Salesforce Marketing Cloud Integration

Businesses require effective advertising strategies to engage with their customers on a human level. Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a versatile digital marketing platform enabling businesses to create meaningful customer engagements across many channels. It is part of the Salesforce Customer 360 portfolio, which also includes service, sales, and marketing solutions.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud ( also known as ExactTarget) is a Salesforce solution which doesn't use the Salesforce platform as a primary platform to sync data between your core Salesforce org and your SFMC account. When you use SFMC, you'll see how robust this feature-rich solution can be. This article will provide all the insights of SFMC.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud - Table of Contents

• What is Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
• Features
• Benefits
• Limitations
• Prerequisites For Salesforce Marketing Cloud Integration
• Steps to Connect  Salesforce Marketing Cloud Integration
• FAQs

What is Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a trendy and robust email marketing platform for successful marketing campaigns and maintaining client connections. It is basically a SaaS (Software-As-A-Service) platform which provides the ability to optimize many aspects of marketing, such as customer journeys, campaign analytics, social media promotions and other engagement techniques.

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Features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud

1. Email Marketing

Email marketing capabilities is one of the prime features of SMC. Marketers can use emails to develop appealing and personalized campaigns, also can perform different types of  categorization on their audience based on various criteria and levels, and can automate the whole sending process.

2. Social Media Marketing

With the help of cloud-provided tools, businesses can perform outstanding social media marketing and can implement various techniques to grow their brand presence and customer attention as well as retention. Also they can schedule various posts, keep an eye on engagements, and monitor social media conversations between multiple threads.

3. Mobile Marketing

In the mobile supremacy era, reaching customers' fingertips is essential. Marketing Cloud provides the ability for businesses to engage with their audience via SMS and push notifications.

4. Journey Builder

With the help of journey builders businesses can form their customized journeys for the customer. By understanding customer experience marketers can deliver more efficient and precise content such as relevant message, mails, etc. and maintain robust relationships with the customer.

5. Analytics and Insights

Analytics tools which are present in the SMC are of great help when it comes to derive insights from the campaigns. With the help of those insights businesses can optimize their strategies for targeting various segments of customers and to understand current ongoing patterns in market and customer behavior. 

6. Advertising Studio

Advertising studio is one of the core features of SMC, Businesses use it for managing and optimizing their advertisements on a single platform. It helps to measure the impact of campaigns, and with the help of that marketers can develop more enhanced advertising strategies.

Benefits of Salesforce Marketing Cloud Connect

Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers a range of benefits. These are discussed below:

• Personalization: Marketers can design custom campaigns and messages that resonate with each individual, improving the chances of conversion and customer loyalty, with access to a massive range of consumer data, including preferences, behavior, and interactions.
• Automation and Efficiency: Marketing Cloud's automation features streamline marketing processes, saving time and effort for marketing teams. Businesses can automate email marketing and can run various campaigns, Along with that it can have personalized trigger messages which may be based on the customer behavior and actions, which helps in automating the customer journey and interaction without manual intervention.
• Seamless Integration: Marketing Cloud is easy to integrate with other Salesforce products like Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. It provides a simplified view of customer data and interactions, allowing multifunctional collaboration with other tools and delivering a persistent customer experience. 
• Customer Journey Management: Many times businesses use Journey Builder to simplify complex customer journeys including various touchpoints, because of this feature marketers are able to develop steady and more personalized interaction with customers resulting in enhanced customer experience. 
• Security: Salesforce marketing cloud has high industry-standard security and privacy requirements, which protects customers crucial data and eliminates the possibility of data breaches. This level of security standards are important for the clients that usually deal with the sensitive client data.
• Return on Investment: Using the marketing cloud companies can easily calculate their ROI based on various data-driven insights, personalized marketing strategy, and automation. Not limited to this businesses may optimize their resource management and implement more productive strategies which ultimately results in higher growth rate and profitability.

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Limitations of SMC

As there are always two sides of the coin, While Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers multiple advantages for businesses, it is recommended to get familiar with its disadvantages and limitations.

Some of the disadvantages of Salesforce Marketing Cloud are:

• Complex: SMC is a multifunctional platform which has many tools and features, which may result in complex procedures and feel overwhelming for new users. Mastering all the tools and techniques may require a long run.
• Integration Challenges: We know SMC interacts nicely with other salesforce products but sometimes it becomes a challenging task to integrate them with the third-party-system and data resources. To solve this, one may need additional resources and expertise to manage them effectively.  
• Technical Expertise Required: In order to use SMC at it’s capacity, businesses require vell verse administrators, engineers and marketers who understands the platform and can smoothly adapt it to fulfill business needs. This may result in an overall increase in cost and more resource consumption. 
• Compliance Concerns: As SMC deals with a high volume of crucial and sensitive data, users might be cautious about data handling and related activity. Getting all data, gaining consent and adhering to various regional policies may result in a rope walk.
• Response Time: Support and response times provided by Salesforce can vary depending on the chosen service plan and tier. Some users may experience longer response times or find premium services way too expensive for their businesses.

Prerequisites For Salesforce Marketing Cloud

There are several sets of requirements that need to be fulfilled before getting started with Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Some of them are given below:

• Salesforce CRM:  Salesforce Customer Relationship Management (CRM) should be there for businesses to utilize the potential of marketing cloud. This system gives a base for handling client data, which later can be used to shape marketing strategies.
• Customer Data: Client data must be updated, error-free, and well-organized. It  will enable targeted and personalized messaging, which may result into an increase in customer retention and customer satisfaction
• Efficient Marketing Team: It is necessary for businesses to have a marketing team which is experienced in multiple technologies such as automation tools, digital marketing tactics, and data analysis. 
• Budgeting: Appropriate budget allocation and allocation of resources is a must do thing for Implementing and using Salesforce Marketing Cloud effectively. 
• Content Strategy: A well-defined content strategy should be there for maximum yield. Generate content which aligns well with your marketing goals and delivers it across various channels within Marketing Cloud.
• Integration: A constant data flow between multiple systems is important for effective marketing campaigns.

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How to Connect Salesforce Marketing Cloud Integration?

For an effortless  Marketing Cloud Connect Integration, you must create the following two types of users: 

• Salesforce Tracking User
• Marketing Cloud API User

Salesforce Instance

Step 1: Install the ‘Marketing Cloud Package’ in Salesforce using Admin Profile. For that click on the following links:

• Production: https://login.salesforce.com/packaging/installPackage.apexp?p0=04ti0000000Tj9E
• Sandbox: https://test.salesforce.com/packaging/installPackage.apexp?p0=04ti0000000Tj9E

Step 2:  Enable the Marketing Cloud for AppExchange User and AppExchange Admin checkboxes in the User Page Layout's Add field. Check to see if the user has 'API enabled' rights.  

Add these following Permission Assignment:

• Marketing Cloud Connector
• Marketing Cloud System User
• Marketing Cloud Connector Admin.

Step 3: Make a customized application called "Marketing Cloud." In the application, add the "Mobile Sends, Email Sends, and Send Analytics" objects. In addition, update the Marketing Cloud database with custom links, VF pages, and package fields. 

Step 4: In Salesforce, you can use the below link to add IP whitelist ranges:

http://help.marketingcloud.com/en/documentation/exacttarget/resources/exacttarget_ip_addresses_for_inclusion_on_whitelists/whitelisting_ip_ranges_for_salesforce_managed_packages/#ip

Step 5: Enable the Email Opt-Out field in Lead and Contact for the Email Opt-Out capability to update appropriately when the subscriber hits on the unsubscribe link.

Step 6: To construct workflows, use the Marketing Cloud package linked below:

https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/marketing/marketing-cloud/guide/packages-overview.html

Marketing Cloud Instance

Step 1:  Ensure your API users have the Marketing Cloud Administrator and Salesforce Administrator roles enabled.

Step 2: Then, put the Salesforce Admin User credentials in the ‘Marketing Cloud’ to connect. Log in to your ‘Marketing Cloud’ and go to the ‘email studio’ to get started. Now, select ‘Email App’ and then the Admin tab. Click on ‘Connect Account’ after selecting ‘Salesforce Integration’.

To enable and upgrade the Connected App for safe data exchange in between Salesforce and Marketing Cloud, contact ‘Marketing Cloud Support’.

User Mapping

To associate a ‘Marketing Cloud Connect User’ with a Salesforce User, the Salesforce user can email recipients and gain access to the Marketing Cloud. Go to Email, then to the Admin tab, and finally on My Users.

Select the ‘API User’ and then click ‘Edit’. Following that, go to ‘Integrate Link’ and pick Salesforce.com as a field. Save the modifications after entering the SFDC User Name.

Configuration

Step 1:  To check the ‘Remote site settings’, and go to the ‘Marketing Cloud Object’ area.

Step 2: Then select ‘Automatic Setup’ and press the ‘Start Wizard’ button.

Step 3:  Enter the Marketing Cloud Connector username and password to configure the connection and track and monitor information going from Marketing Cloud to Salesforce.

Step 4: To map the user systems, you must again enter the Marketing Cloud credentials. Configure the necessary ‘Email Tracking’ and ‘Email Sending’ settings as well.

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Salesforce Marketing Cloud FAQs

1. How does Salesforce integrate with Marketing Cloud?

Cloud Connect integrates the digital marketing capabilities of marketing cloud with campaign management, data management tools. It forms customer relationships with data-driven methodology and more personalized communications and also automates the customer journey till the great extent.

2. What data integration options are available in Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

Four options are available in SMC namely, FTP, API, CloudPage and manual import. Which are usually used for import or export purposes. 

3. How to integrate Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud?

Employ contact record ID for cross-cloud integrations. One can find it in ‘contact builder’. And for commerce cloud, customer id is system generated.

4. What is Marketing Cloud integration?

It is basically a feature which provides complete access to customer details, including data from various fields such as various services, marketing, sales, etc.

5. What can be done with Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

Email and marketing automation, dynamic customer engagement, SMS services, social media marketing and much more.

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Conclusion

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a robust platform which provides the ability to deliver more personalized and engaging customer experience with many platforms. Using SMC companies can develop a strong network and connection with their customers to drive marketing success by using techniques such as social media media marketing, email marketing, multiple types of advertising, etc. It has become a trustworthy and innovative application for businesses to succeed in customer interaction and relationship management.

Via this article, we have learned about Salesforce Marketing Cloud integration, benefits of using it and also limitations of salesforce marketing cloud. Hope this article has provided you an in-depth understanding of Salesforce Marketing Cloud and its integration.