement Studio, which lives within Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), is a powerful tool with seemingly endless use cases and customization possibilities. Did you know that you can even use Engagement Studio to create complex lead routing processes?
We’ll walk you through a real-life example of an automation setup using Engagement Studio that takes the guesswork out of sorting through marketing leads. Learn how you can achieve a similar setup in your own Pardot instance that automatically sorts leads and identifies the hottest ones for sales to contact.
We’ll show you how to handle complex lead routing in Engagement Studio including assigning ownership based on:
Customer data points
Customer engagement activity
Business criteria
And more
Featuring:
Sarah Empson, ADT Commercial
All About the External Actions
External Actions is a new, exciting Account Engagement feature that will supercharge your automations by enabling custom actions that make an external callout from within Engagement Studio as part of the prospect journey, opening up possibilities like sending an SMS text.
Come join my session to learn all about External Actions and walkthrough a few advanced External Action scenarios:
Leveraging External Services to create an Integration to Twilio SMS.
Execute sub-flows as part of your marketing journey.
Create a prospect webhook to trigger a Zapier Zap.
Featuring:
Christopher Cornett, Salesforce
Salesforce Flows 101 For Marketers
Have you heard of Salesforce flows? Have you seen what they can do? If not, you are not alone. Flows have taken the Salesforce ecosystem by storm.
Join us as we walk you through an introduction to Salesforce Flow 101 that is tailored to the needs of marketers. We’ll cover terminology and show you quick wins to implement in your org (with the support of your Salesforce admin) to reduce friction between sales and marketing teams. You can also supplement your marketing automation with the flow ideas we will showcase during the session.
Key areas we will cover include:
Setting up qualification questions using on-screen flows
Transferring data from one field to another on the same/different object(s)
Triggering field updates based on specific actions
The Age of RevOps: Reinventing Lead Lifecycle Management
The modern B2B buyer is growing frustrated with your sales cycle. Your prospects expect a truly frictionless, B2C-like buying experience in every SaaS evaluation. If your SaaS company isn’t engaging with leads in a timely, personalized way, you risk losing 20-30% of your revenue.
In the emerging world of RevOps, current lead management approaches fail to meet your buyer’s expectations. Only with a cloud-first approach to automation can you better capture and engage prospects in real-time and deliver the experience they crave.
Join this session to learn more about a modern approach to lead lifecycle management that results in higher conversion, a seamless buying experience, and a faster path to revenue.
Featuring:
Chris Ferraro, Tray.io
Houston, We Have A Problem: Avoiding Pardot Personalization SOS Scenarios
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) is full of features that can help you personalize different types of experiences within the tool. From Dynamic Content to Handlebars Merge Language to Snippets — these features lean on the strong connection between Salesforce and Pardot (data) to power these functions. What happens when the data fails you or these features don’t play along with one another?
Join us for this discussion and show and tell about personalization in Pardot. We will focus on key use cases where these features could fail AND how to prevent this from happening in the first case.
Featuring:
Marcos Duran, Sercante
MarDreamin’ Day 3 Overview
And here are a few session highlights from the third and final day of MarDreamin’ 2022.
How To Deploy Data For Success, Scale And Customer Experience
Learn the tools, techniques and strategies to make your Salesforce Marketing Cloud data more effective, efficient and easy to use. At the same time, you’ll maximize your efforts, make the most of your data, and delight customers.
Featuring:
Jason Cort, HowToSFMC.com
Pardot Business Units: Pros, Cons, And Gotchas
We are all now getting used to working with Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) business units, but most of the implementations we’re seeing are still one business unit. However, many companies are now looking at this as a “what if?” They’re asking questions like “shall we?” or “should we be looking at more than one business unit?”
There are many pros and cons to making this decision, and we will walk through them and discuss. We also have a couple of shiny gotchas to look at and consider before making the leap to multiple Pardot business units.
Featuring:
Tracy Keeling, Capgemini
The Trifecta of Website Event Management
Your website is your digital front store. The experiences your prospects have and how your team interacts with their engagement is crucial in setting yourself apart from your competition. With form completion at an all time less than 1% events are getting harder to gather engagement on, especially via the traditional method of email, landing page and form.
What if you could engage with your prospects on your website, in real time? Get registration from an interaction without having to pull out the dusty traditional email?
In this session, you will learn how to deliver fresh event options to your audience on your site via chat. See how conversion rates excel and also allow for new fresh bespoke experiences so that return visitors always have something new to engage with.
Featuring:
Jennifer Lynn Schneider, Qualified
Using Einstein AI Within Account Engagement
It’s time to put Einstein to the test to feel the benefits of using data-driven insights to power your sales and marketing efforts. This session will help you understand how artificial intelligence (AI) tools can show you which prospects are most engaged and the campaigns that were most successful.
You’ll walk away with a better understanding of:
How the different Einstein features work within Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot)
The value of using these features
Best practices from Salesforce customers
Featuring:
Jeffrey Stollenwerk, Salesforce
How To Audit Subscriber Activity For Marketing Cloud Journey Builder
Marketing Cloud Journey Builder’s reporting interface gives users the ability to view high-level statistics on journey performance and the overall volume of subscribers to reach each activity. However, the ability to gain a granular view of the specific step that subscribers are currently at within each journey is limited from the Journey Builder interface. This lack of visibility poses issues from both a reporting and auditing/troubleshooting standpoint.
In this session, we will show you a method of setting up journeys and querying data views that allows marketers to keep track of the steps that subscribers have completed within a Journey, all within a single Data Extension.
Featuring:
Austin Kirby, Media.Monks
Claudia Hoops, Media.Monks
Everything Marketers Need to Know About Web Tracking Cookies
There’s been a lot of talk about the death of web tracking cookies. Some even suggest it will end marketing as we know it. We’re here to assure that it’s just another evolution in how we make the magic of marketing work.
In this session, we’ll talk about what’s changing, what isn’t, and how marketers on the Salesforce platform can navigate this rapidly evolving landscape.
Topics covered:
The differences between third- and first-party web cookies
The driving force behind these changes and why it’s a win for user privacy
Watch MarDreamin’ replays and get ready for the next one
So, there you have it. MarDreamin’ 2022 is in the books. And thank goodness we recorded the whole thing.
Until next year, you can consume all MarDreamin’ replays from previous years to get caught up. Visit this webpage and complete the form to get access to all the videos.
And make sure you get on the mailing list so you’re the first to know when we announce the call for speakers, sponsors, and MarDreamies Award submissions for 2023.
Let us know what you liked or want to see more of next year in the comments section.
Passing the Salesforce Associate Certification exam is a great way to show initiative when you’re looking to break into the Salesforce ecosystem or prove to your employer that you’re ready to dive deeper into Salesforce. And, whether you’re a fresh graduate looking to establish a career in the world of technology or you’re an experienced professional seeking a career change, Salesforce is always a smart option.
For far too long, the Salesforce Administrator Certification, which was traditionally the first level of credential to validate your Salesforce knowledge, has daunted beginners due to the wide depth of topics to cover. Studying the 68-hour long trailhead has indeed been a big barrier for beginners, as well as some experienced folks looking to get certified.
Salesforce Entry Level Certification
Well, here’s great news! In September 2022, Salesforce launched its new entry level certification known as Salesforce Certified Associate.
This entry-level credential is designed to test your understanding of the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform and the ecosystem, and thereby giving your Salesforce career a kickstart.
How is the Salesforce Associate Exam Conducted?
You can take the exam online from the comfort of your home. This is where a proctor monitors your exam through a webcam. Or, you can take the exam onsite at an authorized testing center.
The exam consists of 40 questions, which need to be answered in 70 minutes (that is A LOT of time when compared to some other Salesforce certification exams).
Each question has only one correct answer. And unlike some other Salesforce certification exams, you have only 3 options to choose from. So if you’re good at the process of elimination, this exam makes life easier for you.
You need to secure 62% correct answers to pass the certification examination, which roughly counts to getting 25 correct answers.
Salesforce Associate Certification Exam Outline
Below are the four sections that constitute the exam, and the weightage of each section is mentioned in percentage of number of questions:
Salesforce Ecosystem: 32%
Navigation: 28%
Data Model: 25 %
Reports and Dashboard: 15%
Section 1 – Salesforce Ecosystem
This section has the most weight in the exam (i.e. 32%), which roughly accounts to 13 questions of the 40. It primarily deals with the areas of:
Salesforce and its Values
Trailheads and the Trailblazer Community
Trailhead Playground Management
Understanding Salesforce Customer 360
Salesforce for Nonprofits / Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP)
Types of Salesforce instances
Salesforce architecture and Multitenant environment
Career paths in the Salesforce ecosystem
Section 2 – Navigation
This section has the second most weightage in the exam i.e. 28% which roughly accounts to 11 questions of the 40. It primarily deals with the basics of the following areas, with situation based questions mainly focused on how to Navigate to these.
Understanding Account, Contacts and their Relationships
Understanding the Salesforce AppExchange
Scrum and Kanban Workflows
Search Solution Basics
Company-Wide Org Settings
Data Organization
User Management
List Views
Lightning App Builder
Personalizing Salesforce experience
Section 3 – Data Modeling
This section has a weightage of 25%, which roughly accounts to 10 questions of the 40.
This section primarily tests your understanding of the Standard Objects, its Relationships and managing data access levels within the organization. It focuses on the following areas:
Custom & Standard Objects, Object Customization and Relationships
Working with Schema Builder
Managing Leads & Opportunities
Data Security
Using Formulas and Validations
Understanding Permission Set Groups
Lightning Setup and Customization
Picklist Administration
Custom fields
Section 4 – Reports & Dashboards
This section has the lowest weightage of 15%, which roughly accounts to 6 questions of the 40. But this section has some of the most interesting and crucial areas such as Salesforce reporting.
Here’s what this section covers:
Basics of creating Reports and Dashboards
Reports & Dashboards for Lightning Experience
Report Types and Report Formats
Joined Reports
Managing Report Filters
Who can take this exam?
This exam is designed for anyone with 0-6 months of Salesforce experience.
However, we believe it can also be taken by candidates who fall in these categories:
If you are the Salesforce Admin at your organization, and need to get validation of your knowledge for a promotion or general acknowledgement.
If you want to get into Salesforce consulting in your next job
If you have had no Salesforce experience, but want to make a second career in Salesforce and are willing to learn the Trailheads.
Fees and Retakes
The cost of taking this exam is USD $75
The exam retake is free of cost
Resources and Takeaways
After having read this pocket guide, we recommend you to complete the trailheads for this certification exam (links provided below).
If you have a high-level understanding of the Salesforce functionalities and have completed most if not all of the Trailheads, then you are on a great path to pass this entry-level certification exam and take a leap in building your Salesforce career.
Looking to skill up beyond the basics of the Salesforce platform? The Salesforce Basics for Marketers course may be perfect for you. Or, you can see the full roster of Sercante Training courses and offerings here.
Other Sercante Salesforce Certification Exam Guides:
Sure, Salesforce has all the resources customers and consultants need to figure out how to do things. So why are there so many Salesforce blogs out there?
Salesforce bloggers offer unique perspectives, alternative solutions, and real customer experiences that go beyond the content you can find in Salesforce help articles and on Trailhead.
This technology is constantly evolving. Bloggers offer new solutions for old ways of doing things. And they often go further in depth than Trailhead and help articles can. That’s why the ecosystem needs you to contribute what you can to this body of knowledge.
Here are six strategies you can use to create Salesforce blog content — even if you claim to be a non-writer. They were originally presented during a Campfire presentation at Dreamforce 2022.
Strategy 1. Explore Salesforce blogs!
If you want to start creating Salesforce blog content, then the first step is to consume all the content that’s already out there. That will help you to determine where you want to start.
Think about these questions as you explore other Salesforce blogs:
What types of content resonate with you most?
What do the blogs offer beyond the written word? (video, infographics, polls, etc.)
What writers would you like to emulate?
How are the blogs structured?
Which blogs do you trust to offer the most accurate information?
Keep these questions in mind as you start to develop your own content creation style.
Strategy 2. Turn existing content into a blog post
Creating a Salesforce blog post is easy when you use content you already have.
Many of the Sercante dragons who write for The Spot claim they aren’t natural writers. But they always manage to create helpful blog posts when they use content they already have.
Think back to cool solutions you’ve built. You can use the notes you took as the basis for blog posts. Or, dig up instructions you’ve written for your colleagues or clients. You can always reframe solutions as hypothetical if your client or manager would rather not share identifying information.
Free tools for creating blog content
Additionally, non-writers can benefit from free and low-cost tools that can help to create videos for blog posts. For example, you can record yourself walking a user through a demonstration of how to perform a specific task in an area you know well.
Free/low cost tools for creating blog videos and graphics:
The next strategy is to narrow your topic for each blog post so you keep each post on topic and easily digestible for your readers.
The best way to do this is to summarize the focus of your blog post into a few words. We call this a keyphrase.
The keyphrase will serve two purposes:
Help search engines to find your posts
Let the reader know what to expect
Use your keyphrase or keywords early and often in the blog post so the reader understands what they’re getting from it.
And remember, it’s easy to go on tangents. Your readers will thank you for respecting their time and sharing your tangent in a future post.
Strategy 4. Create web-friendly content
Writing for the web is totally different from what you may have learned about writing in an academic setting. That’s because people consume content differently on a screen than they do when it’s just words on printed paper.
Creating web-friendly content ensures that people will actually read your content and search engines can find it.
Optimize your content for digital consumption by making it…
Media enriched
Add rich media like graphics, and video to add depth to your blog posts.
Short & sweet
Keep sentences and paragraphs simple and short when possible.
Reader-focused
Use headers and subheads to tell the reader what they’ll learn in each section.
Keyword-rich headers also:
Help search engines to find you.
Break up big blocks of text.
Make the content scannable so the reader can skip to the sections that include the information they want to read.
SEO juiced
To create SEO-friendly blog posts, remember to include:
Keywords in title & headers
Internal & external links
Alt text
Meta descriptions
And if you have SEO tools, like Yoast, added to your website backend, then do what they say to get those green dots!
Strategy 5. Get yourself out there
The best way to get eyes on your content and understand what blog posts people in the Salesforce ecosystem can benefit from is to get out there and share your knowledge with real people.
Join a community or group
There are endless options to meet Trailblazers in-person and virtually.
Get to know people who fill similar roles and can talk shop with you.
Salesforce events
Dreamin’ conferences
Webinars & panel sessions
Virtual training courses
Salesforce user group meetups
Strategy 6. Ask for all the feedback.
Something may make more sense in your head than it does for others. That’s why it’s so important to ask for feedback when you create Salesforce blog posts. Reviewers may also point out gaps in your solutions.
All feedback is good — whether you like it or not. There is much to learn from people who have lived different experiences than you have. So, lighten up and learn from them!
A few things to keep in mind:
Other people show you things you can’t see.
Improve clarity.
Edit unnecessary words.
Ensure accuracy.
Don’t take it personally. They’re trying to help.
All feedback is good.
Learn from it!
Take ‘em or leave ‘em.
Consider the reviewer’s unique perspective.
Understand how others might react to your post.
You don’t have to agree with every comment. The important thing is that you’re taking the reviewer’s unique perspective into consideration so you understand how others might react to your post.
Start writing Salesforce blogs!
The hardest part is diving in and hitting ‘publish’ on your first post. Just remember, you have to start somewhere. The more blogging you do, the better you’ll get at it.
