Data Management

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

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

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

Understanding the Consumption-Based Billing Model

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marketing Cloud Growth Edition Standard Credits

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

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

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

Other business segments may have Data Cloud

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Data Cloud Credit Usage Examples for Growth Edition Marketers 

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

Data Harmonization and Unified Individuals

• Target Audience: As opposed to “prospects” within Account Engagement, users create segments in Data Cloud for Marketing Cloud Growth Edition campaigns via Unified Individual profiles.
  
  Instead of 1:1 syncing with a lead or contact, these unified profiles can link multiple data sources to create a 360-degree view of the customer, with data from Salesforce and external data sources. 
• Identity Resolution: To make sure these unified profiles are accurate to your map of data, identity resolution rules are created in Data Cloud to join datasets by the relationships you define.
  
  The harmonization process this executes does utilize Data Cloud credits, so data complexity here can affect the requirements for this process. Learn more about the process in this Trailhead!
• Growth Edition also includes a set of features for incorporating consent per channel into this profile, determining whether the individual can be sent communications and helping you maintain privacy and compliance for your audience.

Pulling and Refreshing Segments

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

Using Einstein’s AI Capabilities 

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

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

How to make the most of your Data Cloud credits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uh-oh. You just received an email from Salesforce saying you have exceeded your Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) mailable database limit. That means if you don’t reduce the amount of mailable prospects in your database quickly, it’s going to cost you. 

Or maybe you were “just checking” one day & noticed that your Mailable Database limit was getting close to that 100% mark, and you need to do something quickly to prevent it from going over.

While the default Account Engagement instance allows for 10,000 mailable contacts, some companies purchase additional contact blocks of 10K prospects each based on their anticipated marketing/subscriber audience size. If you capture more mailable prospects than you’re limited to, Salesforce will allow you to capture those additional prospects in Account Engagement, but they will also invoice you for them.

At the end of the day, we’re all trying to grow our businesses and our audience size. So, hopefully, a time will come when we need to purchase another block of contacts to increase our mailable database limit. But if today isn’t that day, here are ways we can clean up our mailable database quickly and keep it tidy for the long haul.

How to check your mailable database numbers

If you get an email notice from Salesforce, the email will tell you how many mailable prospects are in your Account Engagement database compared to your database limit. Let’s log in to verify those numbers. 

There are two ways to check your mailable database numbers if you haven’t received an email from Salesforce for exceeding your mailable database limit or aren’t sure how many mailable prospects are in your database compared to your limit. 

Check your Prospects Table with the Mailable Prospects list view

In Account Engagement (Lightning) go to your Prospects tab > List View: Mailable Prospect. This represents your total number of mailable prospects, but it doesn’t tell you what your mailable prospect limit is.

Use the Usage and Limits Tab to see your mailable prospect utilization

In Account Engagement (Lightning) go to your Account Settings > Usage and Limits Tab. It’s important to know that there can be up to a 24-hour delay in the total number of mailable prospects represented in this table. 

However, this table shows you your mailable prospect database limit and percent of utilization in addition to the total number of mailable prospects — just check that total number to the prospect table we just noted above.

Also – one VERY important reminder! 📣

Mailable prospect limits are shared across Account Engagement Business Units!

This means that if you have a limit of 10,000 mailable prospects, 9000 are in business unit A and 1941 are business unit B, your total database is actually at 10,941 mailable prospects! You are over your limit. This requires a little math and also an admin who is either monitoring both business units, or two Account Engagement admins who are, at the very least, communicating with one another. 

Wait, who is a mailable prospect again?

Before we can start determining who to keep in our database and who to purge, we need to understand who counts against our database limits. Mailable prospects count against your limit, but non-mailable prospects do not. 

Here are some quick bullet points to help you know which prospects are mailable and which ones aren’t.

Mailable prospects

• Any prospect who is eligible to receive marketing and operational emails

Non-mailable prospects

• Any prospect who has opted out
• Any prospect who is marked as “Do Not Email”
• Any prospect who has 1 hard bounce or 5 soft bounces
• Any prospect who has been deleted and now lives in your Recycle Bin
• Any prospect whose mailable status is “Operational Emails Only”

To reduce our mailable database, we need to turn our attention to mailable prospects.

Quick Wins: How to reduce your total number of mailable prospects quickly

Who should I keep in my mailable database and who is okay to purge? Here are three quick wins you can apply today.

1. Get rid of “junk” prospects

Their mailability status may say they are mailable, but it’s probably unlikely that [email protected] is a real prospect. Run a dynamic list, or multiple dynamic lists for that matter, that look for junk prospects.

This blog post is FULL of amazing Dynamic List options to run on the four fields most often filled with spam content: First Name, Last Name, Job Title, and Email.

Once you have created your dynamic list(s), select the prospects to delete and use a Table Action to send these prospects off to the Recycle Bin.

2. Delete old, unengaged prospects

Another quick win option at quickly reducing your mailable database size: delete the mailable prospects who aren’t engaging with your emails and marketing materials, and instead keep your focus on the prospects who are interested in what you are sharing with them.

• Create a dynamic list that looks at prospects who were created 18 months ago and haven’t engaged in the last 12 months.
• Tweak this according to your unique business model — how you want to measure age of prospect and how you want to define engagement.
• Run the list, select the prospects to delete, use a Table Action to delete the prospects.
• Now, those Prospects live in the Recycle Bin — they do not count against your mailable database. However, Account Engagement will resurrect them out of the Recycle Bin, along with their historical activity information (before deletion), if they fill out a form again in the future.
• FYI – When you delete a prospect from Account Engagement, it does not delete their Salesforce lead or contact records. 

Dynamic List Criteria Example

This type of list criteria could look something like this:

3. Filter out your competitors

If you are prioritizing your marketing spend on prospects who are most likely to purchase at some point in the future, competitors might not be on that list. 

Create a dynamic list and then utilize an automation rule to mark these prospects as ‘Do Not Email.’

• Step 1 – Write a list of all of your competitors email sending domains (or what follows the @ in their email address). 
• Step 2 – Create a dynamic list that looks at the Prospect Default Field Email Contains, and then insert your list of competitor email domains separated by a semi-colon (;). This allows you to use one line of criteria instead of each email domain requiring separate criteria entries.
  • Example: @competitor1.com;@competitor2.com;@competitor3.com
  • Note: If your list is long and you run up against character limits, utilize this sweet tool called Creuz Your Data to split your list of values into appropriate data chunk sizes with semi-colons already in place.
    • And then I recommend to bookmark that tool – you’ll thank me later 🙂

• Step 3 – Create a repeatable automation rule to check if a prospect is a member of your Competitor List to update the prospect’s field ‘Do Not Email’ to True.
  • By setting the rule as repeatable you ensure that if the ‘Do Not Email’ field is ever cleared, it will re-update to True.

Long-Term Success: Maintain a tidy mailable database

Okay, so now you have taken quick actions to weed out clutter from your mailable database and are within your utilization limits again. Phew! Now let’s consider how we maintain this clean and tidy house. 

Use the confirmed opt-in approach

Start on the right foot when your prospects opt-in to marketing emails. Let them know what they can expect to receive from you by signing up for your mailing list and have them confirm their email address and subscription preferences from the start. This helps eliminate invalid email addresses and uninterested prospects before they fill up your mailable database. 

Want to know more about confirmed opt-in? Check out this blog post.

Set up a regular timeblock to check your lists so you can delete junk and unengaged prospects

Remember that the lists you created to weed out “junk” prospects and older, unengaged prospects are just lists. You still need to go in to delete prospects and send them to the Recycle Bin. Depending on the size of your lists, you may want to monitor this weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Create a repeating calendar event, and you’ll never have to remember not to forget about it. Easy peasy.

Create an Engagement Studio program to re-engage prospects before they make it to the unengaged list

How do you get prospects to engage with your marketing materials? Email them! 

Give prospects a chance to re-engage before they make it onto the unengaged prospect list. Create an Engagement Studio program that encourages your prospects to engage with compelling content and calls to action. Warm them up by reminding them of how great your product or service is.

Run a Permission Pass

A Permission Pass is an opportunity to reach out to your unengaged prospects and ask if they still want to give you permission to keep emailing them. Simply put, ask them if they still want to hear from you. This can be done at any time, or even better, at the end of a re-engagement program after you have tried to reconnect with them. If they do not respond to the email within the given timeframe communicated in the email, it’s time to let them go and send them to your Recycle Bin. 

It can be scary letting “real prospects” go, but remember — in the long run it is better for your bottom line and for your reputation. Spend marketing dollars and invest time and effort in prospects who are interested in your product. Also, you are less likely to have spam complaints from prospects who are just annoyed with what they perceive to be junk in their inbox.

Plan for growth

I love this part. If you are still pretty close to your mailable database limit after all these tips and tricks, start budgeting conversations now with leadership. 

Show them numbers before and after tidying up the mailable database. That way, they’ll understand the need to start planning to market to more mailable prospects and budgeting in the next 10K or 20K prospects. 

Even better, back up your numbers with reporting data on how your marketing efforts are producing great leads and increased revenue!

Bring in the experts to reach radical impact

Have you checked your Pardot mailable database usage and limits? Have you tried the suggested quick wins, but still need more help? Or do all of these tips and tricks sound good, but you need some help with the execution? Sercante is here for you! We have a great team of experts who can help audit your system and provide you with personalized recommendations.

Or… This might have just started with a need to reduce your mailable database to stay within limits, but now you’re excited about the opportunity of setting a laser focus on your mailable prospects and how you can serve them in greater ways!

Let us help you. ♥️

We have the best of the best when it comes to planning amazing nurture programs to re-engage unengaged prospects. We also have the best of the best when it comes to using analytics to support your marketing campaign ROI. 

Reach out to Sercante as you plan for growth by radically impacting your business with your mailable prospects today!

In the age of big data, effective audience segmentation strategies are the key to unlocking the full potential of vast datasets available to enterprise-level companies. Join me on a journey from data overload to impactful insights as we explore how enterprise segmentation strategy drives meaningful results. 

From demographic segmentation to behavioral analysis, we’ll delve into the various segmentation approaches that empower enterprise companies like yours to understand their audiences on a deeper level.

Segmentation strategies for enterprise marketers

Businesses today face a monumental challenge: how do they effectively harness and analyze the customer information that’s at their disposal? 

One powerful solution is audience segmentation. By dividing large datasets into smaller, more manageable subsets based on common characteristics or behaviors, segmentation enables enterprises to unlock the hidden value within their data and make informed decisions that significantly impact their bottom line.

 In this blog, we’ll examine the fundamental principles of segmentation, discuss its various applications, and provide practical insights into implementing segmentation strategies that deliver measurable results for marketers at enterprise companies. 

Demystifying Segmentation

At its core, segmentation is a strategy marketers use to divide their broad customer base into smaller groups based on shared characteristics, behaviors, or preferences. The end goal is that marketing has specifically targeted lists to tailor their efforts. With their extensive reach and scale, enterprise businesses typically have large target audiences spanning across different demographics, geographies, and industries. 

These audiences can encompass millions of consumers, making effective targeting and engagement a significant challenge. However, by having the marketing team segment its audience into smaller, more manageable groups, your business can tailor their marketing efforts, products, and services to meet customer needs.

Data Distilled

Identifying segmentation criteria determines the variables that will be used to divide target audiences into distinct segments. The choice of segmentation criteria depends on the specific goals of the business, the nature of the product or service being offered, and the available data. 

Standard segmentation criteria include geographic, behavioral, product interest, or demographic factors. Businesses can create meaningful segments that enable more targeted and effective marketing strategies by carefully selecting segmentation criteria that are relevant, actionable, and aligned with business objectives.

Geography

Geographic segmentation focuses on location or region. This is most often used when there is great variation between consumers based on their locale. 

One well-known enterprise to use this strategy is McDonald’s. In a recent article written by Two Teachers, they share that “By tailoring its products, services, and marketing messages to meet the unique preferences and needs of consumers in different regions, McDonald’s has been able to create a powerful global brand that resonates with people from all walks of life.” 

McDonald’s successfully uses geographic segmentation daily by tailoring their advertising and their menu items, to fit the local preferences. For example, here in the United States, we may seek the Big Mac, whereas in Japan, their HiruMac Teriyaki McBurger. Yum!

Behavioral

Behavioral segmentation includes purchase history, loyalty, and social engagement. This strategy focuses on consumer preferences and patterns, and Netflix is one of many enterprises using this method daily. 

According to Scientific American, “users discover around 80 percent of shows through algorithmic recommendations.” For Netflix, this is highly dependent on users sharing their ratings along with watching preferences and saves. With AI at our disposal, behavioral targeting is becoming even more popular and easier.

Psychological

Pscychographic segmentation prioritizes attitudes, values, lifestyles, and interests. This method targets a customer’s motivations and preferences. This is a broader method, as it can be challenging to target someone based on feelings, but some brands do it successfully. 

Let’s take a look at Nike. According to PDF Agile, Nike has very specific personalities they are targeting – men who go to the gym and love sports, women who exercise or prefer sportswear, and children who are also athletes. 

According to that article, “Nike focuses on the people who enjoy engaging in sports. The company is passionate about sports, and it makes products suitable for sports lovers.” As a result, all of their campaigns are focused on that type of individual.

Demographic

Demographic segmentation assesses age, gender, income, education, job role/title, etc. This strategy allows business to tailor their marketing efforts to meet the needs of a specific demographic. This is the easiest of the segmentation strategies as it is the easiest data to collect, and it’s also inexpensive while effective. 

Let’s look into the financial sector, which offers “different tiers of products and services based on income levels,” according to Faster Capital. Affluent customers are targeted and sold premium credit cards with high fees and exclusive perks, while a college student would be offered a credit card with low fees and a rewards program. 

Navigating the Data Maze: Enterprise Segmentation Strategy

So, how do I get from point A to point Z? Let me walk you through it.

1. Perform Market Research: Know your market and collect ALL of the data!
2. Create the Personas: Who is your ideal customer and what do they want?
3. Analyze and Segment: Analyze the data, examine segmentation opportunities, and go for it!
4. Build a Targeted Campaign: Build a robust multifaceted campaign with that persona at its center.
5. Continuously Monitor and Evolve: Once you’re done, keep going. Be on the lookout for new ways to segment or reach your target audience in new and creative ways.

Get help with segmentation strategies for your enterprise team

Segmentation strategies are invaluable assets for enterprises seeking to navigate the complexities of modern markets and effectively engage with diverse customer bases. 

Enterprises can gain deeper insights into customer preferences, behaviors, and needs by segmenting their audiences based on demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral criteria. Moreover, the continuous refinement and optimization of segmentation strategies enable businesses to adapt to evolving market dynamics and stay ahead of competitors. 

As enterprise companies continue to embrace the power of segmentation, they will unlock new opportunities for growth, innovation, and customer satisfaction.

We’ve helped countless enterprise teams figure out the best approach to audience segmentation, and would love to solve your segmentation challenges, too. Reach out the the team at Sercante to get help with your team’s segmentation strategies.