If you’re new to Marketing Cloud Engagement, you may be feeling overwhelmed. Salesforce’s powerful marketing platform can do a lot. And that comes with a steep learning curve.

I’ve been on my Marketing Cloud Engagement journey for a while now and still feel the sense of having so much to learn. My learning journey has consisted of hands-on experience, boot camp-style training courses, and of course, all the Trailheads. 

Florida Dreamin’ Session – How to Write like a Marketer: Intro to AMPscript for Salesforce Marketing Cloud

I knew when I was given the opportunity to attend this year’s Florida Dreamin’, finding Marketing Cloud Engagement sessions was at the top of my event bucket list. That’s why I was super excited to attend Tatiana Romanko’s presentation, How to Write like a Marketer: Intro to AMPscript for Salesforce Marketing Cloud.  

Romanko took a complex topic and simplified it, making her content easy to understand by providing real-world use cases every marketer could relate to. This session was a great introduction to AMPSprcipt for Marketing Cloud Engagement users who are still on that learning curve, and even seasoned veterans took away a thing or two. 

What I especially loved about her session is that, like me, Romanko doesn’t have a coding background. Her message really resonated with me: with hard work and hands-on experience, you too can learn the technical intricacies of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. 

What is AMPScript? 

Before jumping right into a complex topic, Romanko set the stage with a quick introduction to AMPscript. “AMPscript is Marketing Cloud’s proprietary scripting language for advanced dynamic content in emails, landing pages, SMS, and push messages.”

“AMPscript expands Marketing Cloud functionality to help you create the one-to-one, personalized communications that are so coveted by digital marketers. https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/ampscript-for-nondevelopers/get-to-know-ampscript) 

AMPscript is used to:

• Personalize emails using subscriber or contact data.
• Create complex, highly dynamic emails using conditional logic.
• Clean and format data.
• Add real-time information to emails such as date or time.
• Track impressions.”

(source: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/ampscript-for-nondevelopers/get-to-know-ampscript) 

What is AMPScript used for in Marketing Cloud Engagement?

AMPScript does a lot. At Sercante, we use it to help our clients with personalizing their emails, creating dynamic content, and much more. What I liked about Romanko’s session is that she really honed in on three common use cases that every marketer can relate to. 

Personalization

If you’re a marketer, you already know the power of personalization. One study found that emails featuring personalized subjects are 50% more likely to be opened. AMPScript in Marketing Cloud Engagement allows you to use your subscriber data to personalize your marketing. 

Creating a personalized greeting in Marketing Cloud Engagement through a personalization string isn’t complicated. What I liked about Romanko’s use case is she focused on something I often times see clients overlook: what happens when you don’t have a subscriber’s first name? In this case, we could use AMPscript to set a generic value (Customer) as our greeting if we don’t have this data. 

Formatting Your Data

As a marketer, I’ve seen customers input their data in every way imaginable. Romanko gave the example of asking someone to provide their favorite color. In this instance, we could get a few different variations: 

• Pink
• pink
• PINK

So what happens when we go to pull this data into an email? It could end up looking like we either don’t know our basic grammar, or come across like we are YELLING at our reader. 

Romanko highlighted AMPScript’s ProperCase function here, “which capitalizes the first letter in the specified string and any other letters in the string that follow any character other than a letter. It converts all other letters into lowercase.”

AMPScript Resources

As you can see, Romanko gave some great use cases for using AMPScript. She also provided her audience with some really great resources on where to go to learn more:

• Trailhead 
• Salesforce Developer Documentation
• The AMPScript Guide

Soak in all the lessons learned at Florida Dreamin’

Be sure to check out these other posts from my fellow dragons who attended Florida Dreamin’ with me and shared details about their favorite sessions there.

• The Art of Delivering Empathetic and Joyful User Experiences | Catherine Williams
• Florida Dreamin’: A Conference Where Soft Skills Shine | Abbey Freund

Original article: How to Write like a Marketer: Intro to AMPscript for Salesforce Marketing Cloud

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post How to Write like a Marketer: Intro to AMPscript for Salesforce Marketing Cloud appeared first on The Spot.

If you haven’t registered to join us for MarDreamin’ 2022, November 2-4, then consider this your formal invitation. This 3-day, virtual conference is focused on all things marketing on the Salesforce platform.

Join us from anywhere for sessions, workshops, keynotes, and more to educate and inspire sales and marketing professionals. It doesn’t matter where you are on your Salesforce marketing journey, we have something for everyone. 

Go ahead, we’ll be here when you get back. Register for MarDreamin’ now.

Ready? Great! Now that you’ve done that, let’s talk about your upcoming MarDreamin’ experience. 

We’ve curated this collection of sessions for Salesforce Marketing Cloud professionals. Marketing Cloud has a suite of robust capabilities, each with its own specific features and nuances. Whether you’re a seasoned admin, skilled developer, or just dipping your toes into Marketing Cloud, we’ve got you covered. 

Marketing Cloud Agenda for MarDreamin’ 2022

Below is an agenda for Marketing Cloud admins that you can catch at MarDreamin’ 2022.

Note: We’ve listed these sessions in chronological order. You can get details about the event and see the full schedule at MarDreamin.com. 

Day 1: Wednesday, November 2 

Unleash the Power of Marketing Cloud Connect | 10:35 a.m. – 11 a.m. EST

With customers expecting highly personalized content on the channel of their choice, our data is becoming more important than ever. That’s where the Marketing Cloud Connect tool comes in. 

Using the native integration between Marketing Cloud and Salesforce CRM means you can utilize the robust CRM data to enrich your marketing strategy. 

You’ll gain insights from:

• Audience segmentation
• Journey Builder
• CRM Analytics
• And more

You can even use the connector to send Marketing Cloud content out from other Salesforce clouds. This allows your teams to access your branded content and benefit from these personalized touchpoints from whichever platform they are working on.

Presenter: Vicki Moritz-Henry

Considerations for Marketing to a Global Customer Base at Scale | 11:05 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. EST

We know customers crave and expect personalized communications wherever they are. However, language, culture, and privacy laws are key considerations global organizations have to consider in their marketing strategy.

In this session, hear firsthand how Lucid Motors has been able to provide these personalized experiences to its customers and prospects at scale while remaining compliant with local laws and expectations.

Key topics covered:

• Email preferences center and consent management (unsubscribes)
• Building email templates for localization
• Global email production processes and governance

Presenter: Kirsten Schlau

Intro to BLDR: An Open-Source Workflow for Salesforce Marketing Cloud | 11:55 a.m. – 12:35 p.m. EST

Time spent using the standard Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) workflow of in-browser code editors or copy/paste from your favorite integrated development environment (IDE) can be less than enjoyable. 

For example, if (when) your browser crashes or refreshes… When you go to use that handy stored code snippet and it’s not there… When you make an update, and you get the dreaded 500 error… We’ve all been there.

Implementing BLDR in your everyday workflow can be seamless and bring your SFMC workflow — where you are comfortable — into your code editor. Not only that, it saves you time by allowing you to update assets in SFMC without leaving your editor. It also adds peace of mind thanks to the ability to use any GIT provider for version control.

If you are even a little bit familiar with using GIT in the command line, BLDR will feel as natural as can be. And if you’re not, its straightforward commands are easy to navigate and learn.

BLDR is an open-sourced workflow tool built for SFMC. Visit bldr.basetime.io for more information.

Presenter: Tony Zupancic

A Beginner’s Guide To Administering Marketing Cloud Engagement | 1:40 p.m. – 2:20 p.m. EST 

This session is for anyone new to the world of Marketing Cloud administration. You will learn about the foundational components of administering and managing a Marketing Cloud Engagement environment.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Users
• Business Units
• Security
• Process Automations
• FTP Data

You will walk away with knowledge to effectively manage your Marketing Cloud Engagement org.

Presenters: Chris Zullo and Kirsten Schlau

Create A Great Welcome Email Journey In Marketing Cloud | 2:25 p.m. – 2:50 p.m. EST 

The Marketing Cloud welcome email journey is considered one of the best ways to get new people engaged with your brand through email marketing.

It’s often where the brand starts the relationship with prospects in hopes that they’ll continue to interact. When you create a great welcome journey, you put your best foot forward so prospects eventually become loyal customers.

This session will provide essential tips to improve and maximize your current welcome email campaign in Journey Builder. And if you don’t have a welcome journey yet, you can start planning one.

Presenter: Fernando Rubino Pereira

Day 2: Thursday, November 3

Secrets to Securing Marketing Cloud Engagement in a Hybrid Work Environment | 10:20 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. EST 

Two big takeaways from the pandemic era are that workers can be productive when working from home and that the vast majority expect to continue to work remotely (at least partially).

While there are plenty of benefits associated with a hybrid work environment, security is not typically thought of as one of them.

In this session we’ll discuss the security capabilities of Salesforce Marketing Cloud and how they can be used to secure your environment — no matter where your team is working from.

Check out Mike Morris’ blog post on the topic here.

Presenter: Mike Morris

Expanding Cross-Channel Marketing With Mobile Connect | 10:50 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. EST 

Evaluating different marketing channels and interested in mobile messaging? We’ll cover Marketing Cloud’s MobileConnect, key considerations, preparation for the lengthy enablement process, and ways to incorporate SMS into your marketing plan.

Presenter: Ashley Anger

Supercharge Your Marketing Newsletter With Einstein Frequency And Einstein Scoring | 11:20 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. EST 

Want to better understand how Salesforce Einstein features can improve newsletters you send via Marketing Cloud? Here’s a real use case in which, using Einstein Scoring and Einstein Frequency features, we saw a drastic improvement in newsletter engagement metrics thanks to added personalization options.

This session covers:

• What Einstein contributes in Marketing Cloud and how to use it, both at the Dashboard level and at the Journey level
• A use case from a very saturated client who saw their engagement significantly improve after implementing these features
• An explanation into how identifying which contacts to impact by mail and by push lead to the increased engagement (opens from 14% to 42% and clicks from 0.5 to 1.1)

Join us to see a real use case firsthand, learn how the tool works, and increase your strategic marketing capacity.

Presenter: Alvar Diez

Unify Your Teams With The Marketing Cloud Connector | 1:05 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. EST 

Did you know that the Marketing Cloud Connector can be used to unify your sales, service, and marketing teams? With the connector, you can combine the power of the Salesforce CRM and Marketing Cloud Journey Builder to:

• Allow your sales and service teams to trigger journeys via data changes in the Salesforce CRM.
• Create and update records in the Sales and Service Cloud so your teams know what interactions a customer has experienced.
• Send team emails, create tasks, and even open or close cases to enhance communication and productivity.

Journey Builder plays a powerful role in Marketing Cloud. Through the connector, all teams at your company or organization can benefit from its use! Through this presentation, learn how to take advantage of the integration and review simple journeys you can build to get started.

Presenter: Sheala Vast-Binder

Alice in Email PreferenceLand: Falling Down The Rabbit Hole | 1:35 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. EST 

At first glance, a conversation about an email preference center seems simple and straightforward. But all too often, hidden complexities emerge.

Instead of shouting “off with their heads!,” this email preference center session will equip you to make the best decisions for your organization.

We’ll walk through the different types of preference centers. Then, we’ll showcase good examples of how to do it right. We’ll finish with common options for Preference Centers within Salesforce Marketing Cloud:

• The out-of-the-box preference center

• A custom CloudPage

• External preference center

Then we’ll have a live demo where we dig into some of the code behind the scenes of a custom CloudPage preference center, where we’ll present best practices to store and organize both your code and your subscriber preferences. We’ll show you how to make your CloudPage dynamic allowing you to change and update your preferences — without having to change your code. And, finally, we’ll share highly commented code samples as part of the presentation for attendees to use on their own.

Presenters: Aaron Beatty and Stephen Roper

Leveraging Marketing Cloud Engagement To Produce Positive Customer-Driven Outcomes | 2:50 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. 

Learn tips and tricks from our panel of trailblazers on how to maximize your investment in Marketing Cloud Engagement (MCE). In this session we will also explore ways to improve your use of MCE, discuss use-cases for becoming more efficient and hear from first-hand experiences what skills are needed to thrive in your role managing MCE. 

Presenters: Kirsten Schlau, Zachary Norman, Victor Alberto Jiménez Pantoja, and Genna Matson

Day 3: Friday, November 4

Embrace a first-party data strategy for Sales and Marketing | 10:20 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. EST 

Third-party cookies are being phased out by most web browsers in the next year, and marketers must adapt to a new environment. In the new normal, using first-party data can become a true competitive advantage.
Natasha and Jaime will show you how to build a first-party tracking cookie strategy across your whole tech stack, relying on Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud and MuleSoft as a foundation. We will present engagement strategies for mobile using event data, and show valuable examples of ROI strategies you can take to the boardroom.

Presenters: Jamie Lopez and Natasha Wetten

Enhance Your Customer Experience with Interactive Content | 11:10 a.m. – 11:50 a.m. EST 

Customer engagement is one of the most used KPIs. How as Marketers, can we make customer engagement easier and more fun for our audiences? By using interactive content within your email messages to allow customers to engage with your brand without leaving their inbox. Sign up to learn about the Marketing Cloud interactive content features (Interactive Email and AMP for Email), when to use them, and how to better engage with your customers.

Presenter: Andrew Kazmierczak

Marketing Cloud Journey Builder: Design And Build Custom Journeys | 12:00 p.m. – 12:40 p.m. EST

Get a hands-on walkthrough to start designing and building live working journeys for your business or organization. We’ll dive into several Journey Builder use cases before building B2B and B2C Journeys in Marketing Cloud that are integrated with Salesforce CRM.

Learn how to:

• Build a multi-injection point, lead-nurturing journey to support sales
• Build a B2C multi-touch, segmented journey to onboard new consumers
• Handle multiple entry event paths including leads/contacts directly from Salesforce
• CRM and query-based automation fed
• Build custom and highly personalized email and cloud page content to support each journey
• Understand best practices, latest features, functionality available in Journey Builder, Audience Studio and Content Builder

Presenter: Tim Ziter

How To Deploy Data For Success, Scale And Customer Experience | 12:45 p.m. – 1:10 p.m. EST 

Learn the tools, techniques and strategies to make your Salesforce Marketing Cloud data more effective, efficient and easy to use. At the same time, you’ll maximize your efforts, make the most of your data, and delight customers.

Presenter: Jason Cort

Email for Everyone: Creating Accessible Digital Marketing Assets | 1:15 p.m. – 1:40 p.m. EST

Regardless of your marketing role — whether you are a director, an admin, a consultant, a graphic designer — you need to be conscious of ADA guidelines and ensure everyone is able to view and enjoy your digital marketing efforts.

In this session, I will share with you the top resources and items to check off your to-do list when enacting the ADA guidelines in your digital marketing to achieve email accessibility.

Check out Cara Weese’s blog post on the topic here.

Presenters: Katy Hege and Cara Weese

How To Audit Subscriber Activity For Marketing Cloud Journey Builder | 1:45 p.m. – 2:10 p.m. EST

Marketing Cloud Journey Builder’s reporting interface gives users the ability to view high-level statistics on journey performance and the overall volume of subscribers to reach each activity. However, the ability to gain a granular view of the specific step that subscribers are currently at within each journey is limited from the Journey Builder interface. This lack of visibility poses issues from both a reporting and auditing/troubleshooting standpoint.

In this session, we will show you a method of setting up journeys and querying data views that allows marketers to keep track of the steps that subscribers have completed within a Journey, all within a single Data Extension.

Presenters: Austin Kirby and Claudia Hoops 

Get ready for the only 3-day virtual conference that’s all about Pardot & Marketing Cloud

There’s still time to register! Get to it and tell your friends to grab their MarDreamin’ tickets so they can catch these sessions. There’s something for every Salesforce marketer.

Pro Tip: You can get more from your MarDreamin’ experience through pre-conference training workshops. These virtual courses take place November 1, which is the day before the big conference event. 

Check out the Marketing Cloud Engagement Fundamentals workshop to learn how Marketing Cloud Engagement (MCE) allows you to easily connect with potential customers, nurture their interests, and convert that interest into sales.

Contact the team at Sercante to learn more about MarDreamin’ or anything else your heart desires.

Original article: The Salesforce Marketing Cloud User’s Guide to MarDreamin’ 2022

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post The Salesforce Marketing Cloud User’s Guide to MarDreamin’ 2022 appeared first on The Spot.