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

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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

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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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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

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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

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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.

Marketing Cloud Growth Edition is here and its infrastructure represents a fundamental shift compared to Account Engagement. While Account Engagement is “near core,” Marketing Cloud Growth Edition is built on the Einstein 1 platform and leverages Data Cloud, Flow, and Einstein capabilities. This signals a shift in the skills that marketers will need in the future. But don’t worry, we’ve curated some resources to help you get a head start.   

Is Marketing Cloud Account Engagement being retired? 

Absolutely not. This question has come up in just about every social post that I’ve seen and has been addressed in detail in the blogs below by Andrea Tarrell and Erin Duncan, so we’re not going to dig too deeply into it here. 

The short reason is that Marketing Cloud Growth Edition is a distinct offering geared toward small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). However, innovations and features from this product will make their way into Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, so there will be a need for marketers to evolve their skills.

• The Marketing Cloud That Broke the Internet (& 5 Key Takeaways)
• Announcing Marketing Cloud Growth Edition

What are these new skills that you keep mentioning? 

After playing with Marketing Cloud Growth Edition a bit, three areas really stood out to me.

• Audiences are created using Data Cloud
• Assets are built with Experience Cloud
• Automations (including email series) are powered by Salesforce Flow

While Data Cloud, Experience Cloud, and Flow might sound a little scary, these represent great opportunities for Account Engagement pros to develop new skills. To make things even easier, Salesforce has provided excellent learning resources for all these topics in Trailhead. Let’s get started!

Data Cloud

Data Cloud is a dream come true for marketers. Imagine having all your customer data from different applications centralized in a single location and available when creating your marketing segments. Imagine no more as that’s exactly what Data Cloud delivers.

Marketers need a general understanding of the tool and key terminology. They will also need to be able to utilize Data Cloud to build segments.

Key Data Cloud Terms

• Data Stream: A data source ingested into Data Cloud. Examples include Salesforce CRM and Amazon S3 – and many more.
• Data Lake Object (DLO): A storage container for the data ingested into data streams.
• Data Model Object (DMO): A Data Cloud object created from data streams, insights, and other sources.
• Customer 360 Data Model: Data Cloud’s standard canonical data model. Data ingested into Data Cloud is mapped to DMOs found in the Customer 360 Data Model.
• Starter Data Bundles: A Salesforce-defined data stream that includes mapping to the Data Cloud DMO structure.

Here are some of the sources that can be used as data streams in Data Cloud

Recommended Trailhead Modules

• Data Cloud for Marketing Basics
• Segmentation and Activation
• Create a Data Stream in Data Cloud (I highly recommend this module to get hands-on experience with data cloud)

Here’s an example of how a segment focusing on Sales and Marketing titles based in the United States would look in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition.

Experience Cloud

Assets in Marketing Cloud Growth are built using Experience Cloud. The experience feels similar to the Account Engagement Lighting Builders, but the foundation is different and there are some cool upgrades. I’m a big fan of the campaign-based workflow, the ability to publish/unpublish forms, and the ease with which forms can be styled — without the need for CSS.

Marketing Cloud Growth Email Builder

Marketing Cloud Growth Form Builder

At this time, the best way to prepare for the asset-building experience in Marketing Cloud Growth is to get hands-on with the lightning builders in Account Engagement. If you have not yet enabled them in your org, take a moment to do so using this blog as a guide. You can still access and use the classic builder after the lighting builder is activated, so you are not locked into a single builder.

Recommended Trailhead Modules

• Set Up a Customer Site with Experience Cloud (while not directly related to the Marketing Cloud Growth builders, this is a fun project to learn about Experience Cloud.)

Salesforce Flow

Salesforce Flow is at the heart of Marketing Cloud Growth and represents a great learning opportunity for account engagement pros. Flow has historically been the solution of choice for Salesforce admins when creating declarative automations within Salesforce, but it’s now a marketing tool as well (and you’re going to love it).

Marketing Cloud Growth generates a pre-built flow when assets are created. These are an excellent starting point and can be customized to specify tracking (for emails), subscriptions, and wait step times (in minutes, hours, days, months, or a specific time of day).  Branch logic can also be added to further customize the recipient journey and more features are on the roadmap for future releases.

Flow is one of the tools that is best learned by doing. Fortunately, there are plenty of great Trailhead modules, projects, and superbadges on this topic. If you learn better with the help of an instructor, our Salesforce Flow Basics For Marketers Workshop is for you!

Recommend Trailhead Modules

• Flow Builder Basics
• Build a Simple Flow

There are also a few posts on the Spot that will guide you, step-by-step, through creating flows that address common marketing needs. These are fun little projects that are highly relevant, so be sure to check them out. As always, practice in your sandbox or Trailhead org.

• How to Automatically Create Campaign Member Statuses in Salesforce
• How to Manage Salesforce Campaign Activation with a Simple Flow

Start building your Marketing Cloud Account Engagement skills for the future 

The current release of Marketing Cloud Growth Edition is not a replacement for Account Engagement, but it does give us a glimpse into the future. Many innovations and features from  Marketing Cloud Growth Edition will make their way into Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, so it’s time to begin evolving your skills in preparation.

Original article: Evolving Your Skills as an Account Engagement Pro

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Evolving Your Skills as an Account Engagement Pro appeared first on The Spot.

Scores in Marketing Cloud Account Engagement play a critical role in getting the right lead to the right person at the right time. However, scores can become unreliable and actually distract sales if they are not periodically decayed. In this post, we’ll address the importance of score decay and provide several methods that can be used in your organization. 

A Primer on Scoring

Before we get into score decay, let’s level set on Account Engagement scores. Account Engagement scores are a measure of calculating engagement with your account engagement assets. Prospects with higher scores have had greater engagement and are therefore more sales-ready.

Base Scoring

All Account Engagement accounts come with base scoring rules configured. These rules add and subtract points for actions like email opens, form submissions, page views, link clicks, and more and are intended to be a starting point. It’s highly recommended that you customize these rules based on your organizational needs and conduct periodic reviews to ensure that prospects are not scoring up too slowly or too quickly. 

Review Your Scoring Rules 

Account Engagement Settings > Automation Settings > Scoring

Additional Scoring

Scores can also be increased in Account Engagement manually at the prospect level, using automations (automation rules, completion actions, and engagement studio programs), or in bulk when importing prospects into Account Engagement (by mapping to “Add to Score”).

Suggested Reading 

If you want to learn more about scoring and grading, check out the following posts:

• Pardot Scoring & Grading Lab
• Pardot Grading 101: How to Rate The Quality of Your Prospects

The Importance of Score Decay

Time is possibly the most important consideration that influences the quality of leads.

Think of leads as fresh-baked cookies. Who doesn’t want a chocolate chip cookie hot out of the oven? Those same cookies are still pretty good after they’ve cooled a bit, but they get a bit stale after sitting around for a few days. The same applies to your leads.

It’s important to make sure the hot leads get to sales as quickly as possible and that they are easy to identify. Let’s say that 100 points is your threshold for passing a lead to sales. Which lead would you want to call?

• “Roy” has a score of 150, but his last engagement was 30 days ago.
• “Katie” has a score of 101, but engaged today and passed the 100-point mark as a result.
  

It’s pretty clear that “Katie” is the better lead in this scenario, but we have all the facts. The reality is that your sales team has a lot of leads assigned to them and they don’t have time to learn the story behind each. It’s very possible that sales could prioritize “Roy” over “Katie” based on score alone. This would be logical, but incorrect. We can take the guesswork out of this situation by applying score decay so that “Roy’s” score falls below the 100-point threshold based on his inactivity.

Score Decay Methods

There are two primary ways that scores can be decayed –  Activity Based Decay and User Based Decay.

• Activity Based Decay is based on activity (or inactivity in Account Engagement). This method simply decays scores to a set value (or reduces by a set amount) based on the last activity date of the prospect. 
• User Based Decay is score decay that’s triggered by internal Salesforce users based on updates to the contact or lead record. This could be actions like updating the status or any other field.  

Activity-Based Decay

Activity-Based Decay is very simple to implement but requires a few decisions to be made in advance.

•  When should a lead be decayed?
• By how much should the score be decayed?
  

The “when” question differs greatly between organizations and is often related to the length of sales cycles. Organizations with longer sales cycles tend to tolerate longer periods of inactivity while those that are more “transactional” in nature tend to decay scores quicker.

The decay amount is also based on the organization and its scoring model, but I can offer some guidance and best practices based on experience.

• Tip #1 – Don’t decay all the way to 0. I like to keep some points associated with the prospect as an indicator of past engagement. As a starting point, I would recommend decaying by 50% of your threshold for passing leads to sales. If 100 is your threshold, decay to 50. 
• Tip #2 – Decay to a set number vs. by a specific amount. Scores in Account Engagement continue to increase over time – if measures are not taken. It’s not uncommon to see some older prospects with very high point values. As an example, if a prospect has a score of 275 and you reduce by 50 points, you still have a lead with a score of 225 points who has not been active in an extended period of time. This really does not help at all. My recommendation is to reduce it to a set value so you can be assured that the lead drops off the radar or your sales team – until new engagement is recorded.

Implementing Activity-Based Decay

1. Create an automation rule in Account Engagement with a descriptive name.
   • Example: Score Decay – Last Activity > 45 Days Ago
2. Make use of the “Description” section to summarize what actions the rule will take and when.
   • Example: Decays scores that are greater than 50 to 50 if the last activity is greater than 45 days ago. 
3. Set the rule to repeat and specify the number of days before eligible to repeat.

4. Configure the rules and actions.
   • The example below is very simple, but you can add additional rules as needed. For example, you can omit records that have open opportunities or are being worked by sales so their scores are not decayed.

5. Since this rule will be altering the scores of prospects, be sure to preview the matches before activating. Also, be sure to review all automations in Account Engagement and Salesforce that could be triggered as a result of score adjustments.
    

User-Based Decay

Account Engagement scores are intended as an indicator of engagement within Account Engagement. Since scores can only be changed in Account Engagement, decaying scores based on actions taken in Salesforce requires a bit of ingenuity and a “handshake” between the platforms. The goal is to tell Account Engagement to decrease the score based on an action that occurred in Salesforce.

In this example, we are going to use flows and custom fields to trigger score decay in Account Engagement from Salesforce. I like this option due to the ability to easily set the criteria that triggers the action and the fact that code is not required.

Scenario

Scores should be decayed to 50 if the status is changed to “Nurture” by a user in Salesforce.

Implementing User-Based Decay

1. Create “Trigger Score Decay” custom fields on the contact and lead objects in Salesforce.
   • Data type = Checkbox
   • Default value = Unchecked
2. Create a “Trigger Score Decay” custom field in Account Engagement.
   • Type = Radio Button
   • Sync behavior = Use the most recently updated record value
   • Values (these are case sensitive)
     • true
     • false

3. Create flows on the contact and lead objects to update the “Trigger Score Decay” checkbox based on the defined entry criteria. This is a straightforward flow that uses a single element to update a checkbox field. The checkbox will later be used to trigger an automation rule in Account Engagement.

Full Flow

Entry Conditions Configuration

Update Triggering Records Element

4. The final step is to create an automation rule in Account Engagement that will decay the score if the “Trigger Score Decay” checkbox is checked. The rule will also need to uncheck the box as a way of “resetting” the record. 

Score Decay – Status – Nurture Automation Rule

5. Test, validate, and activate. As with all automations, be sure to test by debugging your flows and previewing automation rule matches before activation.

Address Overinflated Scores

Scores in Account Engagement are meant to identify prospects that are actively engaging with your marketing. If scores are not decayed, identifying prospects with recent activity can become a challenge and lead to confusion for your sales teams.

Score decay is fairly simple to implement, but should not be done in a vacuum. It’s very likely that there are processes in your Salesforce or Account Engagement orgs that could be triggered when the score of a contact or lead is decayed. For this reason, it’s highly recommended that testing is conducted in a sandbox organization prior to implementation in production and that key stakeholders are included in the process. 

Need help along the way? Send us a message to see how we can help you reach your goals.

Original article: How to Deal with Score Decay in Account Engagement

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post How to Deal with Score Decay in Account Engagement appeared first on The Spot.

It’s very common for sales and marketing teams to leverage title-based “personas” to influence their activities. Knowing who you are speaking to can radically alter the message content, type, and frequency needed to progress the buying process. In this post, we’ll address why and how to update marketing persona fields in Salesforce using Flow to assist sales and marketing.

Why Use Flow to Update Marketing Personas?

Let’s start with a very simple question. Why flow? The answer is really based on where your data lives and who needs access to it. I’ve used Engagement Studio in Account Engagement to update persona values in the past, but what happens if the prospect is not in Account Engagement? That’s right — no persona will be updated.

This solution accounts for the fact that all Salesforce data might not be syncing to Account Engagement (or Marketing Cloud Engagement) and that sales still needs persona values. 

Step 1 – Understand Your Buyers and Influencers

Before we can classify records, we first need to understand who is buying from us, who is influential in the purchase decision, and who is not (this is just as important). This is best achieved by analyzing data and speaking to your sales team.

Analyze the data

Create reports based on closed won opportunities and look at the contact roles for job titles that stand out. Odds are there will be clear winners – titles that appear with greater frequency. It’s also likely that you’ll see a mix of the people who actually use your product and a level above them (based on the purchasing authority needed to complete the transaction).

Talk to sales

Chat with some of the top sales representatives to find out where they are having success. Are there certain leads that they cherry-pick based on job titles? Are there certain leads that they deprioritize based on the same criteria? 

Step 2 – Group your data

Now that we know what titles we should be going after (and those that we should avoid), we need to group them into “Personas” (think of these as containers that hold records with similar/related titles). These are the values that we will be populating from our flow and will be used in future segmentation.

It’s important to create values for those that you want to target and those that you do not. An exclusion persona can be just as valuable as a target persona.

Target Personas

Records that are buying from you or are key influencers in the purchase process.

Exclusion Personas

Records that are in your system that do not buy from you and should not be included in campaigns.

• Examples could include: Marketing, Sales, Students, and Human Resources to name a few.  

Once you have your target and exclusion persona values defined, create custom “Persona” fields (picklist) on the lead and contact objects. I like using global picklists when creating picklists with the same values between objects. Global picklists speed the setup, are great for ensuring consistency, and make maintenance a breeze (should more values need to be added in the future).

Don’t forget to: 

• Use the same API name on both objects when creating custom fields (this is critical if you want to map the fields back to Account Engagement).
• Map the lead field to the contact field on conversion.

Example: Global Picklist Value Set

Step 3 – Determine Keywords

Now that we know what titles we should be going after (and those that we should avoid), and we’ve defined the groups that we would like to use for categorization, we need to identify keywords that can be used to query the records (actually – we’ll be using them in formulas). It would be great if titles were standardized, but they are not. Based on this, we are going to look for common factors.

Example: Marketing

Here are some common marketing titles. It would be great if “marketing” was included in all of them, but it’s not. Therefore, we’re going to use keywords like: marketing, brand manager, campaign, content, media relations, product research, SEM, and SEO in our formula to make sure that we properly tag our records.

• Brand manager
• Campaign manager
• Channel marketing director
• Chief marketing officer
• Content marketing manager
• Content specialist
• Digital marketing manager
• Director of email marketing
• Internet marketing specialist
• Media relations coordinator
• Product research analyst
• SEM manager
• SEO specialist
• Web marketing manager

Step 4 – Create the Flow (In Sandbox)

We’re going to use a record-triggered flow to update our persona values. The flow will automatically update the persona value when the title field is updated. Since contacts and leads are distinct objects, a flow will need to be created for each object.

Here’s an example of what a very basic flow would look like. This flow is just updating the value to be Marketing, Human Resources, or Other. A full version of this flow would contain many more paths. 

Configure Start

This flow is based on the lead object and is triggered when a record is created or updated. Since we don’t want to trigger the flow whenever a lead is updated, we’re using a formula to set the entry conditions. We want the flow to run only when new leads are created (and the title is not blank) or the title field of existing leads is updated to a non-blank value.



Finally, the flow will be optimized for Fast Field Updates, since we are updating fields on the same object.

Create Persona Formulas

This is probably the hardest part of this process. We are going to need to create formulas for each of our persona groups using the keywords that we’ve already defined. It’s important to note that formulas are case-sensitive by default. This is good in some cases but could cause records to be missed in other situations. Fortunately, we can address this as well.

Sample Formula 1 

This formula selects the marketing keywords that we identified, but it’s case-sensitive. It would evaluate “True” for a lead with the title “digital marketing manager”, but would not for the title “Digital Marketing Manager”.

OR( 

  /* Title contains any of these title strings */ 

  CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “marketing”), 

  CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “brand manager”), 

  CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “campaign”), 

  CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “content”), 

  CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “Content marketing manager”), 

  CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “media relations”), 

  CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “product research”), 

  CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “SEM”), 

  CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “SEO”) 

)

Sample Formula 2 

This updated formula evaluates the same keywords that were identified but addresses the case sensitivity issue. Here, we’ve used a function to convert the titles to lowercase and then compared them to a lowercase value. This formula would evaluate “True” for the titles “digital marketing manager”, “Digital Marketing Manager”, or “DIGITAL MARKETING MANAGER”.

OR(

    /* Title contains any of these title strings */

    CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “marketing”),

    CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “brand manager”),

    CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “campaign”),

    CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “content”),

    CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “content marketing manager”),

    CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “media relations”),

    CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “product research”),

    CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “sem”),

    CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “seo”)

)

Sample Formula 3

Sometimes, you are going to need a mix of case sensitivity and case insensitivity. As an example, we would not want to update any job title that contains “hr” to Human Resources. This could lead to a lot of false matches. In this case, only titles that contain “HR” in all capitals will evaluate “True”.

OR(

  /* Title contains any of these title strings */

    CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “human resources”),

    CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “HR”)

)

Sample Formula 4

There are also going to be times when you need to look for a specific value, like CEO, and also look for title strings. We can do that too! 

OR(

    /* Title is any of these values */

    {!$Record.Title} = “CEO”,

    /* Title contains any of these title strings */

    CONTAINS(LOWER($Record.Title), “chief executive”),

    CONTAINS(LOWER($Record.Title), “president”)

)

As you can see, there’s a fair bit of work involved in creating and testing the formulas. That’s why working in a sandbox is critical. If you can get all the formulas to update all the values exactly as you would like on the first try, I encourage you to check out our careers page!

Configure Flow Elements

Each path includes a Decision and an Update Records element (learn more about Flow Elements). We’ll walk through the marketing paths and the same logic can be applied to additional paths. The only difference is that the “No” outcome for the final decision should update the persona value to “Other”. We want to add a value to leads that don’t match any of our formulas for two reasons.

1. We want to verify that they were processed by the flow.
2. We want to be able to identify the leads that were not matched by our formulas so we can evaluate and improve. This is VERY important.

Decision Element 

The element is pretty straightforward. The “True” outcome looks for leads where the marketing formula evaluates to “True”. Leads that do not evaluate true progress down the “False” outcome and move to the next decision element.

Update Records 

Leads that match the “True” outcome conditions then proceed to the Update Records element. This is where the magic happens and the record is updated in Salesforce.

Debug

The final step before activating your flow is to do some debugging. Test by updating the titles of a few leads to make sure that they progress down the correct path, Be sure to vary the case of the titles to make sure that upper, lower, and mixed cases work as expected.

Step 5 – Rinse and Repeat

Once deployed into production, your flow is not going to be perfect. There are going to be some records that are classified as “Other” that should fall into other categories. That’s OK!

The final step is to do regular reviews and updates of the records that have the “Other” persona. It’s possible that we missed a keyword on our first pass or that a new hot title has emerged. I compare this a lot to scores in Account Engagement. You don’t quit once you define your scoring model, you evaluate and refine it. The same process applies here. 

Give it a Shot! 

We’ve done a lot in a short post. I encourage you to give this a shot in your sandbox. You’ll be surprised by the number of records that you’ll be able to update and the value that it will bring to your sales and marketing teams. If you get stuck, let us know. That’s why we are here! 

Shout out to Heather Rinke and Jason Ventura for their collaboration in building this process!

Original article: How to Update Marketing Personas Using Salesforce Flow

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post How to Update Marketing Personas Using Salesforce Flow appeared first on The Spot.

Contrary to the opinion of just about everybody in marketing, all your marketing leads are not “Hot” and the sales team is not lazy. The issue is that sales wants marketing to send them the right leads with the right expectations. In this post, we’ll address ways to improve the marketing lead handoff process using Salesforce and Account Engagement (Pardot) so sales and marketing can live in harmony.

The Problems with Marketing Leads

Before we can address the issues that sales teams have with marketing leads, we must first identify them. Below are the most common issues that I’ve encountered as a marketer (20+ years) and as a consultant. While all these issues might not apply to you, I bet more than a few will.

Top Sales Issues with Marketing Leads 

• Poor quality/bad data
• Unrealistic SLAs/expectations
• Marketing leads are too cold/don’t know who we are
• No background information
• Incorrect lead assignment
• Inability to provide feedback

If you have issues that are not included in this list, please share them by dropping a note in the comments!  

Poor Quality/Bad Data

Let’s start with data quality. Marketers have the ability to control what prospects sync from Account Engagement to Salesforce. Most often, this is based on a prospect achieving an agreed upon score & grade threshold. A rule could look something like this.



This rule assigns prospects to the Hot Leads queue when they achieve a score of 100 and a grade of B- or higher. Seems pretty solid?

This is a good start, but not perfect. Let’s say that a demo form on your website adds 50 points (in addition to the 50 that included in the default scoring model for a form fill). Let’s also assume that your grading model adds a full letter grade for prospects in the United States and another full letter grade is added based on job titles that include CEO.

If your form was completed with the data below, guess who would be assigned to the Hot Lead queue, synced to Salesforce, and assigned to a member of your sales team? Sending over leads like this is the fastest way to sour your sales team on marketing leads.

Keeping Bad Data Out of Salesforce

The example above is not uncommon and is a step up over blindly assigning all prospects from Account Engagement to a queue, but we can do better.

At Sercante, we use a tool named Prospect Updater for Pardot that was created by our labs team. This tool can be used to fix, enhance, and enrich prospect data before it enters Salesforce. Here’s how we leverage Prospect Updater in our organization.

1. Visitor fills out a form and a new prospect is created in Pardot.
2. Prospect updater runs and marks a custom field as “Suspected Spam” or “Not Spam” based on criteria that we defined.
3. Assignment automation rules run (in Account Engagement) and only match prospects with a value of “Not Spam” – ensuring that “Suspected Spam” records do not enter Salesforce.

This example just scrapes the surface of what Prospect Updated can do.  See more Prospect Updater examples and use cases.

Want to know more about how Prospect Updater keeps spam out of our org? Check out this post.

Unrealistic SLAs/Expectations

I’ll admit that I’ve been guilty of having some unrealistic expectations in the past. Does this sound familiar? You just got back from a week at that huge trade show in Las Vegas with several thousand leads that are gold and need to be called immediately.

The truth is that there is some gold in your pile of leads, but they are not all worthy of sales follow up. So what should you do?

Managing SLAs & Expectations

1. Agree to what constitutes a Hot Lead first.
2. Collaborate with sales leadership to agree to follow-up SLAs (Service Level Agreements).
   • Hot Leads – 24 Hours
   • Warm Lead – 3-Days
3. Understand the volume of lead that the sales team can follow-up on.
   • If thousands of leads meet your Hot Leads criteria and sales can only follow-up on hundreds, your definition needs to be refined or you need more sales people.
4. Ensure leads are tagged with a priority rating so the proper SLA can be applied.
   • At events, this could be adding a note when you have conversations with prospects.
   • For prospects entering Account Engagement, this could be based on scores, lead sources, or specific form/form handler submissions.

Marketing Leads Are Too Cold/Don’t Know Who We Are

Let’s go back to the trade show example. Your marketing team has done an awesome job of identifying the “must have” swag item and everybody is flocking to your booth to get one. The team is frantically scanning badges and moving to the next eager person in line. Are these leads that should be sent to sales?

Here’s another one. Your marketing team is generating hundreds of leads per week by syndicating content on a third party site. People are gobbling up your content, sales is going to love these leads!

In both scenarios, these leads should not meet your Hot Lead definition (based on these activities alone) and should not be sent to sales for follow up. It’s highly likely that these people don’t even know what your company does. They came by your booth because of the great swag or downloaded a piece of content related to a specific interest. These are prime leads for a nurturing program.

Warming/Education Nurture

Before sending those leads to sales, warm and educate them with Engagement Studio. This is an area where Account Engagement excels — use it! 

When creating your nurture program, keep the following in mind.

• Prospects showing buying signals should be sent to sales as quickly as possible
• Prospects don’t need to complete all steps before being sent to sales
• Not all prospects are ever going to be sent to sales (and that’s OK)
• Don’t add scores at random just to make prospects “score up” to your hot lead criteria

I like the 3-2-1 Campaign recommended by Salesforce. It basically inverts the traditional logic by focusing on hard hitting CTAs first in an effort to identify those with immediate interest and fast tracking the handoff to sales. As an example, your first CTA might be to schedule a demo vs. reading your latest white paper.

Learn more about the 3-2-1 Campaign in the Engagement Studio Best Practices module in Trailhead.

Whether you find the traditional or 3-2-1 Campaign works best for your organization, the point remains that leads need to be warmed before sending your sales teams. Sending cold leads over to sales is a surefire way to create a jaded team. 

No Background Information

This lead is supposed to be hot and I’m supposed to follow-up within 24 hours, but I have no idea why or what they are interested in. Could you imagine following-up with a lead in this situation? How about hundreds of them? That’s how sales feels if you don’t enable them with information. Fortunately, Salesforce and Account Engagement have us covered here too.

Arm Sales with Data

Here’s a list of ways we can provide data to our friends in sales.

• Engagement History Related list
• Engagement History Dashboards
• Scoring Categories Related list
• Custom fields

Let’s look at all of these in a bit more detail.

Engagement History Related Lists 

This displays a feed of a recent engagement from Account Engagement in Salesforce. This list can be added to account, contact, lead, and person account page layouts to provide engagement information for sales and all other users in Salesforce.

Engagement History Dashboards 

These dashboards are powered by CRM Analytics and provide a way for users to see and interact with data on accounts, contacts, leads, and person accounts. These dashboards do require permissions to be granted to users in Salesforce and the number of licenses are limited by your edition.

Scoring Categories Related List 

Most organizations add Account Engagement score and grade fields to their page layouts. This is a great way to show sales the total score that leads and contacts have accumulated, but it does not provide any insight into interests. That’s where scoring categories come in.

Scoring categories allow you to break down the total score in Account Engagement by categories that you define (up to 50). This allows you to see what that prospect is interested in. Note that scoring categories are only included in Plus, Advanced, and Premium editions of Account Engagement.

Account Engagement Grade and Score (in Salesforce)

Account Engagement Scoring Categories (in Salesforce)

The total score of 1,440 does not help the sales team at all. However, the scoring category provides information on topics of interest (Beets) and topics of little interest (Cats).

Custom Fields 

Custom fields are another great way to share information with your sales team. Fields can be created in Account Engagement and synced to the corresponding fields on contact and lead records. Custom fields can vary from organization-to-organization, but here are a couple that I find useful.

• Asset/Event Name – Capture the name of the last asset that a prospect downloaded or the name of the most recent event that they registered for/attended.
• Last Form Completed – Let sales know the name of the last form that a prospect completed. This can be used to customize tasks created in Salesforce too!

Incorrect Lead Assignment

Assignment is always a bit of a sticky one. You can do assignments from Account Engagement, but it’s not something that I would recommend.  Engagement Studio can be used for simple assignments, like assigning leads to a queue, but it’s not intended to do direct assignment to specific sales people based on specific territories. It’s best to leave individual assignments to a tool that’s designed for that purpose.

Popular Lead Routing Tools

• Assignment Rules (Salesforce)
• Geopointe
• LeanData
• RingLead (Zoominfo)
• Traction Complete

When looking at lead routing tools, consider the needs of your organization. Assignment rules in Salesforce are great, but only one assignment rule can be active on the lead object. This can become an issue if you have more complex rule logic. You can reassign leads using lead assignment rules, but it requires flows and invocable actions.

Assignment rules have some limitations, but you also have plenty of options if they can’t support your needs. There are tools that allow you to build easy routing flows using tools that feel a lot like engagement studio and others that allow you to do geographic assignment using maps. Selecting the right tool for your organization is a critical decision. The best leads are not going to generate any revenue if they are sitting in a queue somewhere or have not been assigned at all.

Inability to Provide Feedback

Feedback from sales is an incredibly valuable tool. It helps keep sales happy by letting marketing know what leads they like and what leads they don’t. It also helps marketing know where to spend their budget to maximize their impact.

Remember those content syndication leads that we spoke about earlier? Maybe marketing generated a large number of leads at a low cost per lead, but sales found a large number had bad phone numbers or simply did not meet your ideal customer profile. How impactful could knowing this be to marketing? I bet they would change the spend allocation of their budget in a hurry with this data. The great thing is that this level of reporting is possible with disposition codes.

Lead Status and Disposition Codes

Lead status is used in Salesforce to represent the current status of a lead. Common values include: Open – Not Contacted, Working – Contacted, Closed – Not Converted, and Converted. These let you know the status a lead is in, but not the reason why.

This is a great start, but we want more. This is where adding a disposition code can help. Disposition codes are commonly used in call centers to classify the results of calls. This same logic can be applied to support the lead stage changes and provide additional insight to marketing and the organization as whole.

Once set up, disposition codes are required when moving a lead from one stage to the next. Field dependencies provide a list of relevant disposition codes for each status. In the example below, the user is required to tell you “why” the lead needs to be nurtured when updating the status to Open – Nurture.

Disposition Code Uses

• Timely indicator of lead quality
• Tailoring of follow up communications/nurtures
• Identifying records to suppress from marketing communications
• Determining records to delete from Account Engagement

The disposition code field can be used to create reports in Salesforce for increased visibility. These can be a huge asset for marketing when planning how to allocate future budgets. I find reporting on disposition codes at the campaign level to be the most impactful. To do this, formula fields are used on the campaign member object to enable reporting on your custom fields. Check out Jenna Molby’s blog “How to Add Custom Fields to Campaign Members in Salesforce” to learn more. A record-triggered flow is also needed to update the contact status and disposition codes on the contact object then a lead is converted (but that’s a post for another day).

The end result is a really cool report that shows what happened to all the leads that were included in a campaign. Keep in mind that if a person is included in multiple campaigns, the same status and disposition code will display for both.

Here, I can quickly see that 22% of the leads from my 2023-06 TSW Connections campaign were converted to contacts (and why).  I can also see that 56% of the leads need further nurturing (and how they should be nurtured). By syncing the disposition code field to Account Engagement, the values can be used to enter prospects into targeted nurture campaigns based on their needs vs. a generic nurture program. Pretty cool!

Collaboration and Communication are Key

Sales and marketing are really on the same team. Both want to drive sales and both want to be able to show the impact of their efforts. By working together and addressing the issues discussed, you can create an environment where your sales and marketing teams are united and work together towards a set of common goals.

Original article: How to Get Sales Pumped About Marketing Leads

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