Marketing Automations Archives

Getting Started, Marketing Automations, Pro Tips
June 1, 2026

Agentforce Marketing Features, a Guide for Account Engagement Users

Erin Duncan

Agentforce Marketing has quickly become a focal point for Salesforce Marketers. However, many Account Engagement customers are still trying to understand how this new platform operates and how it fits alongside their current tools. While Agentforce Marketing is designed to encompass all the features of Account Engagement, it introduces distinct features and a completely new lexicon. To bridge the gap, let’s dive into the Account Engagement that you know and love and how these features are translated, in name and functionality, to Agentforce Marketing.

What’s in a Name?

Let’s start with what initially trips users up – the product name. A common question I get from users is whether this new platform is called “Agentforce Marketing” or “Marketing Cloud Next” and the answer is both!

“Agentforce Marketing” appears to be the name that will stick around in the long term, but “Marketing Cloud Next” is used in most of the help articles and guides about this new platform. My guess is “Marketing Cloud Next” may be phased out as the tool grows and evolves. For the time being, both names are correct and refer to the latest Marketing Automation Tools from Salesforce.

There are also a few other names you may run into, including

Marketing Cloud Growth: This refers to the “Growth” edition of Agentforce Marketing.
Marketing Cloud Advanced: This refers to the “Advanced” edition of Agentforce Marketing.
Marketing Cloud on Core: This name was adopted by the community pre “Marketing Cloud Next”. It helped us designate a difference between OG “Marketing Cloud” (aka Marketing Cloud Engagement) and the new platform. “On Core” designates that this Marketing Platform, unlike Engagement or Account Engagement, is truly built on the core Salesforce platform.
Account Engagement +: This term is more Salesforce SKU-based and refers to Account Engagement users who are also using the Agentforce Marketing Platform alongside their Account Engagement org.
Engagement + / Marketing Cloud +: Similar to the above, this is Salesforce SKU-based and refers to Marketing Cloud Engagement customers using the Agentforce Marketing Platform alongside their Engagement org.

Features and Terminology

Prospects

In Account Engagement, a Prospect refers to an identified individual. Prospects can remain solely in Account Engagement or sync to Salesforce Leads and Contacts. The equivalent of a Prospect in Agentforce Marketing is a Unified Individual.

A Unified Individual is a consolidated record of metadata related to multiple Prospect, Lead, and Contact records for the same person. To put this in simpler terms, say you have multiple Lead and Contact records for the same individual within your CRM. Each of these records has different information about said customer and each record retains its own engagement and activity data. This disparate view of your customer gives your teams an incomplete and sometimes incorrect picture of your customer. Data 360 unites these disparate records using Identity Resolution rules and provides your team with a consolidated and complete view of each customer, the Unified Individual.

Learn more about Unified Individuals in the Data and Identity in Data 360 Trailhead Module.

Now, a few releases ago, Salesforce also added a Prospect object to CRM. This means that marketers can create pre-lead or unqualified records directly in Salesforce to mimic the same functionality we have in Account Engagement. Currently the CRM Prospect record cannot sync with Account Engagement Prospects, but I expect functionality around the Prospect CRM object to grow and this could be something we see in a few releases.

Lists

In Account Engagement, there are two main List types:

Static Lists are built one time and only update with manual changes.
Dynamic Lists are rule-based and automatically update when a Prospect’s data changes.

The equivalent of a List in Agentforce Marketing is a Data 360 Segment.

Data 360 Segments consist of Unified Individuals that match filtering rule criteria that you set. Similar to Account Engagement Dynamic Lists, you can assign multiple rule criteria to a Segment with AND/OR logic between each rule. You can also match a field against multiple values using the “Is In” operator. The image below shows an example of a Segment using multiple rule criteria in Agentforce Marketing.

A Segment using multiple rule criteria in Agentforce Marketing

Whether a Data 360 Segment is static or dynamic depends on its publish schedule. You can set a Segment to “Do Not Schedule”, essentially making the list static, or configure a publish schedule to refresh your Segment as needed. The image below depicts the Edit Properties window in Agentforce Marketing where the publish schedule is defined.

The edit Properties window in Agentforce Marketing where the publish schedule is defined.

Segments can be used in Agentforce Marketing or, with the Data 360 Connector, synced down to Account Engagement as a Dynamic List.

Now, if you prefer to curate your list rather than use Segment rules, you can either add Leads/Contacts to your Campaign and then create a Segment of Campaign Members:

Or, after the Summer ‘26 release, utilize the new List and Audience Flow features to circumvent the need for a Data 360 Segment.

Learn more about segments in the Segmentation in Data 360 Trailhead Module.

Engagement Studio Program

Engagement Studio Programs enable you to automate multi-touch customer journeys using triggers, rules, and actions. These programs nurture Prospects through the sales funnel and ensure timely and relevant communications. The Agentforce Marketing equivalent to Engagement Studio Programs is Flow Builder.

Flow Builder is the automation engine of Agentforce Marketing, helping you build and execute complex, multi-channel marketing campaigns. Engagement Studio Programs and Flow Builder have a lot of overlap: They both have a top-down vertical layout, use elements as steps within the program/flow, and allow you to customize processes down different paths based on conditions.

Learn more about Flows in the Flow Builder Basics Trailhead Module and the Understanding Campaigns and Flows in Marketing Cloud Next help article.

Completion Action

In Account Engagement, Completion Actions trigger when a Prospect takes a specific action, such as filling out a form. The Agentforce Marketing equivalent of this is Automation Event-Triggered Flows.

Automation Event-Triggered Flows, sometimes referred to as Form-Triggered Flows or just Event-Triggered Flows, trigger when an individual takes an action. Automation Event-Triggered Flows allow you to trigger a single action or build an entire customer journey to nurture the individual after an event.

Agentforce Marketing includes several pre-configured events and Engagement Signals can be used to build any additional desired events.

Automation Rule

Account Engagement Automation Rules are repeatable, criteria-based rules that find matching Prospects and apply actions to them. The Agentforce Marketing equivalent to Automation Rules is Flow Builder, but the type of flow depends on your criteria.

If you are converting Lead records when they meet specific criteria, use a Data 360 Triggered Flow.
If you are creating consent records when an individual opts into your marketing communications via a form, use an Event-Triggered Flow with a Consent Request Element.
If you have multiple criteria and/or want more control over when the action fires, create a Segment and use a Segment-Triggered Flow.

Scoring and Grading

Account Engagement uses Scoring and Grading to help you identify, qualify, and prioritize Prospects in your org.

In Account Engagement, Scoring indicates how engaged a Prospect is by assigning numerical points to each activity the Prospect performs, its Agentforce Marketing equivalent is Engagement Scoring. Similar to Account Engagement Scoring, Agentforce Marketing’s Engagement Scoring assigns numerical points to activities. A default scoring system is provided, but you can fully customize the conditions and points.

In Account Engagement, Grading indicates how closely the prospect fits your ideal customer by evaluating pre-configured criteria and assigning a letter grade. The Agentforce Marketing equivalent of Grading is Fit Scoring. Similar to Engagement Scoring, Fit Scoring assigns numerical points to individuals if they match your fit criteria. Fit Scoring conditions and points can also be fully customized.

In Account Engagement, Prospects do not have a metric that reflects a combination of the Score and Grade. Score and Grade are kept as completely separate metrics, but can be used together to establish a qualification threshold. In Agentforce Marketing, individuals do have a combined rating called Overall Score. The Overall Score will always be between 0 and 100. The Overall Score is initially 50% Engagement and 50% Fit, but this can be customized as needed as well.

The image below shows how Agentforce Marketing’s score weights can be customized.

With Advanced Edition you can also score the fit, engagement, and intent of your Accounts.

Mailability

In Account Engagement, a prospect’s mailability or mailable status refers to whether or not they can receive marketing emails. If an Account Engagement Prospect has a hard bounce, five soft bounces, has unsubscribed themselves, or has been manually opted out, they are considered unmailable.

Agentforce Marketing uses Consent for a more comprehensive approach to mailability. Within Agentforce Marketing, individuals set their subscription preferences to indicate the channel they want to receive communication within (Email, SMS, WhatsApp) and the subscription (newsletter, events, product updates etc.). For example, an individual may subscribe to receive event updates via SMS and receive your newsletter via email. Agentforce Marketing will create a consent record within Data 360 for each choice.

Learn more about consent differences between the two systems in the Understanding Consent Differences Between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next help article.

If you plan on using Account Engagement and Agentforce Marketing side-by-side, it may be beneficial to align consent between the two systems.

A/B Testing

In Account Engagement, A/B Testing allows you to optimize your email content by sending two versions of an email to a small subset of your recipient list. The engagement data of these two email variations is used to determine a winning version that is then sent to the remaining subset of your recipient list. Agentforce Marketing’s equivalent is Path Experiment, however Path Experiment allows you to do much more than send just two variations of a single email.

Path Experiment, which is available for the Advanced Edition of Agentforce Marketing, allows you to experiment with up to 10 different versions of a customer journey to determine the most effective path. This means you can test content variations (i.e. which subject line gets more opens?), channel variations (i.e. do you get more opens with email or sms?), and even cadence variations (do we get better results sending more or less emails?). Similar to A/B Testing, Path Experiment allows you to test with a subset of your audience before sending your remaining audience members down the winning path.

Learn more about Path Experiment in the Marketing Cloud Flow Element: Path Experiment help article.

Sender Domains

In Account Engagement, Sender Domains define where you can send emails from. For example, if my Sender is [email protected] then Salesforce.com is my Sender Domain. The Agentforce Marketing equivalent is Authenticated Domains. For both sender and authenticated domains you will need to work with your IT team to create DNS records. These records help improve the deliverability of your emails by defining you as a legitimate sender.

Learn more about Authenticated Domains in the Domain Settings in Marketing Cloud Next help article.

Dynamic Content

In Account Engagement, Dynamic Content enables you to create field-based variations of content. If the Prospect’s field matches the designated field value, then they will see that content variation on your website or within your marketing assets. Agentforce Marketing also has Dynamic Content, but it has more advanced functionality.

Agentforce Marketing’s Dynamic Content functionality allows you to personalize your email based on fields or any data source connected to your individual. For example, you can build the variations based off of Account data or data from an event the recipient recently attended. You can also personalize multiple sections of your marketing assets, or personalization points, within one Dynamic Content variation. This allows you to dynamically update nearly every aspect of an email more efficiently.

Agentforce Marketing Dynamic Content relies on:

Personalization Point: An element of content that’s eligible for a personalization decision. For example, an email’s subject line and preheader or an image component within the email are “points” that you can personalize.
Personalization Decision: Criteria that determines who’s eligible to receive a personalization response.
Targeting Rule: Conditions for showing a specific variation.

Learn more about Dynamic Content in the How Dynamic Content and Salesforce Personalization Work Together help article.

Page Actions

In Account Engagement, Page Actions trigger additional actions after a Prospect views a specific page of your website. In Agentforce Marketing, you can accomplish the same goal using website tracking and the Website Engagement Data Model Object (DMO).

The Website Engagement DMO records website page views and clicks, and engagement signals can be created to zero in on specific page view activities. For example, you can create an Engagement Signal that records when a visitor lands on your Pricing page, a good indicator that they may be interested in making a purchase. These Engagement Signals can then be used to trigger Automation Event-Triggered Flows so you can further automate next steps.

Learn more about website engagement and Engagement Signals in the Marketing Cloud Next: Custom Event-Triggered Flow blog post.

Campaign

Account Engagement uses both Salesforce and Account Engagement Campaigns. Account Engagement Campaigns are considered thematic touchpoints (similar to a source in other systems), while Salesforce campaigns are a Salesforce CRM object used to plan, manage, and track marketing initiatives. Salesforce and Account Engagement Campaigns are united with the Connected Campaigns feature.

Agentforce Marketing utilizes the Salesforce CRM Campaigns object for both purposes. Campaigns are not only a record that helps organize the audience, assets, and metrics for a specific marketing effort, but they also indicate a touchpoint for your individual.

Campaigns serve as a centralized hub for a marketing initiative within Agentforce Marketing. Within a Campaign you will find all the relevant information for your Campaign including your Campaign Brief, Campaign Members, associated flows, and reports.

Where to find your Campaign brief, members, associated flows, and reports

The user interface shown above is unique to viewing Campaigns within the Marketing app. Don’t let the user interface confuse you though, this is the default Salesforce Campaign object that is used by other processes and applications within Salesforce.

Campaign Influence

In Account Engagement, Campaign Influence helps you tie marketing efforts to your opportunities to see which campaigns are the most influential and successful. Account Engagement Campaign Influence can be a little hands-on, requiring you to add all Leads/Contacts that engage with your Campaign as Campaign Members. Agentforce Marketing uses Opportunity Influence to automate and streamline influence. Opportunity Influence uses engagement data to automatically tie Opportunity revenue back to a specific Campaign without the need for Campaign Membership.

Learn more about Opportunity Influence in the Attribute Revenue to a Specific Campaign help article.

AI Assistant

In Account Engagement, AI Assistant is generative AI that assists in drafting forms and landing pages as well as creating email subject lines, headers, and body copy. Agentforce Marketing uses Agentforce and Generative AI to assist with generating copy and so much more. Agentforce Marketing not only helps you generate forms, landing pages, and email content, but can also streamline the entire campaign creation process with the Campaign Creation and Content Builder agents.

Learn more about Agentforce Marketing’s AI features in the AI in Marketing Cloud Next Trailhead Module.The above gives you an overview of how terminology and features translate between Account Engagement and Agentforce Marketing. If you are ready to take the next step in your Agentforce Marketing journey, check out our A Strategic Path to Navigating Marketing Cloud Convergence blog post or contact us!

Marketing Automations, Pro Tips
April 10, 2026

Saving Time with Flow Templates in Agentforce Marketing

Mike Morris

Agentforce Marketing (aka: Marketing Cloud Next) introduced marketing teams to Salesforce Flow for the first time. While flows provide increased capabilities over tools like Engagement Studio in Account Engagement and Journey Builder in Marketing Cloud Engagement, building them can be time-consuming and even intimidating to new users.

In this post, we’ll explore how to create and use templates to increase efficiency while taking full advantage of the power of Flow.

Non-Admin Flow Types

“Non-admin” flows power Agentforce Marketing and allow marketers to automate key processes without needing administrator-level permissions. Common use cases include sending emails, delivering SMS messages, and creating Salesforce records.

There are two primary Flow types within Agentforce Marketing:

Form-Triggered: These have a 1-to-1 relationship with a marketing form. They are used to create or update Salesforce records, manage consent, and handle immediate post-submission tasks.
Segment-Triggered: These are primarily used to send individual or a series of emails and SMS messages. They also power Path Experiment (available in the Advanced Edition) and provide access to additional flow elements allowing marketers to build customized journeys.

Flow is extremely powerful, but getting started can be tough. The Flow canvas is a “blank slate” that requires thought and configuration.

Let’s take a look at how marketers can simplify and scale their efforts using flow templates with a real-world scenario.

Example Scenario

The marketing team has a high volume of assets that they would like to gate on the website using Agentforce Marketing forms. They need to ensure that existing contacts or leads are updated when a form is submitted before creating any new lead records. Additionally, they must generate consent records whenever a user opts in to marketing communications and add them to the correct Salesforce campaign for tracking purposes.

User Setup and Permissions

To replicate the experience of a marketing user, all flows and images in this post were created with a Salesforce user with the following profile and permissions. These are reflective of a standard marketing user.

Profile
- Standard User
Permission Sets
- Marketing Cloud Admin
- Tableau Next Included App Business User (This provides access to the Marketing Performance Dashboards)
CMS Contributor Role
- Content Manager

Form and Flow Templates

The first step is determining the fields that need to be included on the form. The best approach is to take a minimalistic approach and only ask for information that will be used or is needed for lead routing.

Hidden fields on forms are very useful for capturing form-specific data for use in your flow. For example, you can use them to automatically pass the Campaign ID and Campaign Member Status.

Creating the Form Template

Select the “Marketing” app from the App Launcher.
Click the “Content” tab to enter the Salesforce CMS.
Click on the “Content Workspace for Marketing Cloud” workspace.
Click the “Add” button and select “Content”.
Choose the “Form” CMS content type.
Add Data Source as “Lead”.

Drag the input fields into the form, and configure the labels, unique names, and determine if the field should be required or hidden.
Set the desired action at form submission (show thank you message or redirect).
Add a title, API Name, and description and then save.

Here’s an example of my form. Note that all fields have been set to required (with the exception of the opt-in checkbox). It’s important to know that Flow will overwrite data in Salesforce if a submission is received with blank data. If optional fields are needed, formulas can be created in the flow to protect data.

Creating A Flow

From the form you just created, click “New Flow” in the flow section.
Select “Open Flow in Flow Builder”.

Customize the flow as needed and save.

Customizing the Flow

The flow needed to meet our requirements is a little complicated, but that’s the whole point of this post. We don’t want the marketing team building this logic repeatedly.

This flow was built by a user with the “Marketing Cloud Admin” permission set. The “Marketing Cloud Manager” role lacks access to certain required elements. If you’d prefer, your Salesforce Administrator can also set up this template for you.

Flow Summary

Here’s a summary of the actions being performed in the flow.

Creates an opt-in consent record if the consent box on the form is checked.
Finds existing Salesforce contacts based on the email address and last name in the form submission.
- Updates existing contact records, if found.
Finds existing Salesforce leads based on the email address and last name in the form submission.
- Updates existing lead records, if found.
- Created new leads, if matching records are not found.
Retrieves campaign members based on the CRM ID of the person who submitted the form and the campaign ID included in the hidden field on the form.
- Updates the campaign member status of existing members to the value included in the Campaign Member Status hidden field from the form.
- Created new campaign members using the hidden fields from the form.

Saving the Flow as a Template

We can now complete the creation of the flow template.

Save As Template

From the Flow tab, open the latest version of the flow.
Delete the associated form from the “Start” element.
- Click “Edit” next to “Event: Form Submission”.
- Click the “X” to delete the form.

Click “Save As New Flow”.
- Add the flow label and a detailed description of what the flow does and when it should be used. The API Name will automatically populate based on the flow label.

Example of how to add a flow label and form description

Note: You may run into an issue saving due to the presence of the Consent Request element. If this happens, delete the field reference in the Contact Point value and save.

How to solve the issue of being unable to save

Click “Save As New Version”.
- It’s important to create a new version of the flow before saving as a template. The initial version of the flow will be v0.
- Saving a new version will increment the version number and ensure your updates are available in the flow template.
Click the dropdown to the right of the “Save As New Version” button and select “Save as Template”.
Confirm that the template has been created by completing the following steps:
- Click the Flows tab.
- Click the “New” button.
- Enter the template name in the search box..

How to confirm that a template has been created

Using Your Templates

Now that all the heavy lifting is done, you or your team can use your form and flow templates to quickly support additional assets. Here’s how.

Repeat the following steps for all new assets

Create the Salesforce campaign that will be used for the form and the campaign members.
- When creating the campaign from the Marketing App, do not select a campaign template.
- Selecting a template will result in an additional flow being created.

Do not select a template at the following screen.

Do not select a campaign template when creating the campaign from the marketing app

Navigate to the form template in the CMS.
Select the “Clone” from the dropdown menu to the right of the form name.

Name the new form based on the asset name.
Update the Campaign ID and Campaign Member Status (hidden field values) and Form Submission action.

How to update the campaign ID and campaign member status

From the Flow tab, click the “New” button.
Search for and select the gated content template.
Click “Edit” next to “Event: Form Submission” and select the cloned form.
Update the Contact Point value in the Consent Request element to reference the email address from the associated form.
Click “Save” and name the new flow.
- Click “Show Advanced” and delete the value in the “Source Template” field.
  - Non-admin users will not be able to activate the flow if this step is omitted.

Save the flow screen, highlighting the Source Template field.

The Consent Request element can be a bit finicky. If you see an error after updating the Contact Point, just delete the element and add it back.

Exit the flow details page and associate the flow to the correct campaign using the “Associated Record” lookup.

How to associate the flow to the correct campaign using the "Associated Record" lookup

Return to the CMS and publish the form (this will also activate the flow).
Add the embed code to the web page promoting the asset.

Save Time and Increase Efficiency with Templates

Building the initial form and flow template featured in this post took approximately one hour. Because the logic is quite involved, I spent a portion of that time testing to ensure everything functioned exactly as intended.

Once the templates were ready, I put them to the test with a stopwatch. While the steps in the “Using Your Template” section might look detailed, I was able to create a brand-new form and flow in just 4 minutes and 1 second. That is a massive 93% time savings!

Beyond just saving time, templates ensure accuracy and process consistency. Asking multiple people to manually replicate the complex requirements stated in this post would almost certainly result in errors.

If you frequently build forms and flows with similar structures, do yourself a favor and templatize. Your future self (and coworkers) will thank you.

Sercante is recognized as a Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced Implementation Expert and has the expertise to support your Agentforce Marketing needs. If you’re interested in support with Agentforce Marketing, reach out to us and let us know how we can help.

Data Management, Marketing Automations, Pro Tips
July 29, 2025

Using Agentforce, Data Cloud, and Marketing Cloud Advanced to Improve Student Retention

Angelica Cabral

Student retention is one of the most pressing challenges in higher education—and it’s not just about keeping enrollment numbers up. It’s about making sure students feel supported, connected, and confident in their ability to succeed, and engaging them before it’s too late.

Almost a quarter, 22.3%, of first-time, full-time undergraduate freshmen drop out within the first 12 months, while 39% don’t complete their degree within eight years (Education Data Initiative).

Which is why it is imperative for institutions to be taking action to improve student retention. One of the ways they can is by maximizing the technology they have and tapping into the latest solutions available to gain a better view of their students’ journeys and take action to engage when it matters most.

In Sercante’s latest demo, we explored how Salesforce’s connected tech stack—featuring Data Cloud, Marketing Cloud Advanced, and Agentforce can empower institutions to identify and support at-risk students before they fall through the cracks.

In the demo, we followed the journey of Jason Smith, a sophomore whose profile revealed a 77% attrition risk. What followed is a case study in how smarter tech, working harder behind the scenes, can drive real results for both teams and students.

Unifying Student Data for Smarter Insights

Everything begins with data. Using Salesforce Data Cloud, we created a Unified Student Profile by integrating key data sources across systems: academic performance, course engagement, attendance patterns, and more.

This holistic view powered a propensity model that flagged Jason’s risk level at 77%. Instead of relying on gut instinct or outdated reports, the team now had real-time, actionable insight—and a clear signal that it was time to act.

From Insight to Action with Marketing Cloud Advanced

That’s where Marketing Cloud Advanced comes in. Once a student is identified as at-risk, every minute matters. This tool enabled us to build automated, personalized communication journeys, so students like Jason could receive the right message at the right time.

Jason’s message came from Sercante University: a friendly, timely nudge to connect with an advisor. And because it was based on real-time data from his unified profile, it felt relevant, not random.

A Seamless Path to Support with Agentforce

The magic moment? When Jason clicked the link and landed on a scheduling page powered by Agentforce.

Here’s where tech meets empathy. Agentforce’s AI assistant recognized Jason’s concerns about unavailable classes and provided instant, personalized guidance—helping him book an appointment with an advisor in just three clicks or less.

No back-and-forth emails. No waiting. No frustration. Just a frictionless experience that made Jason feel seen, supported, and empowered to move forward.

A Multi-Cloud Solution that Improves Student Retention

What made this work wasn’t just the data or automation—it was how these tools worked together to create a better experience for both students and staff.

For teams: The heavy lifting was handled behind the scenes. With Data Cloud pulling real-time insights, MC Advanced automating outreach, and Agentforce handling the scheduling, advisors could spend less time triaging and more time supporting.
For students: It felt easy, human, and personalized. Jason didn’t need to fight for support—it found him, right when he needed it. He got help fast, with minimal effort and instant gratification.

This Agentforce, Data Cloud, and Marketing Cloud Advanced, multi-cloud solution, is an example of when teams use the power of data and AI to engage their students when it matters most, before it’s too late. Intercepting more students like Jason can help institutions improve student retention while creating real connections that last to drive growth for the institution and in Jason’s educational journey.

Final Takeaway

When schools bring together data, automation, and AI, they unlock a more connected, proactive, and student-centered approach to retention.

Students feel seen, supported, and confident in what to do next
Teams get relief from manual processes and can focus on what matters most
Institutions see better outcomes—without burning out their staff

It’s not just about reducing attrition—it’s about building trust, creating moments that matter, and delivering an experience that helps every student thrive.

Want to see the full journey? Watch the demo here.

Looking to implement something similar at your institution? Reach out to the Sercante team.

Analytics & Reporting, Industry News, Marketing Automations, Marketing Cloud, New Features, Release Notes, Setup & Admin, Strategy, Technology
February 17, 2025

Cracking the Code: How Opportunity Influence Connects Marketing to Revenue

Cara Weese

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

Marketing Cloud on Core (also known as Marketing Cloud Growth or Advanced Edition) can now track how marketing efforts contribute to revenue! With the Spring ‘25 release, Salesforce introduced Opportunity Influence, helping businesses connect marketing engagement to pipeline and revenue. But how does it work, and what’s the difference between Opportunity Influence and Campaign Influence? Let’s dive in!

Opportunity Influence vs. Campaign Influence: What’s the Real Deal?

Before we break down how to customize and report on Opportunity Influence, let’s clarify how it differs from Marketing Cloud Account Engagement’s Customizable Campaign Influence. While both models aim to connect marketing efforts to revenue, they function in distinct ways and serve different use cases.

Feature	Opportunity Influence	Campaign Influence
Data Source	Marketing Cloud Engagement (emails, ads, automation, etc.)	Salesforce Campaign Membership
Influence Scope	Tracks engagement across multiple touchpoints	Tracks Leads/Contacts who are Salesforce Campaign Members
Integration	Syncs Marketing Cloud engagement data to Salesforce Opportunities	Works within Salesforce CRM using Campaigns and Opportunities
Attribution Models	Multi-touch attribution (first-touch, last-touch)	Campaign Influence and Customized Models
Reporting & Insights	Measures marketing-driven revenue impact	Measure campaign-driven revenue impact

🚨 Important Note for Account Engagement Users 🚨

You cannot use Opportunity Influence alongside Customizable Campaign Influence. If your team already relies on Account Engagement’s Campaign Influence Models, keep this in mind when deciding which model to use.

Additionally, Account Engagement users cannot activate Opportunity Influence as it does not currently integrate with Account Engagement’s Campaign Influence model. If your organization currently tracks marketing-driven revenue using Campaign Influence reports, you’ll need to continue using that model. However, if you’re considering a shift to Marketing Cloud on Core, Opportunity Influence could offer enhanced multi-touch attribution and engagement tracking.

Battle of Influences: Campaign vs. Opportunity – Which One Wins?

Let’s say you’re running a B2B software company and you’ve executed multiple marketing campaigns using a variety of platforms, including ads, email, an e-book, and a webinar, to engage your prospects.

Campaign Influence: A prospect attends the webinar, clicks on an email, and downloads the e-book before being transitioned to sales as a marketing-qualified lead. These interactions are recorded under a Salesforce Campaign and can be manually associated with the Opportunity when created based on the Opportunity Contact Role and Campaign Member. You can assign influence weight based on your customized rules.
Opportunity Influence: Marketing Cloud on Core automatically tracks all marketing engagement, including the ad view and click, webinar attendance, and e-book download. These touchpoints are automatically associated to attribute influence based on the predefined model and associated to the Opportunity upon creation.

If Campaign Influence were a fine-dining experience, it would be a chef-curated meal—meticulously crafted with manual customization to fit your exact taste. You decide which interactions get the most credit, but it requires hands-on effort. On the other hand, Opportunity Influence is like an all-you-can-eat buffet with an expert chef behind the scenes. It automatically dishes out credit across touchpoints, giving you a full spread of marketing influence with minimal effort. If you love precision and control, Campaign Influence is for you. But if you want a seamless, automated view of your entire marketing impact, Opportunity Influence takes the crown.

How to Set Up Opportunity Influence

Setting up Opportunity Influence requires configuration in Sales Cloud to ensure marketing engagement is properly attributed to revenue-generating activities. To fully connect marketing efforts with sales outcomes, ensure that contacts engaging with marketing campaigns are linked to Opportunities. This allows for accurate tracking of marketing interactions that influence deals.

Enabling Opportunity Influence

Navigate to Salesforce Setup > Opportunity Influence
Enable Opportunity Influence
Select an Attribution Model
- First-Touch: Gives full credit to the first marketing engagement that led to the opportunity. It’s ideal for understanding which top-of-funnel efforts drive initial interest.
- Last-Touch: Assigns full credit to the last marketing interaction before the opportunity was created. It helps measure the final push that converted a lead into an opportunity.

Going Beyond Activation

Customization is key to maximizing Opportunity Influence. Marketers should align influence models with their sales cycle, ensuring critical marketing touchpoints, such as email engagements, paid ads, and automation journeys, are correctly captured. Because Opportunity Influence consumes Data Credits, it’s essential to be strategic when enabling multiple models to avoid unnecessary credit usage.

Making Sense of Your Data: Reporting on Opportunity Influence

Once Opportunity Influence is enabled and tracking data, you can start reporting on marketing’s impact. The key to unlocking valuable insights is leveraging Salesforce’s Reports & Dashboards to tell a clear story about how marketing drives revenue.

Your Treasure Map to Salesforce Reports & Dashboards

Head over to Salesforce Reports and search for Opportunity Influence Reports. This is your go-to hub for seeing which marketing touchpoints are helping close deals.
Get specific with your insights! Use filters to refine reports by timeframe, campaign, or opportunity. Want to know which emails led to the most revenue? Adjust your filters to see the impact.
Create Salesforce Dashboards to visualize Opportunity Influence. Need a quick snapshot for your leadership team? Build an easy-to-read chart that shows exactly how marketing is fueling revenue.

The Ultimate Guide to Opportunity Influence Report Types

Salesforce provides several built-in report types to help you analyze how marketing efforts contribute to revenue. Here are the key report types you can use:

Opportunity Influence Summary Report – This high-level report shows how marketing engagements are influencing revenue across all opportunities. Use it to track overall marketing impact.
Opportunity Influence Detail Report – A more granular report that breaks down individual touchpoints per opportunity, allowing you to analyze which specific marketing interactions played a role in closing deals.
Influence Attribution Model Comparison Chart – Compare first-touch and last-touch models side by side to see which one provides the best insights for your marketing strategy.
Marketing Touchpoint Analysis Report – Identifies which marketing channels (email, ads, website visits, etc.) are contributing the most to opportunity creation and pipeline growth.

By setting up and analyzing Opportunity Influence reports, marketing teams can gain deeper insights into which touchpoints matter most, optimize their strategies accordingly, and confidently demonstrate their return on investment.

Why Opportunity Influence is a Game-Changer

Opportunity Influence is a must-have tool for any marketing team looking to measure true revenue impact. No more guessing which emails, ads, or landing pages are driving pipeline – Opportunity Influence connects the dots, giving you a clear picture of how marketing fuels business growth. With built-in attribution models, you can customize insights based on what matters most to your strategy.

Whether you’re aiming to prove marketing ROI, optimize your campaigns, or align better with sales, Opportunity Influence provides automated, data-driven attribution that simplifies reporting and enhances decision-making. If you want better visibility into marketing’s role in revenue generation, this feature is your new best friend!

💡Next Steps:

Check your org to see if the new update is available.
Test Opportunity Influence tracking before rolling it out company-wide.
Monitor data service credit usage if you’re using multiple attribution models.

📣 Want to learn more? Check out the full Spring ‘25 release highlights or dive into the official release notes.

🚀 What are your thoughts on Opportunity Influence? Drop a comment below, and let’s discuss!

Marketing Automations, Pro Tips
November 19, 2024

Automating Campaign Names in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition

Mike Morris

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

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

Campaign-Centric Approach

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

Campaign Anatomy

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

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

Campaign Types

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

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

Example Type Additions

Single Email
Message Series
Form
Single SMS Message

Let’s Get Testing!

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

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

1 ) Determine Campaign Naming Convention

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

2) Update the Campaign Object

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

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

2. Update page layouts to make needed fields required

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

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

3) Create the Flow

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

Start Element

Flow Canvas

Update Records Element

4) Activate and Test

Test 1: Signup Form

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

Test 2: Message Series

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

Takeaways

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

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

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

Emails & Forms, Marketing Automations, Pro Tips
September 3, 2024

Building a Message Series Flow in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition

Mike Morris

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

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

Getting Started

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

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

Building a Message Series

Confirm User Access

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

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

User Permissions in Marketing Cloud Growth

It All Starts With A Campaign

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

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

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

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

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

Flow Access

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

Customizing Your Flow

Flow Capabilities

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

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

Current Capabilities

Set Schedule

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

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

Select Segment

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

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

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

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

Update Wait Elements

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

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

Apply Branch Logic

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

Wait Until Event

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

Decision Element

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

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

Vary Communication Methods

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

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

Learn More About Marketing Cloud Growth Edition & Flow

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

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

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