Managing consent records in Marketing Cloud on Core (aka Marketing Cloud Growth or Advanced Edition) has raised many questions. While most agree with the concept of consent, generating individual consent records each time a sales team member adds a new lead in Salesforce can be tedious. I’ve been asked many times if I could just create a flow to add consent when new leads are created. The answer is “Yes” and here’s how you can do it too. 

Disclaimer

I’ve been called a marketer, consultant, and Salesforce Admin over my career, but I’ve never been called a lawyer. Privacy policies and opt-in requirements vary from country-to-country and even state-to-state. Before implementing this solution, consult with your legal team to ensure that you are in compliance with your organization’s legal requirements.

Consent Fields

Before creating consent records, we first need to understand the requirements. When doing a consent import, the following fields are captured in the wizard and through the import template. This process is very simple and the magic happens behind the scenes.

• Channel – Communication delivery method (Email or SMS)
• Communication Subscription – The individual subscription name (ex. Newsletter)
• Consent Status – Indicates whether an individual has “Opted In” or “Opted Out” at the subscription level.
• Email – Email address of the individual captured on the consent record.
• Consent Date – The date/time that consent was captured.

When digging in a bit more, I found a field named Communication Subscription Consent Id. This field combines the email address and the Communication Subscription Channel Type Id with “#” between them to create a new field. This field is the key to creating a consent record.

Example

• mike.morris@sercante.com#0eBHs0000010zyOMAQ
  
  

Communication Subscription vs. Communication Subscription Chnl Type Id

It’s important to know the difference between these fields and where to find them. When creating your Communication Subscription Consent Id field in your flow, you’ll need to be sure to use the correct value.

The difference between these fields is that Communication Subscription Chnl Type Id references the email subscription and the channel. Communication Subscription is channel agnostic and only references the subscription.

Example

• Communication Subscription – 0XlHs00000111ZZKAY
  • Refers to the Newsletter subscription

• Communication Subscription Chnl Type Id – 0eBHs00000111n0MAA
  • Refers to the Newsletter subscription and email channel

You can find these values by creating a Salesforce report using the Communication Subscription Channel Type report type. You’ll see one record for each subscription and channel. In this example, I have four subscriptions on my preference page as I’m just using the email channel. If the SMS channel was in use, there would be 8 records.

Both of these values are going to be needed when creating your flow, so make a report in your org and be sure to save it. You can also view these values by accessing the records from the Communication Subscriptions and Communication Subscription Channel Types objects if you prefer.

Record-Triggered Flow Build

We’re finally to the fun part. But before we get started, consider a few questions.

• Which object should trigger the flow?
• When should the flow trigger?
• What entry conditions should be used?
• Are there any countries or states where double opt-in is required?

Start Element

I want my flow to only run when new leads are created. I also want to exclude leads that were created from a form submission. Marketing Cloud on Core forms require a consent element, so we don’t need to update these leads. Your start criteria will differ based on your needs.

Scheduled Path

Record-triggered flow can’t execute actions that make external callouts in a path that runs immediately. You can address this by adding a scheduled path with a slight delay. My path has a 1-minute delay from when the lead was created.

Decision Element

I did not exclude countries that require double opt-in from my start element intentionally. I decided to let them enter the flow and use a decision element to route them down a second path. The idea is that I can later add an action to send a transactional email to these leads encouraging them to update their subscription preferences.

Action Elements

Salesforce set us up for success by including the MessagingConsent.MessagingConsent action. All we need to do is configure it correctly and our consent records will be created. Like consent imports, you’ll need action for each of your subscriptions by channel.

When configuring actions, you’ll need to set values for the inputs below.

• CommunicationSubscriptionChannelType*
  • This is the id that relates to the communication subscription and channel.
• ConsentCapturedDateTime
  • Date/time that consent was captured.
• ConsentId
  • This is the concatenated field that we discussed earlier that includes the email address and the Communication Subscription Channel Type Id. 
• ConsentStatus
  • Set value to OPT_IN or OPT_OUT.
• ContactPointValue
  • The email address of the triggering record.
• Name*
  • The communication subscription (id) from the report that we created earlier. This is the id that relates to the subscription only (does not include the channel).
    

*Note: You can create content records without these values, but I prefer to include them to more closely resemble the records created from consent imports.

Formula Resources 

Next, we need to generate the consentid field that will be needed in the action elements. This can be done using a formula to generate the value using the email address (of the triggering record) and the Communication Subscription Chnl Type Id. You’ll need one resource per Communication Subscription Chnl Type Id.

Example Formula

• {!$Record.Email} & “#” & “0eBHs00000111n0MAA”

Configured Action Element

Here’s an example of an action element that has been fully configured.

Final Flow

Here’s a look at the final flow. 

Testing

After activating your flow, create a new lead in Salesforce. Upon creation, the consent values will be set to Opt Out. After a few minutes (allowing time for the scheduled path to run), verify the consent record was created by viewing the Communication Subscription Consent DMO in Data Explorer in Data Cloud.

Once the data from Data Cloud syncs back to the lead record, the consent values will be updated to Opt In in the Privacy Consent Status component.

Respect Consent & Be Responsible  

The best practice recommendation is to create consent records using the consent element on form-triggered flows or by completing consent imports. While these recommendations make sense, generating consent records for individual records created by users can present challenges.

Record-triggered flows offer a good solution for automating consent records, but organizations must ensure compliance with regional, state, and company legal requirements. When in doubt, err on the side of caution and prioritize transparency in consent management.

Original article: How to Create Marketing Cloud Consent Records with a Record-Triggered Flow

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post How to Create Marketing Cloud Consent Records with a Record-Triggered Flow appeared first on The Spot.

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. 

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

1. Navigate to Salesforce Setup > Opportunity Influence
2. Enable Opportunity Influence
3. Select an Attribution Model
   1. 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.
   2. 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.
   3. Even-Distribution: Spreads credit evenly across all marketing interactions that occurred before opportunity creation, giving a balanced view of multi-touch engagement. This approach is ideal for businesses with long sales cycles and/or multiple high-value touchpoints.

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, last-touch, and even-distribution 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:

1. Check your org to see if the new update is available.
2. Test Opportunity Influence tracking before rolling it out company-wide.
3. 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!

Original article: Cracking the Code: How Opportunity Influence Connects Marketing to Revenue

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Cracking the Code: How Opportunity Influence Connects Marketing to Revenue appeared first on The Spot.

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!

Original article: Automating Campaign Names in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Automating Campaign Names in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition appeared first on The Spot.

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).

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.

• Flow Builder Basics
• Build a Simple Flow

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.

Original article: Building a Message Series Flow in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Building a Message Series Flow in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition appeared first on The Spot.

Student expectations today are vastly different than they were a decade ago. It’s causing technology leaders at the most successful educational institutions to rethink their data infrastructure and student journeys through real-time interaction management strategies.

Today’s students want a personalized, seamless, engaging journey that keeps pace with their brand experiences outside of higher education. At the same time, more and more individuals are bypassing the traditional college education routes altogether. That means higher education institutions (HEIs) need to exceed student expectations to reach enrollment and retention goals and ultimately deliver successful student outcomes.

Combating Headwinds in Higher Ed: A three-part series

Throughout this three-part blog series, you will learn about using your institutional data to create personalized student experiences at scale and in real-time within your college or university. 

1. Part one: Real-time interaction management and real-time interaction for student success  
2. Part two: Overview of Salesforce Data Cloud for higher education professionals, potential use cases, and best practices for successfully using Data Cloud
3. Part three: Building a unified data vision and then activating your data to build a CRM + AI + data strategy for your institution

This series was co-authored by Kirsten Schlau, VP of Technology at Sercante, and Dr. Bradley Beecher (email), Director, Student Experience at Salesforce.

Harnessing data to navigate and overcome challenges in higher education

To help combat higher ed headwinds, there’s a tremendous untapped opportunity for HEIs to use their data by improving organization-wide data infrastructure.

Yes, you’re probably reading this and thinking things like:

We do use data — we analyze our data to maximize the value of resources and stay ahead of constituent needs.

Or even…

We use our data to create strategic plans, execute them efficiently, and analyze their results to differentiate our institution, proactively improve student outcomes, and report outcomes to government agencies and ranking organizations. 

Oftentimes though, that data is trapped inside campus systems that don’t easily integrate with each other. It’s time-consuming to piece together a cohesive and accurate story when the data is trapped, but there’s a better way. It involves creating a fully integrated single source of truth to manage student data.

Unifying student data can help your institution to:

• Generate real-time institutional reporting
• Create a unified student record
• Take action from the data
• Personalize the student experience to reinforce a sense of belonging 

Taking cues from non-HEIs to use data for growth and retention

What if we told you there’s an opportunity more specifically to use that data on an individual basis, at a 1:1 scale to personalize the student experience in real-time?

This is happening in other industries. In fact, you might have experienced personalization like this as an online shopper. Here are a few examples.

What is real-time interaction management (RTIM)?

Real-time interaction management, also known as RTIM, uses customer interactions, predictive modeling, and machine learning to deliver consistent, personalized customer experiences across channels in real-time.  

“Forrester Research analyst Rob Brosman originated the term Real-Time Interaction Management in 2012, and three years later Rusty Warner, another Forrester analyst, offered the formal definition of, “Enterprise marketing technology that delivers contextually relevant experiences, value, and utility at the appropriate moment in the customer life cycle via preferred customer touchpoints.” – Source

RTIM equips marketers to gain immediate visibility into critical moments within the shopping or user experience, which can deliver better consumer experiences and outcomes. This includes generating relevant offers and product suggestions on the right devices at the right time to drive customer engagement, satisfaction, and, in turn, revenue growth. 

Impact of real-time interaction management in the real world

As an everyday consumer, you’ve likely already experienced the effects of RTIM (or you’ve experienced a scenario where you wish RTIM was in place).

Example scenario illustrating RTIM in e-commerce:

Let’s say a customer, Maria, visits an online fashion retailer’s website:

1. Browsing Products: Maria lands on the retailer’s homepage and starts browsing through summer dresses.
2. Real-Time Data Capture: As Maria navigates through the website, her behavior is captured in real-time. This includes the pages she visits, the products she clicks on, her past purchase history, demographic information, and any other relevant data.
3. Real-Time Analysis: The e-commerce platform analyzes Maria’s behavior and data in real-time. It identifies her preferences based on her browsing history, past purchases, items in her shopping cart, and any other available data points.
4. Personalized Recommendations: Using RTIM, the e-commerce platform dynamically generates personalized recommendations for Maria. It might suggest summer dresses similar to the ones she’s viewing based on her style preferences and past purchases. These recommendations are displayed prominently on the website in real-time.
5. Real-Time Engagement: While Maria is still browsing, a pop-up notification appears offering her a limited-time discount on a dress she had previously shown interest in. This real-time engagement aims to incentivize Maria to make a purchase.
6. Adaptive Pricing: As Maria continues to browse, she adds a couple of dresses to her cart but hesitates to complete the purchase. In response, the e-commerce platform dynamically adjusts the prices of the items in her cart, offering her personalized discounts or free shipping to encourage her to proceed to checkout.
7. Abandoned Cart Recovery: If Maria leaves the website without completing her purchase, the e-commerce platform sends her a personalized email reminder within minutes to remind her about the items in her cart. These reminders offer her an additional discount or incentive to complete the purchase.
8. Cross-Channel Consistency: Whether Maria interacts with the retailer’s website or mobile app, or when she receives an email, the messaging and recommendations remain consistent across all channels for a seamless and personalized shopping experience.

In this example, RTIM enables the e-commerce retailer to engage with Mary in real time, providing her with personalized recommendations, discounts, and reminders tailored to her preferences and behavior. This ultimately increases the likelihood of conversion and enhances customer satisfaction.

Additionally, some online retailers are now using RTIM not only in their marketing efforts but also as a way to offer seamless customer experiences. 

Harnessing RTIM at colleges, universities, and other post-secondary education institutions

In the e-commerce example above, the experiences were grounded in segmentation and, of course, made up of various data points. 

It’s no different for HEIs. The ability to segment and provide greater personalized content and experiences leads to a great student experience.

We’ll share a few examples of how other professionals in higher education are doing this today.

Real-time interaction for student success

Imagine a world where student advisors can gain a full 360° picture of their students in a single view. This could include:

• Past class enrollment records and performance indicators
• Required courses that support their designated degree path
• Intelligence to recommend courses based on individual interests and passions outside of their degree path
• Automatic insights into things such as on target to graduate, at risk, potential for drop-out, and any other insights unique to your institution.

Oh! And one more thing to add: this is all done at scale with minimal manual effort put on the advisor.

Step 1 to building an RTIM strategy: Unify data to create a single source of truth

This vision can become a reality when your data is not trapped in siloed campus systems. 

You might say, “How is that possible?”

Here’s how you can start building a student-centric RTIM strategy.

All of this data aggregation and related insights are powered by Salesforce Data Cloud and Einstein 1 Platform. They are the building blocks to creating personalized student experiences with real-time capabilities. And they can also help advisors to gain more time to focus on making meaningful connections with their advisees and ensuring their long-term success. 

How does the Einstein 1 Platform support RTIM strategy for HEIs?

The Salesforce Einstein 1 Platform (A.K.A. “Salesforce core”) unifies your data, AI, CRM, development, and security into a single platform. It’s an extensible AI platform (meaning, it easily connects with other Salesforce platform products and third-party integrations), and it can facilitate the fast development of generative apps and automations.

Through Einstein 1, your institution can appropriately address students’ most common, basic, or foundational questions through alerts and automated workflows. Then your advisors’ interactions with students can center on deeper and more meaningful advising conversations.

Creating unified student profiles with connected data

A unified student profile, aggregating student data into a single student record allows advisors to meet with more students and encourage those meaningful conversations. For example, instead of talking through the required courses advisees need for their program, they get automated alerts listing which courses to take next. Then, the advisee’s open office hours can become career exploration sessions or deep dives to help students better understand complex concepts.

At institutions with siloed data, creating alerts like those in the example requires a ton of manual effort and time. And let’s face it — advisors don’t have time to spare. 

How Data Cloud solves the RTIM puzzle

With Salesforce Data Cloud, advisors can provide more proactive and holistic support for students. That’s because campus data for each student is unified in a single record — something that benefits both students and the institution.

In turn, students make more informed and thoughtful decisions with this proper support from academic advisors. Getting automated alerts supports students as they navigate the university/academic program policies and procedures, and, more importantly, offers an exceptional college experience.

Ultimately, Data Cloud will help build better staff experiences with a unified student record and a seamless student experience that meets their modern expectations.

In the next post in this series, we will provide an overview of Data Cloud for Higher Education, examples of potential use cases, and best practices for using Data Cloud.  

Ready to transform your student experience through real-time interaction management?

Discover how real-time interaction management can elevate the way you engage with students, and enhance their experiences with personalized, timely interactions that make a real difference.

Learn more about Salesforce Education Cloud here to understand the platform and how it compares and relates to your current technology stack.

Then, send a message to Sercante to learn about our Salesforce consulting services for higher education institutions, including Salesforce implementations & migrations, design & architecture services, reporting & analytics, custom integrations, and everything in between.

Original article: Combating Headwinds in Higher Ed: Part 1 – Real-Time Interaction Management

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Combating Headwinds in Higher Ed: Part 1 – Real-Time Interaction Management appeared first on The Spot.

I recently ran into a situation where a client needed to exclude select campaign types from being populated as the Primary Campaign Source field on opportunities. While this might sound unusual on the surface, the use case was very logical and likely impacts other organizations too. Read on to learn how we solved it to customize primary sources on opportunities using Salesforce flow.

Use Case

Before getting too deep into the solution, let’s first review the use case for relevancy in your organization. In this particular situation, the sales teams were leveraging Salesforce campaigns as a way to group records for outreach. Some of the outreach campaigns became quite large over time and began skewing data in the Primary Campaign Source field on opportunities.

Many reports in the organization were based on the Primary Campaign Source field and the outreach campaigns were undermining the impact of true marketing campaigns. It was determined that reporting would be more accurate if outreach campaigns were excluded and the Primary Campaign Source field was populated using the last “responded” campaign (based on the responded checkbox).

Primary Campaign Source Field Review

Before we get into the solution, let’s do a quick recap of the Primary Campaign Source field on opportunities. Campaign attribution can be a confusing topic, so it never hurts to review.

How is the Primary Campaign Source Populated?

• Lead Conversion (with Opportunity) – The Primary Campaign Source field will be populated with the campaign that was most recently associated with the lead.
• Opportunity Creation (from Contact) – The campaign that the contact was most recently associated with will populate the Primary Campaign Source field when a new opportunity is being created from a contact record. Users have the ability to change the value before saving the record. 
• Manually – Users can manually update the Primary Campaign Source field on the opportunity using the picklist of active campaigns.
• Automation – The Primary Campaign Source field can also be updated based on an automated process in Salesforce (generally a Flow).

Do Auto-Association Rules Apply?

Great question! Auto-association rules are part of campaign influence in Salesforce and are used to create campaign influence records. They are not factored into the population of the Primary Campaign Source field on opportunities.

Primary Campaign Source Field (on Opportunities) vs. Primary Source Campaign Influence Model

• Primary Campaign Source Field (on Opportunities) – Lookup field on the opportunity that links it to a single campaign.
• Primary Source Campaign Influence Model – Campaign influence model that attributes 100% of the influence to the campaign noted in the Primary Campaign Source field on an opportunity.  

Solution Review

Now that we’ve laid the foundation, let’s address the solution.

Step 1 – Determine Exclusions & Actions

The first question to answer is “What campaigns should be excluded from the Primary Campaign Source field?”. Depending on your organization, this could be a campaign type, a campaign record type, or a combination of both. 

Step 2 – Determine Actions

Now that we know what campaigns we would like to exclude, what should we do when we run across an opportunity with an excluded value? The default Salesforce behavior is to use the last associated campaign. We could go that route and use the last “valid” campaign that a lead or contact was associated with or we could go a step further and use the last campaign that has the “responded” box checked.

I prefer prioritizing my “valid” campaigns based on the “responded” checkbox. Similar to how I configure auto-association rules, I just don’t like giving credit to a campaign if the lead/contact has not actually engaged with it.

We also need to consider how the Primary Campaign Source will be populated if no valid campaigns are found. You can choose to keep the excluded value (as a reference point), clear the value, or populate with a default value. I elected to retain the excluded value (prefer data to no data), but you have options!

Step 3 – Build it in Flow (Sandbox)

For illustrative purposes, I created a flow in my dev org to show you how this solution could work for you. Here are the assumptions that were used.

• Campaigns with the type of “Sales Prospecting” should be excluded.
• When updating the Primary Campaign Source field, the most recent responded campaign (checkbox checked) should be used.
• If a valid campaign is not found (or the only campaign has a non-responded member status), the Primary Campaign Source field should be populated with the most recent campaign (basically defer to the default Salesforce behavior).
• Since this data is used for reporting purposes, real-time updates are not needed. 

Flow Summary 

• This solution uses a scheduled flow based on the opportunity object. The flow runs nightly and processes all opportunities that were created or updated that day.
  • Note: Relative dates can’t be used in the filter conditions of scheduled flows. To address this, create a custom checkbox field on the opportunity object that will evaluate TRUE if the opportunity was created or updated today and use it in your criteria.
  • Below is my filter. It’s selecting opportunities that have contact roles and were created or updated today.

• Get campaign members for contact roles
  • In this step, we get all the responded campaign member records (for the contact role) and sort them so the most recent is first.

• Loop through campaign members
  • Next, we loop through each of the campaign member records related to the contact role, find the first valid campaign (responded), and save it to the assignment variable.

• Update the opportunity record
  • Finally, we update the Primary Campaign Source field on the opportunity with the campaign ID stored in the assignment variable.
  • Note: If you decide to keep the most recent campaign as the Primary Campaign Source (if a valid campaign is not found), you will need to add a final assignment element prior to updating the record. The element uses a formula to ensure that the variable has been populated with a valid value and updates to the original campaign ID (even if it’s an excluded value) if blank. This prevents the Primary Campaign Source from being updated to a null value by the flow.

Complete Flow 

Here’s a look at my final flow.

Step 4 – Test & Validate

As with any flow, test, test, and test again before deploying to production. Below are some test scenarios to use for validation.

Create a new opportunity at lead conversion 

• Lead with a single valid campaign
• Lead with multiple valid campaigns 
• Lead with an excluded campaign (most recent) and a valid campaign 
• Lead with a single excluded campaign 
• Lead with a single non-responded campaign membership

Create a new opportunity from a contact 

• Contact with a single valid campaign 
• Contact with multiple valid campaigns 
• Contact with an excluded campaign (most recent) and a valid campaign 
• Contact with a single excluded campaign
• Contact with a single non-responded campaign membership

Update Primary Campaign Source on an existing opportunity

• Update to an excluded value (make sure that there’s a contact role who has a valid campaign) 

Test Table

When testing and validating flows, I like creating tables to record results for review. This helps me organize my thoughts and ensure that everything is working as intended.

Is the Primary Campaign Source field meeting your needs?

If you are using the Primary Campaign Source field in your reporting I encourage you to take a closer look at your campaigns to see if your data is being skewed. If so, this solution is a great way to prioritize valid campaigns and put more emphasis on engagement. You can even completely filter out specific types of campaigns if you choose. Don’t sell your marketing efforts short!

More Salesforce Flow resources

• An Introductory Guide to Salesforce Flow for Marketers
• Getting Started with Einstein for Flow
• How to Update Marketing Personas Using Salesforce Flow
• Creating Custom Object Records with Account Engagement and Flow
• Salesforce Automation Game-Changer: Einstein GPT and Data Cloud Capabilities for Flow

Original article: How to Customize Primary Source on Opportunities with Salesforce Flow

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post How to Customize Primary Source on Opportunities with Salesforce Flow appeared first on The Spot.

If you’re like many, setting up an SMS program is not part of your everyday tasks. And if I were a betting woman (I’m not), I’d bet you’ve likely never done it before. If you have, then you likely need a refresh.

Moreover, if you have an existing SMS program and now find yourself in a situation where you’re switching providers, you might be even more unsure of where to even begin.

TDLR: Whether newbie or pro, there’s a lot to consider and unpack not only from a strategy perspective but the technical stuff as well. In this post, we’ll cover everything you’ll need to consider for your SMS mobile strategy — whether you’re new to SMS or rethinking your SMS program.

SMS Mobile Strategy Considerations

Many times, when organizations begin on the path of charting out their SMS communication they naturally start down the path of wanting to replicate all the communications they currently have for the email channel.

DON’T BE THAT PERSON.

Instead, consider the following. 

The purpose of your program

Why do you want to communicate with people via SMS, to begin with? Better yet, what’s the benefit to the organization, and more importantly, to your customers?

A common purpose of an SMS program is to provide direct, efficient ways to engage, which leads to improved customer satisfaction and better business outcomes. The net on this point is to ensure you’re doing it for good reason. You may be in an industry where an SMS program just doesn’t make sense, and that’s ok! 

Examples of typical SMS communications

By refining the purpose of your program, you can begin to back into what makes sense to send via SMS.

Consider your customer experience: What are the types of things that might be beneficial to receive via text? If you think about the intent of a text message in general and why we send them in our day-to-day lives, you’re usually sending a text because:

• Your message is short, direct, and doesn’t require live dialogue.
• It’s something timely and you’re desiring a response back quickly.
• It’s efficient.

With that lens in mind, let’s think about the types of messages your organization sends and what fits into this criteria mentioned above.

Here are some examples of communications that make sense to send via SMS:

1. Appointment Reminders: Remind customers or clients of upcoming appointments, reservations, or important deadlines.
2. Order Updates: Notify customers about the status of their orders, including order confirmation, shipping updates, and delivery notifications.
3. Account Notifications: Send account-related notifications such as payment reminders, account balance alerts, or security alerts (e.g., suspicious login attempts).
4. Promotional Offers: Inform customers about special promotions, discounts, or exclusive deals to drive sales and increase customer engagement.
5. Event Invitations: Send invitations or RSVP reminders for events, webinars, conferences, or workshops.
6. Customer Support: Provide quick and efficient customer support by allowing customers to text inquiries, report issues, or request assistance.
7. Emergency Alerts: Send timely alerts and updates during emergencies, natural disasters, or other critical situations to ensure the safety and well-being of customers or employees.
8. Surveys and Feedback Requests: Gather feedback from customers by sending SMS surveys or requesting feedback after a transaction or interaction.
9. Authentication Codes: Use SMS for two-factor authentication (2FA) or one-time passwords (OTPs) to verify user identities during account sign-in or transaction authorization processes.
10. Appointment Scheduling: Allow customers to schedule appointments, consultations, or service bookings via SMS, with automated confirmation messages.
11. Membership Renewals: Remind members or subscribers about upcoming membership renewals, subscription expirations, or important membership-related updates.
12. Event Reminders: Send reminders about important dates, deadlines, or milestones related to events, campaigns, or initiatives.
13. Internal Communications: Communicate important updates, announcements, or reminders to employees, contractors, or stakeholders within the organization.
14. Educational Messages: Deliver educational content, tips, or tutorials related to products, services, or industry trends to inform and engage customers.
15. Feedback and Reviews: Prompt customers to leave reviews, ratings, or testimonials after a purchase or interaction with the organization.

More times than not, these communications fall into the transactional bucket. But as you saw above, they don’t have to. When deciding which communications to send via SMS, it’s essential to consider the relevance, timing, and audience preferences to ensure that messages are well-received and contribute to a positive customer experience.

Real-world SMS example: Player communication for a bocce ball league

Incorporating SMS into a communication strategy doesn’t have to be all or nothing either. There are instances when sending both an email and text makes sense.

Here’s a real-life example: I play in a bocce ball league (yes, those exist), and if the courts are too wet because of rain, they’ll cancel. The challenge is since there are no makeups, they really try to avoid canceling. It really comes down to the wire for making the decision to cancel. The league used to send an email as soon as they decided, but chances are you didn’t see it until you were already there.

To improve this customer experience, they developed not only a rain hotline (via webpage), which shows the last time it was updated (e.g., “10 mins ago” with status updates like “we will make a decision by x time”). The league will now also send a text message via SMS letting you know the status of your game as soon as it’s canceled.

They also must have gotten tired of fielding emails and phone calls (who knew us bocce ballers were such a passionate group) that they now remind everyone via text message that the rain hotline exists, and they send a link that you can access via mobile as well.

End Destination

Once you’ve established ‘the why’ of your SMS messaging and what you’re sending, don’t forget about the end destination. This is where the true professionals shine. 

Ensure your end destination is mobile-optimized. For example, there’s nothing worse than sending an SMS to provide feedback via survey, and it takes you to a non-mobile-optimized web page. Not only have you wasted money, effort, and time setting up this message, but you are creating a customer experience of friction (which is likely the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve). To add more fuel to the fire, this extra stinks — especially when it comes to getting feedback, which is already hard to receive. The oversight means you’ve just blown your chance. WOMP WOMP.

Real-world SMS example: Frequent flyer

So, let’s talk about a positive SMS example. If you’re like me and fly a decent amount, you’ve got your flight app (Delta in my case) up and running the day of your flight. It works great (most of the time… I could do another blog post on that… but another day), and if you remember to open the app and look at it on occasion, you’ll see that a gate might have changed or the time of flight has been updated.

However, I’m not always able to check the app when I’m on the move. So, Delta is sending SMS notifications as soon as these changes occur. This is especially helpful — I can see these notifications pop up on my phone without having to open the app to learn more. I also see them on my watch (when the battery isn’t dead). And if I want to see more from the text, I can click the link and it delivers me to the app, which makes the end destination all that more valuable.

I’ve seen some brands come close to excellence where they will drop you off to a mobile-optimized page. However, the real pros consider app downloads too.

As new tech and consumers evolve, so should a marketer’s strategy. SMS programs are tablestakes these days, so getting your strategy right is a must for most consumers.  

Technical Considerations for SMS Messaging 

How SMS marketing works

With a solid grasp of what a mobile strategy should entail, we can pivot to the technical piece. Let’s start with how SMS works for marketers as a whole, taking Salesforce as our platform of choice in this example. 

For Salesforce users, there are 4 steps to send an SMS message: 

1. Marketing creates a personalized text message in Marketing Cloud Mobile Studio
2. Aggregator preps message for delivery to the appropriate carrier
   (Aggregator = Salesforce partners that connect our messaging platform with carrier networks around the world) (Carrier = mobile providers across the globe)
3. Carrier receives messages and delivers them to the final audience
4. The customer receives a personalized text message

Preparing for SMS Sending

But for those simple steps to happen, there’s a bit of preparation involved, especially if this is your first time.

Here are the steps to prepare for SMS sending: 

1. Determine your code needs – Short vs long code, dedicated or private. Learn more about these options here.
2. Select an SMS platform provider and negotiate a contract – Many times as part of your contract they will acquire the code for you, but provisioning is extra.
3. Provision your short code (this can be done with a consulting partner like Sercante or directly with the provider, which is typically more costly than going with a partner). 
4. Once the shortcode is made available within the platform, you’ll need to set up your required keywords, and messages as well as obtain consent. (Keep on reading to learn about opt-in best practices). 

To migrate or not migrate your SMS program

If you’ve had the luxury of setting up your organization’s SMS program once and are now looking to switch providers, you might be scratching your head and thinking about what’s better: migrating our existing one or spinning up a new one?

In true consultant fashion, the answer is: IT DEPENDS .

Like with many options in life, it all goes back to what’s important — in this case — time, money, and customer experience.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of both scenarios:

SMS migration route — let’s stay friends

If keeping your existing code outweighs the downtime you’ll encounter, there will be a decent amount of coordination between both old and new providers.

Below are some high-level steps of what’s involved when migrating SMS programs:

1. Contact existing provider – Let them know your intention to retain the existing shortcode and inquire about the process for releasing the shortcode to use with the new provider, as well as any associated fees or requirements. Please note: not every provider will release their shortcode.
2. Verify Contractual Obligations – Review your contract or agreement with the current to understand any terms or obligations related to the shortcode. Ensure that you comply with any contractual requirements before proceeding with the migration. 
3. Coordinate with the new provider –  Let them know you desire to transfer your existing shortcode to their platform. Provide any necessary information or documentation requested by the new provider to facilitate the transfer process.
4. Coordinate Timing– Coordinate the timing of the shortcode transfer between old and new to minimize disruption to your messaging campaigns. As mentioned in the cons, there’s normally a downtime where your code will not be operational. Ensure that there’s a smooth transition between the two providers.
5. Update Opt-in Process – If necessary, update your opt-in/opt-out process to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements when using the shortcode via the new provider. Obtain opt-in consent from subscribers to receive messages on the new platform.

Once this is all squared away and your shortcode is available in the new platform, you can proceed to set up your ‘from’ keywords and ‘to’ message.  While migration of an existing code has its perks, the timeline is typically elongated compared to its counterpart. 

New SMS code route — Team ‘New Friends’ 

So if downtime, or getting up and running is more your concern, a new code may be the best (friend) route. 

All joking aside, when acquiring a new shortcode it’s essential to ensure compliance with regulations like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) if applicable. And with that responsibility of re-opting everyone in here are some general best practices. 

New SMS code best practices

1. Inform: Send out a clear and transparent communication informing subscribers about the change in shortcode and the reason behind it. Explain any benefits they might gain from the transition.
2. Highlight Benefits: Emphasize any advantages or improvements associated with the new shortcode, such as better service, more relevant content, or enhanced security measures.
3. Request Opt-In: Clearly ask subscribers to re-opt-in to continue receiving messages by sending a specific keyword or opting in through a designated method (e.g., texting a certain number, clicking a link, filling out a form).
4. Provide Instructions: Offer simple and straightforward instructions on how to opt in. This could include step-by-step guidelines via text, email, or on your website.
5. Assure Privacy and Security: Reassure subscribers that their privacy and security are a priority and that their information will be handled in accordance with relevant regulations.
6. Offer Incentives (Optional): Consider offering incentives or rewards for those who re-opt-in, such as discounts, exclusive content, or entry into a giveaway.
7. Set Deadline (if applicable): If there’s a deadline for re-opting in to ensure uninterrupted service, clearly communicate this to subscribers to create a sense of urgency.
8. Follow-Up: Send reminders to those who haven’t opted in yet, closer to the deadline if applicable, to ensure they don’t miss out on staying connected.
9. Respect Opt-Outs: Honor any opt-outs or preferences expressed by subscribers who choose not to re-opt-in and ensure they’re removed from the communication list associated with the old shortcode.
10. Track and Monitor: Monitor the opt-in process closely and track the success rate. Analyze any feedback received to improve future communication strategies.

Remember to maintain transparency throughout the process and make it as easy as possible for subscribers to re-opt-in to the new shortcode.

Evolving with your customers

In conclusion, as technology and consumer behaviors evolve, marketers must adapt their mobile program strategies to remain effective. SMS marketing, as a powerful tool, provides a direct and personal way to reach customers. By incorporating SMS into your overall communication strategy, you can enhance customer engagement, drive traffic to your website or app, and ultimately achieve your marketing goals.

A successful SMS marketing program requires careful planning, compliance with regulations, and a focus on delivering valuable and relevant content to your subscribers. By following best practices and continually optimizing your campaigns, you can leverage SMS to create a strong connection with your audience and drive business growth.

Original article: SMS Mobile Strategy: A Guide to Go From Novice to Pro

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post SMS Mobile Strategy: A Guide to Go From Novice to Pro appeared first on The Spot.

As part of the Winter ‘24 release, Account Engagement users gained the ability to copy assets to and from Account Engagement Sandboxes. This allows marketers to test automations and assets before pushing them to their Production Account Engagement org. It also allows them to pre-populate Sandboxes with assets so they don’t have to start from scratch. 

The Account Engagement to Sandbox-to-Production Flow currently supports seven asset types: 

1. Email Templates
2. Custom Redirects
3. Custom Fields
4. Files
5. Engagement Studio Programs
6. Layout Templates
7. Form Handlers

Account Engagement Sandbox-to-Production Flow Installation Instructions

To start using the Sandbox-to-Production flow, you will need to create a Connected App and two named credentials. 

Step 1: Create the Connected App in the Sandbox Org

This provides the interface to authenticate into an org.

1. In your source org (Production), grab the Sandbox Asset Auth Flow callback URL.
   • Go to Setup > Auth. Providers
   • Open the Sandbox Asset Flow Auth
   • Copy the Callback URL, you will need this shortly
2. In your Sandbox org, navigate to Salesforce Setup > App Manager and then select New Connected App.
3. Configure the Connected App as follows:
   • Connected App Name: MCAE Sandbox to Production
   • Contact Email: Email Address of the admin who will be managing the Sandbox-to-Production promotion process. 
   • Enable OAuth Settings: Checked
   • Callback URL: The Source Org Callback URL you copied in step #1
   • Selected OAuth Scopes:
     1. Access the Salesforce API Platform (sap api)
     2. Access unique user identifiers (openid)
     3. Manage Pardot services (pardot_api)
     4. Manage user data via APIs (api)
     5. Manage user data via Web browsers (web)
     6. Perform requests at any time (refresh token, offline_ access)
   • Require Secret for Web Server Flow: checked
   • Require Secret for Refresh Token Flow: checked
4. Select Save
   • Note: It may take 10-15 minutes for the connected app to be ready for authentication.
5. Select Manage Consumer Details
6. Copy your Consumer Key and Consumer Secret for later use.

Step 2: Update Auth Provider in Production Org

This handles the authentication process.

1. In your Source Org (Production), enter the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret from your Connected App
   1. Go to Setup > Auth. Providers
   2. Open the Sandbox Asset Flow Auth
   3. Select Edit
   4. Enter the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret
2. Select Save

Step 3: Create an Account Engagement API Named Credential

This establishes access via an integration user to the Account Engagement API.

1. In your Source Org (Production), navigate to Setup > Named Credentials
2. Select New Legacy
   1. Note: Do not select “New”, it should be “New Legacy”!
3. Configure the Named Credential as Follows:
   1. Label/Name: MCAE API Access
   2. URL: https://pi.demo.pardot.com
   3. Identity Type:  Named Principle
   4. Authentication Protocol: OAuth 2.0
   5. Authentication Provider:  Sandbox Asset Flow Auth
   6. Scope: Pardot_api refresh_token
      1. Make sure this says “pardot_api refresh_token”, not just “api refresh_token”

7. Start Authentication Flow on Save: Checked
8. Generate Authorization Headers: Checked

2. Select Save
3. Log back into the Sandbox org with your credentials. Doing so finalizes the authentication for the named credential.

Step 4: Salesforce Metadata API Named Credential

This establishes access via an integration user to the Metadata API to retrieve BU details.

1. In your Source Org (Production), navigate to Setup > Named Credentials
2. Select New Legacy
   • Note: Do not select “New”, it should be “New Legacy”!
3. Configure the Named Credential as Follows:
   • Label/Name: Metadata API Access
   • URL: https://mydomain—sandboxname.sandbox.my.salesforce.com, but replace “mydomain” and “sandboxname” with the value from your sandbox url.
     1. ex: https://sercante–testing.sandbox.my.salesforce.com
   • Identity Type:  Named Principle
   • Authentication Protocol: OAuth 2.0
   • Authentication Provider:  Sandbox Asset Flow Auth
   • Scope: api refresh_token
   • Start Authentication Flow on Save: Checked
   • Generate Authorization Headers: Checked
4. Select Save
5. Log back into the Sandbox org with your credentials. Doing so finalizes the authentication for the named credential.

Running the Flow

Before you run the flow, ensure the destination org has at least one Folder, Campaign, and Tracker Domain. If your destination does not have these assets, you will run into issues with the flow.

1. In your Source Org (Production), navigate to Setup > Flow
2. Open the Account Engagement Sandbox-Production Bulk Asset Copy Flow
3. Select Run
4. For “Named Credential for Salesforce API Access” select the Metadata API Access (step 4 above)
5. For “Named Credential for Account Engagement API Access” select the MCAE API Access (step 3 above)

6. Select Next
7. Select your direction of Copy
   • From a Sandbox to Production
   • From Production to a Sandbox
8. Select your Production and Sandbox Business Units

9. Select Next
10. Select assets to copy over, select Next

11. Confirm the Assets, select Next
12. Select your Folder, Campaign, and Tracker Domain for your new assets
13. Select Copy Assets
14. The final screen will provide details regarding the copied assets as well as let you know if there were any errors.

Considerations for Using the Sandbox to Production Flow

Since this is a new capability for Account Engagement, there are some details and settings that do not come over when copied. I thoroughly tested each asset type and below are the considerations that I found.

Tracker Domain

You must verify the Tracker Domain in your Sandbox. Otherwise, Email Templates, Custom Redirects, and Files will fail when the unverified Tracker Domain is selected. You can use the default tracker domain (go.pardot.com) but this will cause issues when copying over any Custom Redirects with a Vanity URL.

Email Templates

• When copied, the email sender will be replaced by a General User with the email replace@example.com. This applies even if you have a sender hierarchy specified using “Assigned User” and ‘Account Owner.”

• Email Templates containing Dynamic Content will not copy over. This is because dynamic content is unique to the Business Unit. Even if you have the same Dynamic Content in each Business Unit, they will have a different asset ID and merge tag.
• If the Email Template contains a merge tag for a field that is not in the destination org, the flow will fail. Ensure all needed fields are copied to the destination org before copying over any assets that use custom field merge tags.

Custom Redirects

A Custom Redirect’s Completion Action(s) will not copy over, however, the Google Analytics Parameter values do.

Files

During my testing, I tested PNG, JS, JPG, GIF, SVG, CSS, and PDF file types, and all successfully copied over!

Custom Fields

When you copy custom fields, only the following information comes over:

• Field Name
• Field API Name
• Field Type

Engagement Programs

• When you copy an Engagement Studio Program (ESP) only the ESP structure is copied. The Recipient List, Suppression lists, Send days/times, and “Allow prospects to enter more than once” settings do not come over and will need to be reconfigured.
• The assets specified in a Trigger or Action node, such as email templates, landing pages, and forms, will need to be reselected in the new ESP. However, the number of wait days specified in the node will copy over. 



• If an Action node looks at a Prospect field (i.e. Prospect default field “Job Title” is not blank) and that field is in both Production and Sandbox, then the node will be copied to the new ESP with the field and value/settings specified. If the field does not exist in both Production and Sandbox, then the Action node will still be in the ESP but the field and value/settings will need to be reconfigured. 

Layout Templates

If you use Dynamic Content within your Layout Templates, keep in mind that the Dynamic Content will not come over when the Layout Template is copied. You can copy the Dynamic Content over as a separate asset, but you will still need to edit the Layout Template in your destination Business Unit to make sure it has the correct Dynamic Content ID.

Form Handler

• Ensure all the fields on the Form Handler exist in the environment you are copying to before copying the Form Handler.
• If your Form Handler only uses Default Prospect Fields, then all of the fields will come over when the Form Handler is copied. However, if your Form Handler uses any Custom Prospect Fields, the custom field needs to be in the destination org before you copy the Form Handler.
• When copied, the Success Location and Error Location details will copy over to the new asset. Completion Actions do not copy over.

Now it’s even easier to work with Account Engagement Sandboxes!

This new Flow is a huge step toward making Account Engagement Sandboxes user-friendly for testing and staging. What other capabilities would you like to see in this Flow? Let us know in the comments!

Original article: How to Copy Account Engagement Assets to Sandbox

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

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Engagement Studio Programs (ESPs) are key for nurturing prospects until they are ready to send over to your sales team. But have you ever thought about A/B testing in ESPs?

ESPs allow you to automatically send your cold prospects awareness content and consistently stay top of mind so they can gradually warm up to a sales-ready stage. Although ESPs can be used for everything from basic email sends to complex process automations, one feature it lacks is native functionality for A/B testing. The feature exists natively (and wonderfully) for list emails, but in the realm of automated emails and ESPs, this is something marketers are chomping at the bit for. 

Let’s dig into some of the creative workarounds that make A/B testing possible in ESPs as well as the pros and cons of each option.

How does native A/B Testing work?

Within the native functionality of list emails, A/B testing is very user-friendly. You can:

• Create and edit two versions of your email (Version A & B) via the WYSIWYG editor or by editing the HTML
• Specify if the email versions should be measured by email opens or email clicks (we prefer clicks)
• Determine the length of the A/B testing period (1 hour to 30 days)
• Determine the percentage of your audience that is tested

Automating the A/B testing process

The beauty of A/B testing with list emails is that so much of the process is automated. 

Once the criteria have been set, Account Engagement automatically and randomly splits the test recipients from the intended recipient lists, sends the email variations to the test group, and, once a winner has been selected, automatically sends the winning version of the email to the remaining recipients on the list. 

This native functionality allows marketers to fine-tune their marketing content by testing which subject lines, CTAs, and even images best resonate with their target audience. 

A/B Testing in an ESP

To A/B Test in an ESP, you have a few options:

1. Split your recipient list before starting the ESP
2. Split recipients by last name
3. Split recipient by a random number from Salesforce
4. Split recipient lists using Prospect Updater

Using Native Split List Functionality

All Account Engagement Static and Dynamic lists can be split into smaller lists. While viewing your list, the split option will be available in the top right-hand corner. This allows you to split lists evenly, or specify the percentage on each list. 

It’s important to remember that when splitting a dynamic list, the resulting lists will be static. 

When using this option in an ESP, add an Action node before your email send that checks if the recipient is on split list 1. If they are a member of this list, they receive version A of your email. If they are not, they receive version B.

This option works best when your ESP has a static recipient list that you are not adding to later, for example, an event follow-up nurture. If you intend on gradually adding more prospects to this ESP, there isn’t a way to easily and automatically split the new prospects between the two lists. 

Splitting by Last Name

Another strategy is to split the recipients by last name. This allows you to split recipients with dynamic lists so you can continually add new recipients to the ESP. To do so, you’ll need two dynamic lists. 

Your first list will capture prospects with last names starting with A-M:  

Your second list will capture any prospects with last names beginning with N-Z, as well as any prospects with last names that start with characters, non-English letters, or numbers. 

Finally, use these lists to split ESP recipients between your email variations. 

Things to keep in mind

The drawback to this solution is that splitting by last name is not likely to evenly split your recipients. S, B, H, M, and C are the most common initials for last names, so if you split your recipients by “last name begins with A-M” and “last name begins with N-Z”, the “A-M” list is likely to be larger and can skew your data.

Generate a Random Number in Salesforce 

Another strategy for randomly splitting your recipient list is by using Salesforce’s Auto Number functionality. This allows you to auto-generate a random number for each Lead or Contact and push this data down to Account Engagement.

1. In Salesforce Setup, select Object Manager then Lead
2. Select Fields & Relationships
3. Select New
4. Select Auto Number then Next
5. Enter the following details
   1. Field Label: Lead Random Number
   2. Display Format: {00}
   3. Starting Number: 0
   4. Generate Auto Number for existing records: Selected

6. Select Next
7. Select which profiles have access to view this field.
8. Select Next
9. Select any Lead pages where this field should appear. I recommend leaving this field off your page layouts. Select Save.
10. Next, create a Formula field. While still in the Fields & Relationships tab of the Lead object, select New
11. Select Formula, then Next
12. Enter the following details
    • Field Label: Email Random Number
    • Formula Return Type: Number
    • Options – Decimal Places: 0
13. Select Next
14. Enter the formula MOD(VALUE({! Lead_Random_Number__c}) ,9)
15. Select Next
16. Select which profiles have access to view this field. Ensure the B2BMA Integration User profile, or your connector user’s profile, has access so Account Engagement can map to this field. 
17. Select Next
18. Select any Lead pages where this field should appear. I recommend leaving this field off your page layouts. Select Save.

This formula field will auto-generate a random number between 1-9 for each Lead. Optionally, repeat the steps above for the Contact object. Finally, map the “Email Random Number” field to Account Engagement so this new field can be used to randomly split ESP recipients for an A/B Test. 

Now, the only downside of this approach is that all your Account Engagement prospects must be synced to Salesforce before they will get an Email Random Number value. If you regularly nurture prospects in Account Engagement before syncing them over to Salesforce, you could use a combination of the Random Number and Last Name methods, or you can move to our last option.

Use Prospect Updater

Sercante’s Prospect Updater is a Swiss army knife for advanced data updates, cleansing, and manipulation within Account Engagement. This solution allows you to work with your prospect data in more streamlined ways and enables you to create a truly random recipient list split without your data being in Salesforce. 

With Prospect Updater, you can use a RANDBETWEEN function to auto-generate a random number and stamp the number on new prospect records within minutes of them being added to Account Engagement. Then, use an Action node in an ESP to split your prospects into your A/B test groups. 

If you want to learn more about Prospect Updater, check out our Supercharge sales ‘speed to lead’ with clean Pardot data and Creating a Pardot Spam Identification Process with Prospect Updater blog posts or contact us!

Selecting a Winner

After you’ve selected your method of A/B testing and let your ESP run, it’s time to choose a winner and, optionally, consolidate your ESP down to 1 email version. The best way to compare the data between your A and B email versions is by using the ESP reporting tooltips. While on the Reporting tab of your ESP, select the email send node to view the metrics for that particular send. 

The tooltips allow you to easily view the number of sends and opens as well as your click-through rate. If you want to dive deeper into each template’s metrics, select the name of the template from within the tooltip view to open the full email template report. 

Start A/B testing in Engagement Studio Programs

It’s clear that Engagement Studio Programs (ESPs) are the backbone of effective prospect nurturing, guiding them along the journey until they’re ripe for the sales pitch. 

So, let’s embrace the challenge, get creative, and make the most of our ESPs. With a bit of ingenuity and a keen eye on the metrics, we can craft killer campaigns that resonate with our audience and drive those all-important conversions. Here’s to pushing the boundaries and unleashing the full potential of our ESPs.

Remember, you can always reach out to the team at Sercante for help setting up your Account Engagement (Pardot) Engagement Studio Programs and configuring your A/B tests within them.

Original article: A/B Testing in Account Engagement Engagement Studio Programs (ESPs)

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

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Salesforce tasks are one of the unsung heroes of Account Engagement. You can use Salesforce tasks to let the sales team know there’s work to be done, and using tasks can eliminate one of the common arguments for creating duplicate leads.

Yet, many are unhappy with the rigid options for creating tasks through Account Engagement. That leads us to our solution. We can make tasks even better, perfectly better in fact! We can make Salesforce tasks that are set up exactly how we want through Account Engagement using an External Action.

External Actions are a way to make things happen outside Account Engagement via Salesforce CRM Flow and APEX code.  We can create an External Action that creates a task with what we want in it and our merge fields in the body of the task comment so we can capture exactly what was on a form fill.

Process Overview: Creating custom Salesforce tasks with Account Engagement External Actions

Normally we would add a completion action to a form called “Create Salesforce Task,” which prompts us for a few rigid text fields that don’t support merge fields. 

Now we can add an ‘External Action’ for creating a task that has as few or as many fields as we want and allows us to add merge fields. 

Building this new Create Salesforce Task external action

There are a few steps we need to follow to build this. We start in the CRM and work backwards, toward Account Engagement.

Here’s the order you’ll complete the steps:

1. Create a flow.
2. Create an External Activity.
3. Create the completion action.

Creating the Flow

First, we want to create an Autolaunched Flow.

Create variables

Next, let’s create some variables. The RecordID is the only required variable. (We need to attach the task to something). The rest of the variables are optional, but having them will give us more flexibility when we create the completion action.  All variables should have the ‘Available for Input’ checkbox checked. 

Build the Flow

After creating the variables, we can get build the Flow. Start with the Decision Element to create a different path for Leads vs. Contacts. We’ll need to look up the record owner in the CRM, as Account Engagement doesn’t give us access to that as a merge field. To do this, we need to know whether to look up a Lead or Contact record. Use the table below to set up your lead path filter.

Update the label for the default path to “Contact”.

Add a ‘Get Records’ element

For each path, we will need to add a ‘Get Records’ element.  Select the correct object and then set the following filter:

Create task details

Next, let’s create the task details. Start by creating another variable using the details below. Do not check the “available for input” box for this variable. 

Add an Assignment element

Then, add an Assignment element for each path to fill in the details. The Assigned To ID for the new task is the record owner from the object we looked up. Lead owner ID if it was a lead, Contact OwnerID if it was a contact.

Optional Step: Description formula

For the description, we can use a formula to put together the description that we want using a combination of our other variables.  To do this, create another variable with the type “formula”. Name it “FormattedText” and input this as the formula: “{!Task_Instructions}BR(){!Form_Comments}”

This will update the description field on the task to display the information inputted from Task Instructions and Form Comments. You can input a formula to include the variable values that are important to you. See another example in the screenshot below.

Create task record

Our last step in the flow will be to create the task record. Use the “Create record” element and add the variable “NewTaskRecord” under the “record” drop-down. Leave the other settings as is.

Flow is complete

When you are complete, your flow should look like this:

Your flow is complete. You can debug using an existing record. You will need to activate the flow before moving on to the next step.  

Marketing Extensions External Action

Next we want to create the External Action. Be careful with these,  we can’t currently delete any we make by mistake. If you have access to an Account Engagement Sandbox, this could be a good time to use it when building your first External Action.

Create a new Extension

In Marketing Setup> Marketing App Extensions, we will want to create a new Extension.  Name it “Create Task” and select the box “Active in Automation”.  

Create a new Action Type

Once it’s created, go to the Related Tab, and create a new “Action Type”.

Name it “Create Task” and Search for the flow we just created under “Invocable Action”. The flow must be activated.  Check the box for “active in automations” . 

The Action Type will write an Action Schema for us. We can simply click save, and we are done.

Optional Step: Adjust default details

We can also adjust the default details, providing Account Engagement default merge fields, and reordering the fields in the ‘view’ section, and even making fields required, such as our RecordID field. These adjustments can make our new tool easier to use! In the screenshot below, we’ve added in the merge field for RecordID so that we do not have to have our end users do this in Account Engagement.

Select business unit

Under the related tab, select “New” under Business Unit Assignments. Search for your business unit name and select it.  If you are unsure of your business unit name, go to Marketing Setup > Business UnitSetup.

Completion Action

Now we can use our shiny new Task!

Finalize with completion action option

When our Marketing App Extensions have all the bits ‘Active’ and we have assigned our business unit, we will get a new Completion Action option on forms and Engagement Studio Programs.

Fill in all the fields

This is where we can fill in all the fields we created as flow variables. We can use Account Engagement merge fields to fill them in, or just start typing text. Or a bit of both!

If you look at the ‘Task_Instructions’ in this example, you can see we can fill in text with a bunch of merge fields. Those merge fields are other completion actions on a form.

Start Creating Custom Tasks!

We used to be able to create a task and only have a generic “Follow up with this Contact” in the description. With custom tasks, the descriptions can now be populated dynamically with the exact information that prospects input on a form.  

Tasks can hold custom information like support questions or product interests, which can help streamline the next steps for the users receiving the task. So if your sales team is getting the tasks sent to them, then they can check the task to understand the best route to take.

Need help understanding how external actions and Salesforce tasks fit into your overall business strategy? Reach out to the team at Sercante to start a conversation.

Thank you to Mike Creuzer for contributing his expertise to write this post!

Original article: Use External Actions to Create Custom Salesforce Tasks

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