Your messages are doing their job, but are they working it?

If your campaigns are feeling a little too copy-paste, a little too “blah,” it might be time for a serious glow-up. You’ve got the data. You’ve got the content. Now it’s time to use the tools inside Marketing Cloud on Core (aka Growth and Advanced Edition) to turn that good-enough messaging into something that shines!

This blog will teach you how Dynamic Content and Expressions can transform your messages from basic to brilliant. You’ll learn what these new features are, how they work, and how to use them to make every send feel personal, polished, and powerful!

Let’s Start with the Basics

Before we dig into the tools, let’s talk about transformation. A glow-up for your marketing means:

• Less copy-paste, more customization
• Making use of the data you already have
• Messages that speak directly to the recipient, not the crowd

Marketing Cloud on Core gives you two powerful tools to make it happen. Ready to transform your messages? Let’s learn how to master Dynamic Content and Expressions.

Introducing Your Email’s Style Squad

Give your emails a fresh look without starting from scratch. Think of Dynamic Content like your email’s glam squad; each part makes your email stand out. Consider giving your email different “outfits” based on who’s opening it.

• Personalization Point: This is the part of your email where you give a mini makeover. It could be a subject line, preheat, hero image, or CTA – any element that could use extra sparkle.
• Personalization Decision: This is the brains behind the beauty. It figures out who should see what based on the rules you set.
• Targeting Rule: Your custom-fit formula. It defines “if this, then show that” logic. For example, “if account type = VIP, show gold banner.”

Pro Tip: Already built a variation you love? You can reuse it in other emails using recent Personalization Points.

How to Apply the Glow-Up: Creating Dynamic Content

Let’s walk through giving your content a dynamic makeover:

• Open your email in the editor and select the content block you want to glam up.
• Head to the Dynamic Content section and click Add Variation.
  • You can use the Variation dropdown to access NewVariations if you’ve already got some variations.

• When the Create or Reuse Personalization Settings window pops up, select New Variation.
  Heads up: Your message has to save first, so give it 10-20 seconds.
• Name your variation and create your Targeting Rule.
• Click Save, then customize your content within that variation, like updating a header image or swapping out messaging for a specific audience.
• Use the Variation dropdown to preview how your message looks for each version.

Pro Tip: Use dynamic blocks sparingly at first. Target high-impact spots like hero images or CTAs, and test frequently to ensure each variation shines.

The Finishing Touch for Personalized Flair

Once your content’s dressed to impress, it’s time to fine-tune the details, and that’s where Expressions come in. They’re like your behind-the-scenes styling tool that ensures every message feels personal, even when the data isn’t perfect. Here’s how Expressions keeps your messages looking polished:

• Saved Expression: Think of this as your go-to styling shortcut. It’s a reusable logic block you create once and drop into multiple campaigns; it’s less work with the same wow factor.
• Attribute Selection: This is where you tell the Expression what data to look at, such as PreferredName, LoyaltyStatus, or FavoriteProduct.
• Fallback Value: No data? No problem. Expressions let you set a backup so your message stays smooth. Instead of “Hi,” you get “Hi there!”

Expressions ensure every message feels intentional and on-brand like you planned that way (because you did). 

Adding the Ultimate Accessory: Creating Expressions

Here’s how to build your first Expression and set your messages up for consistent, reusable personalization:

1. Head to Content > Content Workspace in Marketing Cloud.
2. Click Add, then choose Content.
3. Select Expression, then click Create. (Yes, you’re about to create something fabulous.)
4. Give your Expression a name that clearly describes what it does (like “PreferredName Fallback” or “GoldMemberStatus”).
5. Use the Attribute field to choose the customer data you want to reference.
6. (Optional) Add a filter if you need to narrow down conditions, like only using this Expression when someone’s location is “US.”
7. Click Save.
8. Don’t forget to hit Publish to start using your Expression in your messages.

Pro tip: Once created, Expressions can be used repeatedly across campaigns, saving you time while keeping your personalization game strong.

Using Your Expression in a Message

Now that you’ve created your personalized shortcut, it’s time to drop it into your message for that final glow-up touch.

1. Open the email, SMS, or WhatsApp message where you want to use your Expression.
2. Select the content block where you want your personalization to appear.
3. Click the [] Add a merge field symbol.
4. Choose Saved Expressions from the dropdown menu.
5. Pick the Expression you created earlier.
6. Add a default value (like “there” or “friend”) in case your data field is empty.
7. Click Done and admire your work.

Pro Tip: This ensures your message always reads naturally, even if a customer’s name or info is missing the data.

Use Them Together for a Full-On Email Glow-Up

You’ve got the tools! Now it’s time to layer them like a pro stylist would. Dynamic Content and Expressions are great on their own, but when used together? That’s when the real transformation happens!

Think of Dynamic Content as your email’s wardrobe, changing outfits based on who’s reading. Then think of Expressions as the accessories, adding that personalized sparkle like someone’s name, product interest, or membership level.

Real-World Example

Let’s say you’re sending a promotional email:

• You use Dynamic Content to show one banner for loyalty members and another for new subscribers.
• Inside each banner block, you drop in an Expression to greet the user by name (with a fallback like “their” in case their name isn’t available).
• You also use Expression to highlight their preferred product category, so the CTA feels totally tailored.

The result? An email that looks like you custom-designed it for every person without cloning templates or managing a million logic paths.

Why This Combo Works

• You reduce manual work by creating fewer, smarter assets.
• You create hyper-relevant emails without sacrificing time or scalability.
• You build a customer experience that feels seamless, polished, and personal, even if you’re sending to thousands at once.

Using Dynamic Content and Expressions is the email marketing equivalent of putting on a fresh outfit, doing your hair, and finishing with the perfect accessory.

Ready to Give Your Emails a Glow-Up?

You don’t need a whole new wardrobe of emails, just the right tools to style them smarter. With Dynamic Content and Expressions in Marketing Cloud on Core, you can transform basic batch-and-blast messages into personalized, polished experiences that connect with your audience.

From targeting rules to fallback names, you have everything you need to bring out the best in your campaigns without doubling your workload. Whether you’re just dipping your toes into personalization or looking to scale with style, this glow-up is just the beginning.

Want help applying what you learned?

Book a consultation with Sercante’s Marketing Cloud experts to review your personalization strategy or sign up for one of our hands-on workshops. Let’s glow up your next campaign together!

Original article: Personalization with Marketing Cloud on Core: How to Use Dynamic Content & Expressions

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Personalization with Marketing Cloud on Core: How to Use Dynamic Content & Expressions appeared first on The Spot.

Marketing Cloud on Core (aka Growth and Advanced Edition) offers simple out-of-the-box form-triggered flows that are great for lead generation and straightforward scenarios, but today we’re going to dive into something more complex! In this post, I’ll walk you through the process of building a flow that checks for existing contacts and leads before creating a new lead, creates consent records, and sends an autoresponder email. Let’s get started.

Setup Notes

All testing was conducted after the Spring ‘25 release in a demo org. The standard lead duplicate rule was active and configured to allow the creation of duplicate records with alerts.

OOTB Form-Triggered Flows

Before we begin customizing the out-of-the-box flow, it’s important to understand the capabilities and limitations of Form-Triggered Flows. This helps guide decisions concerning when customization is necessary.

OOTB Form-Triggered Flow without Lead Matching

This is the most basic flow and is what’s automatically generated when the Signup Form template is selected during the campaign creation process. No modifications were made to the flow, outside of configuring the “CreateConsent” element.

Test Results 

Summary 

In all three test scenarios, a new lead record was created leading to duplicates in Salesforce. 

OOTB Form-Triggered Flow with Lead Matching

In this test, a very slight, but important, modification was made to the flow—the “Check for Matching Records” option was enabled in the “LeadCreation” element.

Test Results 

Summary 

This small update made a significant improvement. The flow now prevents the creation of duplicate leads when an existing lead submits the form. However, a new lead record is still being created when an existing contact submits the form.

This occurs because flows are object-specific, and the OOTB flow only references the lead object. It lacks visibility into the contact object, so it creates a new lead if an existing lead is not found. In short, the flow is performing exactly as it’s designed to.

OOTB Form-Triggered Flows Summary

The OOTB Form-Triggered flows support simple use cases, but it’s important to be aware of the potential for duplicate record creation. These flows are intended as a starting point for marketers and should be customized to meet more specific requirements.

Form-Triggered Flows with Autoresponder Emails

Use Case

Your company just released its latest white paper, which is expected to have great appeal to potential and existing customers alike. The marketing team is posting the white paper on the website as a gated asset. In addition to redirecting users to a “Thank You” page, marketing also wants to send an autoresponder email. The autoresponder not only provides the recipient with easy access to the white paper should they want to view it again later but also serves as a way to validate the email address that was provided.

Why do we need to customize the OOTB flow?

Since the white paper will “appeal to potential and existing customers,” we know that the form will be submitted by new visitors, existing leads, and existing contacts. If we simply added a “Send Email Message” element to the OOTB flow, we could send the autoresponder email, but we would create new leads in Salesforce if an existing contact submitted the form.

The flow needs to be customized to check for existing contacts, in addition to existing leads, before creating a new lead and sending the autoresponder email.

The Finished Product

Before we walk through the build of the flow, let’s first take a look at the finished product. Then, we’ll review each element, discuss its function, and why it’s needed.

CreateProspect 

Function: Creates a new record on the prospect object for each form submission.
Reason: Flows using the “Send Email Message” element are required to have a “Create Records” element directly after the Start element. The “Create Records” element must create a record on the Contact, Lead, or Prospect object.

If we created records on the Lead object, we would be in the exact same situation as the OOTB flow: we would create duplicate leads when contacts submitted the form. If we created records on the Contact object, we would bypass the Lead object, and submissions from new visitors would be created as contacts.

The Prospect object was introduced as part of the Spring ‘25 release and is designed to keep unqualified prospects unassigned until they meet your organization’s agreed-upon lead requirements. We can satisfy the flow requirement by creating a record on this object without involving the sales team or triggering automations.

GetContacts 

Function: Retrieves all contacts who match the form submission based on the provided email address and last name.
Reason: Before we can check if a form submission is an existing contact, we must first give the flow visibility into contact records so that we have something to compare against in the “Decision” element.

Contact Match 

Function: This “Decision” element is used to check if the form submission is an existing contact. If a match is found, the existing contact record is updated. If a match is not found, the existing lead record is updated (if one is found), or a new lead record will be created.
Reason: Prevent the creation of duplicate leads when existing contacts submit the form.

UpdateContact 

Function: Update existing contact records based on data included in the form submission.

Reason: Update the contact record with the most current data.

LeadCreation 

Function: Create new lead records or update existing lead records based on data included in the form.

• Important: Make sure “Check for Matching Records” is enabled. 

Reason: Create/update lead record with the most current data.

CreateConsent 

Function: Creates a consent record based on the contact point for the selected channel and subscription.
Reason: Consent records are required for sending promotional emails from Marketing Cloud on Core.

TransactionalEmail 

Function: Transactional emails are non-promotional, immediate, and automated communications sent in response to a user’s action or interaction.
Reason: In this use case, the transactional email is used to send the ungated link to the white paper for future reference. Transactional emails can be used as long as they contain no promotional elements.

DeleteProspect 

Function: Deletes the prospect record created by the first element.
Reason: This step is optional but recommended. Since a prospect record was created solely to satisfy the requirement of having a “Create Records” element first, deleting the record helps keep the org clean. If you are using the prospect record for purposes beyond fulfilling this requirement, you can skip this step.

Other Use Cases & Next Steps

This structure can be applied and adapted to other use cases where there is a need to send autoresponder emails to leads and contacts without creating duplicate records. Examples include flows that create tasks or campaign member records in addition to sending autoresponders. 

Flows might seem challenging at first, but marketers will love them once they gain more experience. The key takeaway is to get hands-on, test, and don’t hesitate to ask for help if needed. Personally, I can say that I received a lot of support from my friends at Sercante when I was starting out, and I still do today!

Original article: Step-by-Step Guide: Creating Marketing Cloud on Core Form-Triggered Flows with Autoresponder Emails

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

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Welcome to your Masterclass in Account Scoring – where we take your Salesforce skills from good to guru-level! With the Spring ‘25 release, Salesforce introduces Account Scoring, a smart, customizable, and easy-to-manage scoring solution within Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced Editions (aka “Marketing Cloud on Core” or just “Marketing Cloud”). So, grab your virtual whiteboard, and let’s dive in!

Account Scoring 101: The Fundamentals

Account Scoring is a brand-new feature in Marketing Cloud on Core, designed to give businesses deeper insights into which accounts are most likely to convert. Unlike People Scoring, which evaluates individual leads and contacts based on engagement and fit, Account Scoring takes a broader approach, analyzing entire organizations. This is especially valuable for Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategies, where sales and marketing teams focus on targeting high-value accounts rather than individual leads.

How Does Account Scoring Differ from People Scoring?

• People Scoring is focused on individual engagement and fit. Individuals are scored based on how well they fit your ideal persona and how often they engage with your Marketing initiatives.
• Account Scoring aggregates data from all contacts within an organization, providing a more holistic view of an account’s likelihood to convert.
• Intent Scoring (optional in Account Scoring) identifies buying signals, making it easier to target accounts actively considering a purchase.

Account Scoring is a game-changer for ABM-focused campaigns, where teams need to evaluate an entire company rather than just a single decision-maker. With this new feature, marketing and sales teams can prioritize high-value accounts, personalize outreach at the account level, and drive stronger conversion rates.

Let’s break down the core curriculum of Account Scoring in Marketing Cloud on Core:

1. Engagement Scoring – Think of this like a participation grade. The more someone interacts (emails, website visits, messages), the higher the score.
2. Fit Scoring: This is your compatibility test. Does the account match your ideal customer profile? If so, your points will increase.
3. Intent Scoring – This one’s all about purchase signals. If an account drops hints they are ready to buy, the score reflects that.

Now let’s discuss how to elevate your Account Scoring skills to an expert level.

Take Control of Calculated Insights

Previously, once you published scoring rules, the system would auto-refresh Calculated Insights every six hours – whether you wanted it or not. With Spring ‘25, Salesforce has introduced the power to unschedule or reschedule Calculated Insights. Now, you control when and how often your scores refresh, ensuring you’re optimizing Data Cloud service credits and keeping your system running efficiently.

Customize Your Scoring Model Like a Pro

Say goodbye to one-size-fits-all scoring. Account Scoring allows you to adjust the weighting of Engagement, Fit, and Intent Scores to align with your business strategy and ensure the scoring model fits your unique needs. 

• Need Engagement to weigh 70% instead of 50%? You got it.
• Want Intent to be the biggest factor? Done.
• Would you prefer Fit to lead the charge? No problem.

Activating Account Scoring

To start using Account Scoring:

1. Create a Unified Account Identity ruleset
   1. Account Identity rulesets allow you to target contacts related to accounts as well as segments based on Account attributes.
2. Enable Account Scoring
   • You can also enable Intent Scoring at this stage if you wish to use this feature.

3. Customize your scoring rules and your score ratio. Don’t forget to republish your rules once your changes are saved.

Smarter Rule Management and Publishing

No more accidental rule mishaps! Now, when you tweak your scoring rules, you’ll need to publish them again for the changes to take effect. Here’s your checklist for success:

• Customize Fit and Engagement Scoring under Setup > Scoring Rules.
• Fine-tune Account Scoring under the Account tab.
• Republish once all your changes are set.
• Remember, once published, rules cannot be unpublished – only modified.
• Keep case sensitivity in mind (“Example” ≄ “example”)

Time to Put Your Skills to the Test

Congratulations, you’ve just completed your Spring ‘25 Account Scoring Masterclass! Now, it’s time to put your knowledge to work. Whether refining your scoring model or just getting started, these updates give you everything you need to optimize and win more deals. 

Want expert guidance? The Sercante team is here to help. Contact us, and let’s make your scoring strategy a success!

Original article: Masterclass in Marketing Cloud Account Scoring: Spring ’25 Edition

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

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Salesforce marketers have been navigating a whirlwind of changes over the past year, and with every announcement one question looms large: What does the future hold for Marketing Cloud Account Engagement? If you’ve been worried about Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot), you can breathe easy knowing it is evolving in powerful new ways, especially in conjunction with Marketing Cloud on Core (aka Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced Edition).

Let’s explore why the future of Salesforce marketing is brighter than ever and how Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud on Core can work together to create a competitive edge for businesses looking to scale their marketing impact.

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement is Evolving

Account Engagement remains a key part of Salesforce’s marketing ecosystem. As the recent Salesforce Marketing Tech Roadmap highlights, Account Engagement is evolving with deeper AI capabilities, enhanced automation, and better connectivity with Data Cloud. Instead of being phased out, Account Engagement is fine-tuned to work seamlessly with the latest Salesforce innovations.

Marketing Cloud on Core is Changing the Game for Marketers

Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud on Core are essential components of Salesforce’s marketing ecosystem, each serving a unique yet complementary purpose. Account Engagement continues to be the trusted tool for B2B marketers, while Marketing Cloud on Core brings an expanded, AI-powered, data-driven marketing approach. Built on the Einstein 1 Platform, these solutions create a seamless, unified experience across Sales, Service, and Marketing, leveraging AI and Data Cloud to enhance customer interactions. Rather than replacing one another, these tools are evolving side by side to offer marketers a more connected and intelligent way to engage with their audiences.

What’s Exciting About Marketing Cloud on Core?

• Generative AI helps marketers create AI-driven campaigns, emails, and segments in minutes.
• Einstein AI provides predictive insights with Einstein Send-Time Optimization and Einstein Engagement Frequency, and Einstein Engagement Scoring.
• Data Cloud ensures every customer touchpoint is informed by a single source of truth, say goodbye to disconnected marketing efforts.
• Omnichannel marketing is effortless with native email, SMS, and WhatsApp channels.

The Dream Team: Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Paired with Marketing Cloud on Core

The real magic happens when Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud on Core work together. Here’s how they complement each other:

• Lead Nurturing & Cross-Channel Engagement: Imagine a B2B marketing manager running a nurture campaign for high-value prospects. Account Engagement ensures these leads receive timely, relevant emails based on engagement, while Marketing Cloud on Core supplements this with SMS reminders and AI-driven segmentation, creating a truly engaging experience for each customer.
• Segmentation + Personalization: A marketing operations specialist wants to create highly personalized experiences for prospects. Automate lead nurturing based on behavioral triggers with Account Engagement’s Engagement Studio. At the same time, Marketing Cloud on Core dynamically adjusts messaging using Dynamic Content built within the Data Cloud Data Graph, ensuring every touchpoint is tailored to the recipient’s journey.
• Sales Alignment + AI-Powered Insights: Picture a sales team receiving AI-powered lead insights. Account Engagement scores Leads based on interactions, ensuring sales reps prioritize the most engaged prospects. Meanwhile, Marketing Cloud on Core uses AI to predict customer needs, alerting sales when a lead is likely to convert.

What This Means for Marketers

With Account Engagement advancing and Marketing Cloud on Core opening new possibilities, Salesforce marketers have more tools than ever to drive impactful engagement. The key takeaway? Marketing Cloud Account Engagement is evolving, and when combined with Marketing Cloud on Core, it unlocks even more significant marketing potential. The shift to a unified Salesforce marketing ecosystem means:

• More automation and AI-driven insights to improve efficiency.
• A seamless user experience across Salesforce products.
• Greater flexibility to adapt marketing strategies to changing customer behaviors.
• The ability to scale effortlessly with Data Cloud.

If you’re ready to explore how Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud on Core can work together for your organization, reach out to Sercante so we can help you start experimenting with the latest AI-driven features. The future of marketing is here! Are you ready to make the most of it?

Original article: Smarter, Stronger Marketing with Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud on Core

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

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As someone who primarily focuses on B2B and Account Engagement, I’ll admit I was a little lost the first time I approached the topic of SMS and Marketing Cloud Growth Edition. SMS was just not regularly part of my Marketing world, so trying to figure out the difference between Long Code and Short Code, go through the provisioning process, and advise others on which code is right for them felt overwhelming. However, thanks in large part to my B2C and Marketing Cloud Engagement focused co-workers, I now have a good handle on this topic and want to make sure others in the community can too! 

Long Code versus Short Code

The first thing to make sense of is the two types of SMS codes within Marketing Cloud on Core, their provisioning process, and which type is right for you.

Note: For some countries only one type of SMS code is currently supported (for example, only Short Code is available for Canada). If you are outside of the US, ensure you check the SMS Rate Card to see which SMS Codes are currently supported for your country.

Long Code

Long codes are a good choice for businesses that want to send messages to a smaller number of customers or create a more personal touch. Long Code SMS is also

• More cost-effective and take less time to set up
• Needed for International SMS
• Needed for Conversational SMS
• Has a longer send time (roughly 1 sec per message per recipient)

In summary, if you are sending delivery updates, appointment or event reminders, customer service communications etc. Long Code is likely the better choice. 

Long Code Provisioning

Long Code Provisioning takes between 4-6 weeks and is a multi-step self-service process. 

Step 1: Request a Brand

You’ll need to compile some basic info about your company for this form and then wait roughly 5 business days for the Brand to be approved (aka verified). 

Step 2: Request a Campaign

After your Brand is “verified” you can then request a Campaign. This step is a little more complex and you’ll need to provide some sample SMS messages for the form. Campaigns take roughly 10 business days to be approved (aka registered).

Step 3: Request a Code

Once your Campaign is “Registered” you can complete the final step of requesting your Long Code. This step should only take 2 business days to complete. 

Short Code

Short codes are the preferred method for organizations sending high volumes of SMS and expect very fast delivery times.

Short codes are also country-specific. A short code is only able to send messages to and receive messages from, same-country phone numbers. US short codes can only send to US phone numbers on US carrier networks that have approved that short code.

Short codes are the better choice if you intend on sending promotional messages to a large audience, such as sending limited-time offers and discount codes to all your current customers.

Short Code Provisioning

Short Code Provisioning takes an average of 12 weeks to set up and can only be done through a Mobile Approved Partner. Each partner has their own fees for Short Code Provisioning, but you can expect anywhere between $8k-$15k for this process. 

That was a lot of information, could you put it in a chart?

You got it!

SMS Credits

Both Short and Long Code SMS require Salesforce Messaging Credits to send SMS. Credits are consumed differently based on their multipliers (which can change so ensure you check the multipliers page for the most up to date info). For example, US Short Codes currently have a multiplier of 4 and Long Code a multiplier of 5. Based on 15K text sends, Short Code US requirement will be 60K of Credits , Long Code: 75K of Credits.

SMS and Consent

Consent for SMS channels can’t be imported until after the SMS Code has been provisioned. Once provisioned you can proceed with importing existing consent records to tie opt-ins and opt-outs to your unified individuals. Ensure your phone numbers use the E164 format in your consent files!

What’s next?

After your SMS code has been provisioned and you’ve imported your Consent Records there are a few additional setup steps you’ll want to tackle before you start sending:

• Create a Branded Domain – This allows you to shorten URLs sent via SMS into personalized links.
• Vet your SMS Brand – Improve your sending reputation by validating your identity.
• Set up Analytics – Ensure you’ve installed the SMS Analytics packages

Original article: SMS Provisioning and Marketing Cloud on Core

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

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For the last seven years, I’ve been enamored by a marketing analytics tool (who among us hasn’t, I’m sure), Datorama, or Salesforce Marketing Cloud Intelligence. MCI, as we’ve come to call it, is the most seamless way my customers have found to join their data across multiple sources, built by marketers and for marketers. MCI allows users to join data together and easily create reports and dashboards using plain language from the pre-built data models. This allows for easy-to-populate smart lens dashboards, or deeply complex automated reporting triggered by specific events. 

To my delight, and to the happiness of marketers, Salesforce just announced on March 18, 2025, a new version of the tool, Marketing Intelligence (MI),  built on the Salesforce Platform. This new version takes the best features of existing MCI and layers them into the functionality of Data Cloud’s unified platform, while taking users to the future with agentic features that will provide down-to-earth insights with conversational agents. So without any further ado, let’s dive into this new tool, Marketing Intelligence! 

What is Marketing Intelligence? 

Marketing Intelligence (or MI) is a new application on the Salesforce platform designed to simplify marketing data management, deliver trustworthy, out-of-the-box insights that marketers can instantly act on, and deliver better return on investment for marketing spend. Being built on Data Cloud and connected to the Salesforce platform allows it to be fully extensible, with a toolbox for marketers at the ready- it’s everything you need to build robust, effective, and meaningful dashboards with minimal lift. 

Data Cloud for Marketers Made Easy 

One of the processes I have been spoiled by in Marketing Cloud Intelligence is data mapping that auto-populates based on past usage and logical guesses by the platform’s artificial intelligence. Additionally, certain APIs come with prebuilt models and mapping to build off of rather than user-defined settings. These features have helped get marketers streamlined into the world of data models and dashboarding with less lift than throwing them into a database or asking them to join various tables. 

All of that, to my delight, is back in full form with Marketing Intelligence. You have the option to upload a TotalConnect file (a non-standard API, flat file of your choosing), or to use an existing API connection, with some rolled out at launch and more coming in the year ahead. Choosing a connection like Google Ads allows you to seamlessly grab that data, formatted and ready for quick mapping, and load the data you need into a dashboard in just 3 clicks. 

Clean and Easy Dashboards 

The dashboards look sharp and load with ease. These dashboards come prebuilt, with options to customize, and also have a key new feature compared to the existing Marketing Cloud Intelligence: generative AI summaries of your campaigns, including what’s working and what might not be. This elevates, to me, the future of dashboarding—being able not only to look at quick and easy data points and trends but also being told in plain language for what to take away or dig into. This can help marketers ask questions and dive in further, and even ask their agent to take action on what recommendations surface.

The idea of clear and plain insights especially comes up in implementations of the current dashboard tools I work in. Users looking at a dashboard want to know different information, and for dozens of users looking at a single page, the questions they’re asking are going to be different depending on needs. The option to ask your agent to recommend optimizations, and then act on it will save marketers a lot of time and headache. With Marketing Intelligence,  you just need the data ready for an agent to help your end users get what they need from the data you’ve put in place. 

Tidied Data Across Channels 

Of course, the core goal of any marketer looking for a tool like Data Cloud, Marketing Cloud Intelligence, or this new version of Marketing Intelligence, is to tie data together across channels to tell meaningful stories they can act on. In addition to the standardized API mapping, MI creates value by uniformly harmonizing these fields across datasets and allows for a semantic model to be used on the backend to tie data together in ways that are common sense (campaign name ties across all of your channels, for instance), such as tying your campaign from paid media to your campaigns from your CRM or other tools, even when names are not exactly aligned (more on this in a moment). 

I’m an existing Datorama/MCI User: What’s Worthwhile Here? 

If you have been reading up to this point, you know what was probably on my mind when I first saw this tool: can I love a changed version of my favorite software of all time? (And yes, I have a favorite software of all time.) Put simply, I’m ready to love. Let’s dissect the butterflies in my stomach. (And if your heart skips a beat when you hear about normalization, semantic modeling, and ROI, there’s enough of this platform for us to share). 

One Word: Normalization 

When I lead implementations with clients on MCI, we talk about the ways in which their data joins. Sometimes it’s super straightforward, sometimes it’s messy. More often than not, we can devise ways to join the messy and the clean together, such as by breaking out parts of campaigns to equal full campaign names in other channels, or by using the numerous formulas Marketing Cloud Intelligence offers out of the box.

In MI, this is no longer necessary. One of my favorite surprises is seen below: you can classify and normalize data with Einstein AI, so instead of working to modify and standardize all of your data either in the platform of origin or in Intelligence, you can instead have Einstein help you set standardization of your data. This is a fantastic path forward in joining datasets together for synchronized cross-channel reporting.

Two Words: Semantic Modeling 

Though users will have an out-of-the-box paid media data model ready to go, users will have free range beyond the world of pre-defined data models in MCI. In MI, you can set up a semantic model that joins datasets together across multiple objects. While you may miss some of the standardization of having ads, conversion, and web analytics data models, among countless others in MCI, you will get seamless back-end loading of data together, along with seamless joins to standard Salesforce object data. This also means that you can add fields and relationships with full customization as your datasets evolve, or as you update back-end nomenclature to more cleanly join fields from one connection to another.

 Three Words: Return on Investment 

Speaking of Salesforce data, what elevates a good MCI implementation to a great one, in my books, is the joining of cost/engagement data to tangible ROI and meaningful dollar results. With the new integration to the semantic model and the ease of connecting standard objects from Sales Cloud, users can handily create and easily visualize ROI metrics in MI wherever data cleanly intersects, which is now made much easier with Einstein normalization and semantic modeling.

Additionally, attribution is a more straightforward possibility with MI than in current MCI, with the framework to capture website events within Data Cloud data model objects, providing marketers end-to-end visibility into touchpoints where ads have been seen by end users. This will include attribution models for first and last touch for users, and can further be a method to validate ROI and pinpoint specific interactions with customers.

I’ve Never Used MCI or Datorama-Why Should I Explore Marketing Intelligence? 

The Tool for Data Harmonization 

MCI has long been the gold standard for harmonizing marketing data. When clients come to me looking for data solutions, if the core users (front and back-end) are marketers, MCI is always what I recommend. Now with MI, you have the power of what current MCI can do to enable marketers to aggregate and act on data in the same platform as your CRM and marketing data, with the added benefits of generative and agentic AI, 3 click data setup, Data Cloud, and embedded Tableau Next visualizations.

The Tool for Visualization 

Current Marketing Cloud Intelligence has some great visualization options, but the two big enhancements I’ve always wanted and have tried to build guardrails for on my own are: 

1. Faster load optimization for dashboards 

2. Plain language recommendations for end users 

With MI, you get both of those with minimal lifting. Data is smoothly joined together using Data Cloud and back-end semantic modeling, with minimal loading for calculated fields and other computing intensive processes in current MCI. Additionally, with generative AI suggestions and an agent to help you pause underperforming ads, end-users are no longer limited to looking at charts and figuring out what it means,—because actions are ready and available to springboard from on the page.

The Tool for Marketing Customization 

Have you ever wanted to redefine your campaign names in reporting by extracting certain parts of your campaign names from across systems? Have you wanted to group different Google Analytics traffic sources and merge them against ad spending from the respective paid media platforms on an automated basis? What about renaming and grouping a set of campaigns based on criteria only you and your team know and then dynamically filtering for a handful of those campaigns? 

That’s the sort of fun I love to explore with clients, and it’s back in full force in MI with processes like patterns to extract data points from various fields, calculated fields in the semantic layer, and the normalization processes Einstein brings to the table.

A New Era 

Marketing Intelligence launched on March 18th (with Data Cloud and MI licenses required). Talk to your account executive to explore this new product. Marketing Intelligence is going to be the gateway into a new world of dashboarding intelligently (no pun intended) and is sure to streamline data for marketers in ways that have only been hinted at by Marketing Cloud Intelligence previously. I know I’m excited to take this ride, and I hope you’ll join me!

Original article: Salesforce’s New Marketing Intelligence: As Seen by a Datorama Enthusiast

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

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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.

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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.

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Spring has sprung at Salesforce, and it comes in the form of the Salesforce Spring ‘25 Release Notes! Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a budding marketer, this release is packed with goodies that will make your campaigns bloom brighter than ever. Let’s dive into the highlights for Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced Edition!

Take Your Marketing Global 

Marketing Cloud is getting a boost with a WhatsApp integration, making it easier to incorporate this channel into your marketing strategy. Whether you share updates, promotions, or ongoing support, WhatsApp helps you connect with your customers worldwide. The integration includes a campaign template, communication subscription support, and a default Email Preference Center. In addition, it supports 2-way conversations, and the message builder supports audio, video, and file sharing.

AI: Your Marketing Superpower

Salesforce is supercharging your marketing strategy with expanded AI capabilities, bringing unparalleled efficiency and creativity to your campaigns. With Agentforce, you can generate landing pages and email content in seconds, freeing time for more strategic tasks. Need to plan a campaign? Agentforce also crafts detailed campaign briefs, ensuring you start with a strong foundation. For Marketing Cloud Advanced Edition users, the Agentforce Campaign Designer (Beta) takes it even further, providing a single interface to edit and refine your campaign strategies, multi-channel flows, and content. These tools empower you to create more innovative, impactful campaigns.

Spring into Smarter Campaigns and Content

Marketing Cloud’s Spring ‘25 Release is focused on making campaigns smarter and your content work harder. From reusable personalization tools to seamless flows, Salesforce has designed the release to help marketers craft successful campaigns from start to finish.

Personalization That Packs a Punch

Stop spinning your wheels! Simplify your workflow and create tailored campaigns effortlessly with reusable content and personalization points. These features save you time and help you connect more deeply with your audience. Reusing merge fields with Expressions across campaigns will keep your messaging sharp, consistent, and right on target—making every interaction count.

Smarter Segmentation for Better Results

Segmentation is getting a makeover! The Spring ‘25 release features new tools that filter attributes—like new leads—right from the Campaign record, saving you time and speeding up your campaign’s delivery. Plus, you can preview up to 1,000 segment members before activating your campaign flow, giving you confidence in your targeting strategy.

Meet the CRM Prospect Object

Say hello to your new best friend: the CRM Prospect Object. It’s here to help you manage prospects like a pro. Create prospects with forms, nurture them automatically, and convert them into loyal customers. With account scoring based on engagement, fit, and intent, you can prioritize the leads most likely to convert.

Forms That Go Where Your Customers Are

Why make your customers come to you when you can bring the form to them? With the new ability to embed forms on external sites, you can deliver them to your hosted web page. After a quick setup in Salesforce and your external site, grab the form’s code block from its detail page and drop it into your site’s HTML. It’s as simple as copy-paste! (Just make sure your site supports iframes, is secure, and uses HTTPS.)

Flow Like a Pro

Managing Flows is easier and more intuitive than ever. You can handle more of the process directly from the Campaign record, track flow statuses in the new Marketing Calendar (fully integrated with the Sales Calendar), and view flow versions and failures to provide quicker, seamless resolutions. The new Campaign Stage field offers insight into the current campaign and keeps your team updated. Need a little extra customization? Add custom fields to your campaign briefs to make them truly yours.

Content Updates That Shine

Marketing Cloud is releasing new content creation features. With a new “Processing” content status, you’ll always know when landing pages, forms, and branding updates are pending publication. While changes can’t be made during this time, you can relax knowing your updates are locked in. Need to duplicate content? Cloned content is easier to manage by saving it in a shared workspace, keeping your team aligned. Consistent branding has never been more straightforward—assign default branding to your workspace to ensure emails, landing pages, and forms all have the same polished look. Ensure brand consistency across all your forms by assigning a brand, with forms automatically adapting to reflect your workspace, landing page, or external site branding.

And More!

• Connect External Web Tracking to a Campaign allows existing customers to install new data kits and deploy new data streams.
• Tracking and Source Information for Consent helps you comply with global laws and regulations to review the source and consent status change via the Consent Audit Trail in Data Explorer.
• Setup Enhancements aim to save users time. They include tracking setup progress, installing or updating the Sales Data Kit, a guided experience for authenticating domains, and the ability to autogenerate an Identity Resolution Ruleset.

Original article: Salesforce Spring ‘25 Highlights: Marketing Cloud Edition

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

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A common segmentation need with Marketing Cloud Growth or Advanced Edition and Data Cloud is creating a segment based on a Contact’s Record Type within the CRM. While this is possible by adding the Record Type field to the Contact Data Stream and mapping the field to the individual Data Lake Object (DLO), this is not very user-friendly or intuitive. Record types are stored as IDs, and who wants to build a segment based on a Salesforce ID? No worries, I’ve got a better solution!

So What’s the Problem?

Before we get into the solution, let’s first define the problem we’re addressing.

When working with record types in Salesforce, you’ll see labels displayed. These familiar values, such as “Contact,” are easy to understand. However, behind the scenes, Salesforce stores these values as IDs.

The actual values for these record types are 18-digit IDs that can be found in each record type’s URL.

Segments can be created using the field values (18-digit IDs), but this method is just asking for trouble. The IDs are very similar and could be easily confused. It takes a keen eye to spot the differences between the field values when compared side-by-side. Imagine trying to segment or personalize based on these values!

Now that we know the problem, let’s fix it!

Solution Summary

To simplify segmentation and personalization, we will create a formula field on the contact data stream to convert the 18-digit ID into text values. We will then map the formula field to a custom field on the individual DMO and add to the data graph. Lastly, we’ll verify that all data has been successfully updated.

Step 1: Create the Formula Field

Formula fields in Data Cloud are a powerful way to transform data into formats that are easier to understand and utilize. In this case, we’ll create a transformation formula in the contact data stream to generate text values for the record type IDs.

You might be wondering if it’s possible to create a formula field on the contact object in Salesforce and ingest it directly into the data stream. While this sounds like a viable option, it can’t be done due to the fact that formula fields in Salesforce are dynamically calculated and don’t have a corresponding value stored in the database.

Creating the Transformation Formula

• Navigate to the Contact data stream in Data Cloud.
  • Data Cloud > Data Streams > Contact_Home
• Select the data stream and then click the “New Formula Field Button”.

• Enter the requested values and formula text.
  • The formula for this example is below.
    • IF(sourceField[‘RecordTypeId’] ==”012Hs000001p5dvIAA”,”Contact”,IF(sourceField[‘RecordTypeId’]==”012Hs000001p5duIAA”,
      “Partner”,”None”))
    • Remember: Your record type IDs can be found in the URL of the record type page.

• Test the formula for each Record Type ID.
  • Confirm the formula is returning the correct output for each Record Type ID and save.

Step 2: Map to the Individual DMO

Next, we need to map the new formula field to the unified individual DMO. This mapping creates a direct attribute for each unified individual, allowing us to use the text value in Data Cloud segments. For example, this will allow us to create a segment of all unified individuals where Contract Record Type Name is equal to “Contact”.

Mapping Contact Fields

1. Select the “Review” button in the Data Mapping section of the contact data stream.

2. Create a new field in the Individual DMO using the “Add New Field” option.
3. Map the Contact Record Type Name field from the contact DLO to the custom field created in the individual DMO. Save & Close.

 
Step 3: Edit the Data Graph

Data Graphs are required for personalization and dynamic content in Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced editions. To effectively personalize your emails, ensure your data graph includes all fields required by marketing (including the new formula field that we created). When updating your data graph, it’s also a good idea to review it to confirm it meets all requirements for sending emails as detailed in the second resource below.

Data Graph Resources

• Edit a Data Graph
• Marketing Cloud Growth – Data Graph shape and field selection

Step 4: Refresh the Data

Adding and mapping the new formula field will not trigger a full refresh of the data stream. You must trigger a Total Replace of the data stream and also run the identity resolution ruleset to fully refresh the data and populate the values of the formula field in the unified individual record.

Replacing Data Stream & Running Identity Resolution Ruleset

1. Add any existing field from the contact object to the data stream.
   • You can do this by clicking “Add Source Fields” within the data stream settings and selecting any available field. This action forces a complete refresh of the data stream, ensuring all data is updated correctly.
2. Run the identity resolution ruleset.
   • After the data stream refresh completes, manually run the identity resolution ruleset. This ensures that your unified individual records are also updated with the new information. You can find this in Data Cloud by going to Identity Resolutions > Run Ruleset. 

Step 5: Verify the Data

Once your data stream has refreshed and the identity resolution ruleset has run, it’s important to check that your formula field has populated correctly. You can do this by running a Salesforce report using the Unified Individual report type.

Confirm all unified individuals with a value in the “Record Type ID” field also have a value in the “Contract Record Type Name” field by comparing the number of records with values in each field. If the numbers don’t match,  some of your data may not have been updated yet.

Keep in mind that data streams and identity resolution rulesets run on schedules. You might occasionally see differences in the numbers due to these refresh cycles. If you encounter a mismatch, wait for the next refresh cycle and check the report again.

Segmentation Simplified

While both segments below produce the same result, there’s a clear winner in terms of usability. Enabling users to create segments using easily understood, text-based values will improve accuracy and speed of creation. Additionally, these same text values can be used to enhance personalization through merge fields and dynamic content.

Personalization & Dynamic Content

Since our newly created Contact Record Type Name field is related to the individual object, it can be used as a merge field and dynamic content.

Merge Field

Adding the “Contact Record Type Name” field as a merge field in your email will dynamically insert the contact’s record type (Customer or Partner) into the email copy. To prevent blank spaces if a contact doesn’t have a record type assigned, fallback text can be defined. This ensures a smooth and personalized experience for all recipients, even if some data is missing.

Dynamic Content

This is a great way to vary content within an email. For example, a single newsletter could be sent to customers and partners, but display different information based on the Contact Record Type Name field. Customers might see upcoming events, while partners receive a list of partner training resources.

Summary

Segmentation and personalization based on ID fields doesn’t need to be complicated. By investing time upfront in creating and mapping formula fields, marketers can significantly enhance their efficiency and accuracy. This solution minimizes the risk of errors, saves time on backend processes, and enables marketers to confidently create targeted segments and deliver personalized communications.

Big thanks to my friend and colleague Adam Babcock for his collaboration in developing this solution.

Original article: Easy Segmentation & Personalization Using ID Fields in Marketing Cloud

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