Marketers

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Trends 2022

By Lucy Mazalon

It’s an exciting time to be involved with Marketing Cloud. With the Marketing Cloud January release fast approaching (the first of 5 scheduled for the year), it seems like there won’t be a dull moment in 2021. Pair this with the feeling that everyone wants to see the back of 2020 – and there’s even more reason to look forward to the year ahead.

Have you put together your new year’s resolutions to seize the opportunities Marketing Cloud has to offer? Our friends over at DESelect gave it some thought – here’s what they think SFMC admins should keep front of mind for the new year.

1. Clean your Marketing Cloud account

The start of the year is a good time to do some housekeeping before you get truly stuck into your Q1 campaigns or any project to implement new features or enhance your existing setup. Out with the old, in with the new!

Here are some items to review:

  • Data extensions: any that are old or unused, ones that were used for testing and training, or are no longer useful to you (legacy)
  • Content
  • SQL queries: any that relied on data that is no longer relevant, and ones with test data.

How old or how long they’ve been left unused, it’s hard to say. It depends on the campaigns you are running, so specific numbers would be redundant here. However, if you’re unsure, engage a Marketing Cloud consultant to help you identify which assets will be appropriate for you to delete.

2. Leverage Transactional Journeys

Transactional Send Journeys in Marketing Cloud “trigger a single message to contacts when they take a specific action”, and most importantly “allow non-technical users to configure a Transactional API entry source without assistance from a developer” (source).

Popular use cases include sending password resets for external platforms, or purchase confirmations for e-commerce orders.

https://youtu.be/iOcOClzJdCc?t=48

3. Secure your Marketing Cloud account

Multi-factor authentication is not enabled by default in Marketing Cloud. If you haven’t already, enable this for increased security for your account. Read how you can check if yours is already secured and how to activate multi-factor authentication for Marketing Cloud.

4. Backup your Marketing Cloud Data Views

Did you know that the data stored in data views is automatically deleted every 6 months? This data can be very valuable to analyze your historical subscribers’ behavior.

Backup data from data views by querying and archiving the data.

This can be achieved by querying the data views you would like archive, and then saving the results into the data extensions. Don’t forget to use a recognizable name so that you can locate them in the future. It will be easier for you to query the old data (older than 6 months) that is now stored in DEs instead of a data view.

5. Save Time Searching in Marketing Cloud

Let the end of 2020 also be the end of inefficient user experience. Salesforce Marketing Cloud search functionality is limited since it only carries out the search within the single, selected folder.

Have you ever tried looking for a data extension where you only know part of its name and don’t recall in which folder you saved it in?

Save you and your fellow users time when finding objects in SFMC by using the SFMC Quick Search, a free Chrome Extension. Search all folders, and find what you are looking for (even if you only know part of the asset’s name).

6. Browse the AppExchange

The number of apps for Salesforce Marketing Cloud on the AppExchange is growing – from a handful to what’s now a collection of cool apps to extend your account. Make a habit of looking at the AppExchange regularly to find new, interesting apps.

The Author

Lucy Mazalon

Lucy is the Operations Director at Salesforce Ben. She is a 10x certified Marketing Champion and founder of The DRIP.

Comments:

    Bryant Bell
    August 17, 2021 3:54 pm
    Is there a 3rd party application provider that backs up and restores the Marketing Cloud?

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