How to Pass Salesforce Marketing Associate Certification Exam
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How to Pass Salesforce Marketing Associate Certification Exam

Last Updated on May 30, 2024 by Rakesh Gupta

As a newly minted Salesforce Certified Marketing Associate, I am sharing my study experiences with you and want you to be the next one to ace it! So, get ready and dive in!

👉 As you are here, you may want to check out the How to Pass Salesforce Certified AI Associate Certification Exam article.

A New Credential for Marketing Trailblazers

The Salesforce Certified Marketing Associate credential is for individuals who are interested in an entry-level marketing role within the Salesforce ecosystem. This certification highlights the knowledge, skills, and abilities of an individual new to Marketing Cloud Engagement and general marketing concepts.

The Salesforce Certified Marketing Associate credential is an entry-level, multiple-choice exam intended for individuals with up to 6 months experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement. It’s designed to prepare Salesforce Trailblazers for a career in marketing by validating their foundational marketing knowledge, including what Marketing Cloud Engagement is and how it solves business needs based on Salesforce best practices.

So, Who is an Ideal Candidate for the Exam?

Candidates for this job role want to learn about Marketing Cloud Engagement and common business use cases. They are interested in gaining Marketing Cloud Engagement experience and may want to explore future marketer certifications. This role is an entry point for those looking to become a Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Email Specialist or a Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Administrator.

A candidate for the Salesforce Marketing Associate Certification Exam should have knowledge, skills, and experience in the following areas:

    1. Understands general marketing concepts such as metrics, target audience, opt-in/opt-out, and compliance and privacy basics
    2. Has foundational knowledge of Marketing Cloud Engagement components and functionalities
    3. Can navigate Marketing Cloud Engagement and is familiar with its features
    4. Understands how to use digital marketing tools to engage with customers, drive leads, and support business objectives
    5. Has knowledge of and can use Marketing Cloud Engagement email tools and features
    6. Understands journeys and Marketing Cloud Engagement Journey Builder
    7. Is familiar with Marketing Cloud Engagement’s reporting and analytics capabilities to track key email metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates

How to prepare for the exam?

Learning styles differ widely – so there is no magic formula that one can follow to clear an exam. The best practice is to study for a few hours daily – rain or shine! Below are some details about the exam and study materials:

  • 40 multiple-choice/multiple-select questions – 70 mins
  • 65% is the passing score
  • Exam Sections and Weighting
    • Marketing Concepts: 28%
    • Marketing Cloud Engagement Basics: 22%
    • Email Sending and Journeys: 22%
    • Data Management: 18%
    • Reporting and Analytics: 10%
  • The exam Fee is $75 plus applicable taxes
  • Retake fee: Free
  • Schedule your certification exam here

The following list is not exhaustive; so check it out and use it as a starting point:

  1. Salesforce Certified Marketing Associate Exam Guide
  2. Trailmix: Prepare for Your Salesforce Marketing Associate Credential

What you Need to Know to Smoothen your Journey

On a very high level, you have to understand the following topics to clear the exam. All credit goes to the Salesforce Trailhead team and their respective owners.

  1. Marketing Concepts: 28%
    1. Three Steps to Omni-Channel Experiences
      1. Onboard your customers.
      2. Activate first-party data.
      3. Measure your marketing.
    2. What’s the first thing a subscriber reads? The subject line. If it doesn’t grab their attention, the work you put into the email is lost. How can you ensure your subject lines are effective?
      1. Keep them short and sweet. Short and medium-length subject lines have higher open rates than long ones, which ultimately affects conversion rates (the percentage of people who take action based on your email). What’s more, Email service providers sometimes truncate subject lines. So limit them to 50 characters or fewer.
      2. Use your branding to your advantage. Limiting the length of your subject line doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice style. Infuse your brand into the messaging and take advantage of brand loyalty. Catch the reader’s eye with symbols, creative wordplay, or by intrigue.
      3. Test, test, and test again! This is how you determine which subject lines yield the best results. With good email marketing services (like Salesforce Marketing Cloud) it’s easy as A, B, C. Actually, it’s as easy as A/B Testing.
      4. The Skinny on A/B Testing – At its core, A/B testing takes two versions of your email, and tests to see which one works better. Say you want to test subject lines to see which one is more effective. You send two different versions of the subject line to a portion of your subscribers (that’s the “A/B” part). Based on the results of that A/B test, a winner is determined and the winning version is sent to the rest of your subscribers.
    3. There are multiple testing possibilities, including testing the preheader, body, and specific content blocks of an email; send days/times; and (drumroll) subject lines! A/B testing shows you how subscribers respond to subject lines of varying length, style, or personalization. It also shows which are most effective according to a variety of metrics, such as opens, clicks, and conversions. These metrics help you understand what motivates your subscribers.
      A/B Testing Possibilities Example
      Front-loading the brand name Company Name: The rest of the subject line
      Front-loading keywords Keywords: The rest of the subject line
      Length Short subject line versus a wordy and never-ending subject line that your readers will totally ignore
      Styles Hello! Show your style. Use symbols $&@ or emojis to catch your reader’s attention
      Personalization %%First Name%%, your 20% off coupon
      Calls to action Shop now for 20% off on your order
    4. Readers who see their first name in an email are more likely to feel as if the email is reaching out to them personally. This makes them more likely to open, read, and act on your email.
    5. Personalization and relevance are great. But generally, the purpose of marketing emails is to prompt your subscribers to do something. For this you need a good call to action (CTA). This can be a limited-time offer, or a prompt to enter a contest, visit a website, or sign up for an event. Give your customers an irresistible reason to open your email, and once opened, take action. Great CTAs are
      1. Urgent: Use CTAs that create a need for urgent action.
      2. Brief: State the CTA briefly, with no more than five words.
      3. Action-oriented: Begin your CTA with a verb (download, register, buy, save).
      4. Clear and predictable: Be clear and link to a place that doesn’t surprise subscribers.
      5. Limited and visible: Focus subscribers’ attention on one to two prominent CTAs.
    6. CAN-SPAM stands for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act. (Get it? “Can” the SPAM?) It became a U.S. law under George W. Bush, and is enforced in the United States by the Federal Trade Commission. These guidelines help you avoid annoying or, worse, decreasing your subscriber base. And help you stay compliant. So what are the CAN-SPAM guidelines?
      1. Accurately identify the sender in the header information.
      2. Use a subject line that accurately represents the content of the email.
      3. Identify the message as an advertisement.
      4. Include your physical mailing address.
      5. Honor opt-out requests promptly. Process an unsubscribe request within 10 days, and keep your unsubscribe mechanism operational for at least 30 days after the mailing.
      6. Provide a mechanism to opt out. You cannot require a subscriber to log in or visit more than a single page to unsubscribe.
    7. Methods that let subscribers opt in to email messages.
      1. Email Sign-Ups – Require users to give you an email address before they can create an account on your website. Or promote your online loyalty program by requiring an email address to register. Offer users an incentive for subscribing, use a pop-up form for website visitors that reads, “Subscribe to our mailing list and get 10% off!!”
      2. Mobile Sign-Ups – Do you have a mobile app? Create an option to opt in to emails when users register for or use it. Consider buying mobile app ads. If you play free games on your mobile device, you’ve probably noticed ads that pop up in the middle of the game. You can use these types of ads to encourage customers to subscribe to your emails. Use this tactic with caution—this can sometimes annoy and turn off customer.
      3. Single Opt-In Versus Double Opt-In – Single opt-in requires a person to respond only once to opt-in for future sends. Double opt-in requires a person to respond affirmatively and then confirm that affirmative response in order to opt in for future sends. Double opt-in is a good way to ensure that an email address is entered correctly and validated. It catches those that have typos when their email is entered originally. For example, you can run a mobile campaign that asks users to text a keyword to a specific short code in order to opt in to a campaign. This is an example of a single opt-in. If you ask users to send a keyword and their email address, and then to open their email and confirm their choice to opt in, that’s an example of a double opt-in.
      4. Social Media – You can promote content via any type of social media that requires an email to access. This is the case for many common social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. All require an email address to sign up. Let’s talk through an example. Say Cloud Kicks decides to advertise via Facebook. Their ad shows up in your newsfeed, and you’re interested in the shoes that are being displayed. You click the post, and it goes to the Cloud Kick’s Facebook page. There, you see a link to subscribe to their monthly newsletter. This is a great way to acquire subscribers.
      5. In-Store Promotions – Another great way to get customer email addresses is to have sales associates ask for them during the checkout process. For example, stores often offer to email their customers a receipt. Or they offer future deals or informative communications (such as sales) via email.
    8. A welcome program sends a series of email messages to a subscriber. They are based on the date that the subscriber opted in to receive messages. For example, the series may include a welcome email and two subsequent messages based on specified periods of time. Welcome programs can create some of the highest open and click rates of any email messaging.
    9. The profile center is a webpage where subscribers can provide and update their personal information and basic preferences (or attributes). Any attribute you store about a customer shows up on their profile center (things like email, gender, and name).
    10. A subscription center is a separate page that identifies which messages a subscriber receives from your business. Here’s an example.
    11. In Content Builder, review Preview and Test and click through your sendable data extension to make sure the email is rendering appropriately.
    12. It can be time consuming to make sure your email looks great on all devices. So instead view your email on the email service providers (ESP) and devices they are using the most. Then focus on perfecting those emails.
    13. Salesforce Partner, Litmus, offers a plug-in that previews your email across 70+ browsers, devices, and clients. This allows you to easily view the devices that are most popular for your subscriber, and really fine-tune the email to them. If you have a Litmus account, you can preview these versions right in Content Builder, under the test send option.
    14. Suggested QA checklist for your email campaigns.
      1. The subject line and preheader are correct
      2. Email is using the correct header and footer
      3. Email is using the correct template (if applicable)
      4. No typos or grammatical errors
      5. All images render correctly
      6. Email utilizes inclusive marketing principles
      7. All links work, have alias tags set, and go to the correct location
      8. ALT text is set and does not include any spelling/grammatical errors (if applicable)
      9. All required legal copy is present
      10. Unsubscribe link is correct and present (unless transactional)
      11. Text version is correct
      12. Email rendering verified via Litmus previews (if applicable)
      13. View as a Web Page (VAWP) link is present and working properly (if applicable)
      14. Tracking pixel is present in the HTML: <custom name=”opencounter” type=”tracking”>
      15. Email validates against test, proof, seed, and live data
      16. All dynamic elements are functioning properly (if applicable)
    15. Email Deliverability
    16. A/B Testing in Email Studio
    17. CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business
    18. The CCPA began as a grassroots movement by Californians themselves. Registered voters in California signed a ballot initiative petition to put the CCPA up for a statewide vote, bypass the legislature, and enact it into law by referendum. With increasing public interest in privacy, the California legislature decided to work with the initiative’s authors, the private sector, and civil society to draft a negotiated bill to replace the ballot initiative. On June 28, 2018, the ballot initiative was withdrawn, and the CCPA was passed by the legislature and signed into law by the governor.
      1. The CCPA went into effect on January 1, 2020, and was a significant expansion of privacy law in the United States. The law gave California residents broad new rights, such as:
        1. The right to know what categories of Personal Information businesses are collecting about them
        2. The right to know whether businesses are Selling their Personal Information and to whom
        3. The right to prohibit businesses from Selling their Personal Information
        4. The right to access their Personal Information
        5. The right to request that a business delete their Personal Information
        6. The right to equal services and pricing when exercising rights under the CCPA
    19. Consumer rights under the CCPA include the:
      1. Right to notice
      2. Right to access
      3. Right to opt out of sales (or right to opt in)
      4. Right to request deletion, and
      5. Right to equal services and pricing
    20. EU legislators adopted the GDPR to keep privacy law relevant in a world where far more data is collected than ever before. They also wanted to ensure a uniform law existed across the EU and avoid major differences between countries. The GDPR went into effect on May 25, 2018, and significantly expanded the privacy rights granted to individuals. It also placed many new obligations on organizations that handle personal information.
      Term Definition Example
      Data Subject A “natural person” who can be directly or indirectly identified by information such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier (such as a username), or their physical, genetic, or other identity. Marie Dubois
      Personal Data Any information relating to an identified or identifiable data subject. Woman. Age 48. Ph#: 33 1 7210 940. Address: 99 Place de l’Étoile, 75008 Paris, France. Likes hats. Reads Le Monde online every day.
      Sensitive Personal Data Personal data pertaining to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade-union membership, information about health, sex life and sexual orientation, and genetic or biometric data. Member of En Marche! Party. Catholic. Broke leg last year. Copy of fingerprints and retinal scan.
      Processing Anything that is done to or with personal data. Any collection, storage, transfer, sharing, modification, use, or deletion of personal data.
      Controller An entity that determines the purposes and means of processing of personal data. Grande Banque du Nord is a financial institution that is providing Marie with a mortgage to buy a house. When Marie first registers on Grande Banque’s website to get more information about mortgages, Grande Banque becomes a controller of the personal data Marie provides.
      Processor An entity that processes personal data based on the instructions of a controller. Salesforce becomes a processor of Marie’s personal data when Grande Banque uploads her data to its Sales Cloud instance.
      Pseudonymous Data Personal data that cannot be tied to a specific data subject without additional information that is stored separately, with technological measures to ensure the data is not combined with that additional information. When Marie visits the Grande Banque website portal hosted on Experience Cloud to learn more about the mortgage process, the system records her IP address in hashed form and links it to the pages that Marie views. The hashed IP address is considered pseudonymous data, because, although the hashed IP address alone does not identify Marie, it’s still possible to link it to other information that relates to Marie.
      Anonymous Data Data that cannot ever be connected to an identified or identifiable person. The Grande Banque website asks people to leave reviews. The system does not collect any information from reviewers—not even IP addresses. The reviews themselves can be considered anonymous.
    21. Return on investment, or ROI, measures the all-important cost-effectiveness of campaigns—that is, how much a campaign earns compared to how much it costs. And while ROI can seem tricky to calculate, it is key to helping you define the value marketing brings to your company. Let’s break it down.
      1. Determine the value of sales from a campaign (translate to your industry; for example, value of the number of new accounts, new donors, or whatever you are trying to achieve).
      2. Subtract campaign costs (include the platform, super messages, human resources, and time put in).
      3. Divide by campaign costs.
      4. Multiply by 100.
  2. Marketing Cloud Engagement Basics: 22%
    1. Marketing Cloud Setup
    2. Subscriber Key in Marketing Cloud
    3. Get to Know Marketing Cloud
    4. The Marketing Cloud Engagement edition your company purchased dictates the type of tenant you’re working with. You’ll encounter the term tenant when reviewing Marketing Cloud Engagement documentation, and it helps to understand how your account is structured.
      Tenant Type Description
      Enterprise 2.0 A tenant is the top-level account and includes all associated business units.
      Enterprise 1.0 A tenant is the top-level account and includes all associated On-Your-Behalf or Lock & Publish business units.
      Core A tenant is a single account.
      Agency Each top-level account and each associated client account is a separate tenant.
    5. Your initial account name is set at the time your Marketing Cloud Engagement account is provisioned for you. A unique member identification code, or MID, is assigned to every account (whether it’s Core, Enterprise, or Agency) and any associated child accounts. The MID value identifies that entity. So, depending on your Marketing Cloud Engagement edition, tenants can include single or multiple MIDs. 
      1. An Enterprise 2.0 tenant includes multiple MIDs for Enterprise-edition accounts.
      2. An Enterprise tenant includes multiple MIDs.
      3. A Core tenant includes a single top-level account with one MID.
      4. An Agency tenant includes only the top-level account. Each associated client account unit is a separate tenant.
    6. Marketing Cloud Engagement includes several settings to help you keep your account secure. In Marketing Cloud Engagement Setup, use Quick Find to navigate to Security Settings. There are several settings you can manage for all users of your Marketing Cloud Engagement tenant, including session timeout, requiring a secure connection, expiration for logging in, and much more. To get started, here are some best practices we recommend for your security settings:
      Field Recommended Setting
      Session Timeout 20 minutes
      Login Expires After Inactivity 90 days or less
      Invalid Logins Before Lockout 3
      Count Invalid Logins Across Sessions Yes
      Minimum Username Length 8 characters
      Minimum Password Length 8 characters or more
      Enforce Password History 8 passwords remembered
      User Passwords Expire In 90 days
      Send Password Change Confirmation Email Enable
      Enable Audit Logging Data Collection Enable
    7. Marketing Cloud Engagement includes standard roles and permissions for how areas of the application can be accessed and used. Roles are convenient because they package a set of permissions that you can grant to a user, rather than having to manually grant individual permissions to each user. A permission grants a user access to something and determines what they can do with it. For example, you can grant a user permission to read something, but not create something.
      1. Marketing Cloud Engagement Administrator—This role assigns Marketing Cloud Engagement roles to users and manages channels, apps, and tools. (Hint: this is you!)
      2. Marketing Cloud Engagement Viewer—This role views cross-channel marketing activity results in Marketing Cloud Engagement.
      3. Marketing Cloud Engagement Channel Manager—This role creates and executes cross-channel interactive marketing campaigns and administers specific channels like Email Studio.
      4. Marketing Cloud Engagement Security Administrator—This role maintains security settings and manages user activity and alerts.
      5. Marketing Cloud Engagement Content Editor/Publisher—This role creates and delivers messages through applicable channel apps.
    8. Business units control access to information and sharing of information throughout Marketing Cloud Engagement. For example, a company with multiple divisions or brands can create a business unit for each brand, so that users within that business unit can access only their brand-specific content. You can then use user roles and permissions to control what users can do within a business unit.
    9. Users working in a business unit can access all items created in that business unit. Share items with users in other business units by placing the items in a shared items folder in the Content and Subscribers sections of the applications.
    10. Before creating business units, map out your organizational structure for business units. Do you want to mirror hierarchical structure of your company? Or geographical regions? Perhaps you want to align with workflow processes or an operational structure? Build a list or chart of the business units to review with your stakeholders first. After creation, the next step is to assign users to business units.
    11. Marketing Cloud Engagement sends into two categories: user-initiated and triggered. 
      1. User-initiated send: When you choose the subscribers and the time to send a message—that’s a user-initiated send. These are typically marketing-related messages. You manage the entire process of a user-initiated email message through Marketing Cloud Engagement. A monthly newsletter sent to company employees is an example of a user-initiated send.
      2. Triggered send: A triggered send occurs in response to an action that your subscriber takes. Although you define the content and interaction for that message, it sends automatically when a subscriber does something. These are often transactional messages. For example, sending a confirmation email to a customer who purchases something on your website is a triggered send.
    12. The CAN-SPAM Act establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for violations. Marketing Cloud Engagement processes unsubscribe requests to help you remain compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act. There are also specific settings in Marketing Cloud Engagement that you can use to differentiate commercial emails versus transactional emails, which are treated differently under the CAN-SPAM Act.
    13. The Sender Authentication Package (SAP) in Email Studio provides a collection of products designed to help ensure that your email messages reach the intended recipients’ inboxes.
      Private Domain This product assigns a domain used to send email. This domain acts as the From address for your email sends. Marketing Cloud Engagement authenticates your email sends using the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), Sender ID, and DomainKeys/DKIM authentication.
      Account Branding This product brands your account with your chosen authenticated domain. It also modifies link and image wrapping and removes all references to Marketing Cloud Engagement in favor of your authenticated domain.
      Dedicated IP Address This product assigns a unique IP address to your account. All email sent from your account via Marketing Cloud Engagement uses this IP address, which represents most of your sending reputation.
      Reply Mail Management This product controls the replies you receive from your subscribers. You can assign filters for out-of-office messages and manual unsubscribe requests.
    14. Have you ever sent a message and wished you could know whether people were actually reading it or clicking any of the links? Marketing Cloud Engagement makes it easy for you to get that information and more for every message you send. Tracking data includes:
      1. Total and unique opens
      2. Total and unique clicks
      3. Unsubscribes
      4. Delivery rate, including bounces
      5. Forwards
      6. Click activity and exactly which links were clicked
    15. An individual email is only deemed “Delivered” when there isn’t a bounce receipt.
    16. Marketing Cloud Engagement provides dozens of standard reports to track the effectiveness of your campaigns. You can run reports manually or schedule them to run automatically. You can also choose who receives the reports. Check out some examples of what you can learn from these reports.
      Report Type Description
      CloudPages Access the data you collect from Smart Capture forms using the CloudPages Data Extension on any CloudPages Landing Page, Microsite, Facebook Tab, or MobilePush Page.
      Contacts Learn the total number of billable contacts in your account or data about an individual contact.
      Discover Discover provides templates with measures and attributes preselected to answer a specific business question. Each template suggests a specific chart type and applicable features in Discover, such as custom calculation, data filters, or conditional formatting. Use one of the templates or start with a blank page and build your own report.
      Email Review email performance by device or attribute, examine email success in specific campaigns, discover what day is the best performing send day, get statistics on impression tracking, and much more.
      Journey Builder See tracking and engagement metrics for emails sent in journeys, aggregated by day or a specified period of time.
      Mobile Get the total number of subscribers and unsubscribes for SMS, tracking information about SMS messages, and keyword activity summaries. Run reports for push message tracking results. Review a summary of outbound messages sent to LINE followers, including the delivered message count.
    17. Preference management in Marketing Cloud Engagement includes two standard pages: a basic profile page that collects subscribers’ personal information and a subscription center which handles campaign-specific opt-ins. Creating a custom preference center combines these two pages into one and allows you to tailor it to your audience and brand. Because it is a custom solution, you can create it to perform specific actions depending on your needs and workflow. For example, here is a Salesforce preference center that manages employee communications.
    18. A marketer’s key responsibility is to honor a subscriber’s preferences and ethically use their data. Managing unsubscribe requests is the most important data-related task of a custom preference center. And the lawyers agree. While local regulations vary, to be CAN-SPAM compliant in the US all unsubscribes need to be accounted for within 10 days. But we recommend you process unsubscribe requests as soon as possible. As you might’ve guessed, when a customer clicks unsubscribe from your preference center, they aren’t magically unsubscribed. A process needs to be created in order to manage the request. 
      1. If you have multiple business units in your account, you need to decide how to handle subscriber preferences for each. Should a subscriber be globally opted out of email or only at a specific business unit level? If branding and data separation matter, each business unit should have its own custom preference center page and unsubscribe option. From an email, a subscriber chooses to unsubscribe or update preferences and receives a confirmation message, then the data is updated in the All Subscribers List and Preference Center data extension.
      2. A subscriber key (also called a contact key) is a unique value that identifies a subscriber in Marketing Cloud Engagement. The type of key you use can impact your preference management. If you are using an email address as your subscriber key in Email Studio, you may run into issues if a household shares one email address or if you also want to manage mobile preferences—which might use a separate key. It’s best practice to use a single, unique contact key across Marketing Cloud Engagement that does not relate to a specific communication channel.  
    19. Tips for a Trouble-Free Preference Center
      1. While we used AMPscript for this sample solution, you can also use Server-Side JavaScript to build a custom preference center.
      2. If you are using client-side Javascript and code in Content Builder, the script tag can get stripped. To avoid this you can Replace your opening script tag <script> with some AMPscript %%=Concat('<scr','ipt>')=%%.
      3. If you get a general 500 error after publishing, you may have issues with your AMPscript. Review your code and republish.
      4. Regularly review your data collection and be sure all data points are being used and preferences are being honored.
      5. Blueprints should be updated as the solution is completed.
      6. Store your solution documents in a central location so they can be accessed by your team for future reference.
  3. Email Sending and Journeys: 22%
    1. Quick Start: Create and Send a Message in Journey Builder
    2. Email Settings
    3. Subscriber data, in Marketing Cloud Engagement, is stored in either a list or a data extension.
      1. A list is a collection of subscribers that receive your communications. You can create as many lists as you need to segment your subscribers and target your email communications.
      2. A data extension, on the other hand, is a table within the application database that contains your data. You can use a data extension to store not only sendable subscriber data—just like with a list—but also relational data like purchases, inventory, and rewards program data.
    4.  There are three ways to import data into a data extension.
      1. Manually with the Import Wizard—This is a handy-dandy wizard located within the data extension. It allows you to manually bring your data into a data extension, and we discuss it in more detail later.
      2. Import Activity—The Import Activity, like the Import Wizard, allows you to manually bring your data into a data extension. The main difference is the Import Activity can be automated using Automation Studio.
      3. API—You use an API call to import your data.
    5. In the world of digital marketing, content is typically characterized as either static or individualized.
      1. Static content does not change for any reason, for example the company logo at the top of an email or social links at the bottom.
      2. Individualized content changes based on data found in the data extension or list at the time of a send or push, for example a person’s name within text or specific content related to their interests.
    6. You can individualize content with:
      1. Personalization strings: Insert subscriber attributes, such as subscriber name, into the subject line, preheader, or content of your email.
      2. Dynamic content: Display content according to rules that you define based on the subscriber’s attributes or data extension field values.
      3. AMPscript: Use this scripting language to embed subscriber-specific content within HTML emails, text emails, landing pages, SMS messages, and push notifications from MobilePush.
    7. Subscriber Preview in Content Builder allows you to view a single email, including dynamic content, A/B testing, and personalization. Yasmin wants to use Subscriber Preview to see exactly what her email will look like to an individual subscriber in the data extension.
    8. Data is the key to understanding your customer and optimizing future email sends. Once you has sent her weekly promotional email, she can see how it performed in the Tracking tab, which allows her to view:
      1. Sent – Total number of emails sent.
      2. Delivered – Total number of emails delivered.
      3. Deliverability Rate – The percentage of emails that were delivered compared to the number that bounced (soft and hard).
      4. Total Soft Bounces – The number of emails that were recognized by recipients’ mail servers but were returned to the sender because their mailboxes were full or the mail servers were temporarily unavailable.
      5. Total Hard Bounces – Number of emails that permanently bounced back to the sender because the addresses were invalid.
      6. Email Opens – The total number of times subscribers open an email where the images render.
      7. Open Rate – The percentage of emails that were opened (images rendered) compared to the number that were delivered.
      8. Clicks – The number of subscribers who clicked on a link in the email.
      9. Click Rate – The percentage of subscribers who clicked on a link compared to the number of emails delivered
      10. Unsubscribes – Total number of subscribers who clicked unsubscribe.
      11. Unsubscribe Rate – Percentage of subscribers who clicked unsubscribe compared to total number of emails delivered
    9. Create and Send Targeted Emails
    10. Send method to use in Marketing Cloud Engagement, it’s helpful to understand the CAN-SPAM send classifications: commercial and transactional. 
      1. Commercial messages are sent to subscribers who have opted in to receive marketing content from your brand. For example, a newsletter or sales promotion.
      2. Transactional messages often include necessary information sent in response to a specific user action, and don’t require a subscriber to opt in to receive your content. For example, identity validation, password reset, or shipping notifications.
    11. Differentiating between contacts and subscribers is important when using multiple Marketing Cloud Engagement channels.
      1. A contact is a person you send messages to through any marketing channel. A contact typically appears in the All Contacts section, but a contact record can also appear in other locations.
      2. A subscriber is a person who opted to receive communications or belongs to a particular channel. A subscriber lives in the individual studios. Subscribers can be imported or created manually and are stored in data extensions.
    12. Contact data is managed in Marketing Cloud Engagement and Salesforce through Contact Keys, Contact IDs, and Subscriber Keys.
      1. Contact Key – A contact is managed and related through the different channels using a single Contact Key. The Contact Key is a unique identifier that you assign to a contact. If a subscriber is sent an email and the contact wants to be on mobile, the contact is added to the mobile channel by the Contact Key. The Contact Key identifies a contact within an account and ties together the contact, channels, and the relationship. The Contact Key is the same no matter what channel is used to send messages. The Contact Key is what allows you to connect contacts in multiple channels. Let’s say you have a contact in Email Studio that you identify using their email address, and in Mobile Studio you use their mobile number. Without the Contact Key, it would be difficult for Marketing Cloud Engagement to know to connect the contact, since the contact has two different identifiers. Marketing Cloud Engagement will process the information as two different contacts in Contact Builder. Make sure you are consistent across all channels when assigning a Contact Key to a contact. 
      2. Contact ID – The Contact ID is a number Salesforce uses to uniquely identify a contact on the backend. Salesforce uses the Contact ID to identify a contact in various channels.
      3. Subscriber Key – In Email Studio, contacts are identified by the Subscriber Key, which becomes the Contact Key in Contact Builder. The Subscriber Key is the primary key for your subscribers and allows you to identify subscribers with a value that you choose. Use a Subscriber Key to:
        1. Maintain multiple sets of subscriber attributes for a single email address. For example, if a family shares an email address, you can use a Subscriber Key to uniquely identify each member of the family.
        2. Include a single email address multiple times on a list. For example, send a separate message for each car a subscriber owns in a single send.
    13. A contact can contain two types of attributes.
      1. Profile attributes describe who the contact is. Some of this data is provided by the subscriber, such as gender, state, or interest (do they like hiking or running?).
      2. Behavioral attributes describe what the contact has done. For example, a contact indicates some related interests or clicks links when reading a newsletter.
    14. There are three types of data extensions in Marketing Cloud Engagement.
      1. Standard data extensions are used for building a custom set of fields.
      2. Filtered data extensions are used to create a subset/segment from an existing data extension.
      3. Random data extensions allow you to randomly select subscribers from a source data extension
    15. All data extensions are either sendable or nonsendable.
      1. Sendable data extensions have a send relationship and map to a subscriber. Contacts are added to All Contacts when you send to them.
      2. Nonsendable data extensions are reference data, such as the weather, airport codes, orders, product tables, etc.—things you want to use to personalize emails, but not a person you are sending an email to.
    16. Segmentation allows you to create specific criteria or rules and apply the rules to a data extension. Segmentation allows you to take your larger audience and then send targeted and relevant messages to a segment of that audience to ensure that you’re sending the right message to the right subscriber at the right time. When segmenting data, random segments, as well as filtered segments, can be created.
      1. You can create a random data extension, or add the split function, which splits up subscribers from a selected Data Extension and places the subscribers into random Data Extensions in Email Studio. You can create as many as 12 groups at a time and apply filters to segment data on a data extension or data extensions. Filters are typically used to update existing data extensions, as well as create brand new data extensions.
    17. When you configure your data retention settings, it’s important to think about both the data and the use case for that data. Marketing Cloud Engagement is not designed to be a universal storage vehicle for all of your customer information, so you should be strategic in how you set up your data models. For example, if the data needs to be continually refreshed and an external system has more up-to-date information, you should set up your data model to re-import data before each send instead of preserving historical records in Marketing Cloud Engagement.
      1. Data that passes the retention limits will be permanently deleted, keeping the record counts in line with your ongoing personalization and segmentation needs. By default, the data extension retention policy deletes unused data extensions after 6 months. The deletion process runs nightly.
    18. Options to Delete a Contact:
      1. Contact Deletion using API
        1. You can delete contacts using Contact ID or Contact Key or List. Refer to the documentation on the REST APIs using the links provided.
      2. Contact Deletion in UI
        1. Select a contact from All Contacts and click Delete.
        2. Contacts have to be set up on a sendable data extension or in a mobile list in order to delete them. You select one of those sources to delete and everyone on the list will be deleted and all the associated contact data will be removed.
    19. You can use Content Builder to create emails from scratch or from templates that include multiple layout options for you to customize. When creating an email, choose one of these options.
      1. Template: Create an email from an existing template.
      2. Template + AMP: Create an email from an AMP email template.
      3. HTML: Paste in your existing HTML code or write code from scratch in the editor.
      4. HTML + AMP: Code based option that also includes the AMP editor.
      5. Text Only: Create an email that displays as text only in your subscriber’s inbox, regardless of their display preferences.
      6. Existing Email: Select an existing email to duplicate and revise.
    20. A message layout comprises various blocks of content. These blocks are made of anything from images to text to buttons. Your message layout can include one or many content blocks. Content Builder is your destination for building these blocks. Types of content blocks include:
      Type of Content Block Description
      A/B Test A/B Test allows you to create two different content blocks and track which performs better during an A/B Test. A/B Test works with Content Builder emails for testing content.
      Behavioral Triggers Create a content block for abandoned cart items when you configure Behavioral Triggers in Journey Builder.
      Block Auth Developers use this option to create a custom block through Heroku and the Content Builder SDK (software development kit).
      Button Create a reusable linked button with this content block. For example, link to a sign-up form.
      Code Snippet Use code snippets in Content Builder to save reusable bits of HTML, AMPscript, and Guide Template Language. Use code snippets for a single block or for an area as large as an entire message template.
      Dynamic Content Use Dynamic Content to create content that is personalized for subscribers. Include subscriber attributes, such as first name or membership status.
      Email Form Create an embedded form directly within an email that allows subscribers to submit forms without leaving their inbox.
      Enhanced Dynamic Content Create a dynamic content block by importing a delimited file containing text and image URLs. Instead of using AMPscript and data extensions to manually create complex dynamic content and the rules for each variation, Content Builder creates the content from the data in your import file.
      External Content Paste in a URL to external content that is embedded in your message.
      Free Form Free Form gives you complete control to add a combination of text, links, images, and more.
      HTML Paste or upload HTML code into this type of content block.
      Image Block Insert JPEG, PNG, GIF, and AMPscript files to display an image in this block.
      Image Carousel The Image Carousel block allows you to add blocks of up to five rotating images. You can set these images to auto-rotate every 6 seconds. Navigation arrows allow the recipient to manually rotate through the images.
      Layout Similar to a template, create a reusable group of content blocks.
      Social Follow Add links to your social networks in your email with this content block. Subscribers then choose to follow your social accounts.
      Social Share This block includes links that allow subscribers to share an email through their social networks.
      Text Use this for blocks that include only text and links.
    21. Content Builder is not just for emails. Use Content Builder to create SMS messages and push notifications.
      1. SMS Message: Create an SMS text message in Content Builder by entering the message and selecting a code type (geographic market) to preview it.
      2. In-App Message: When you create an in-app message, you can choose from three different layouts. The full-page layout fills the screen and requires interaction. The banner layout appears at the top or bottom of the screen. The modal layout shows part of the screen behind it and is great for contextual information. After choosing a layout, you can add an image, title, message, and buttons. You can also use advanced design features to specify colors, fonts, and more.
      3. Push Notification: To create a push notification in Content Builder, enter a title, subtitle, message, and media. You can also select an option for an open behavior—this is what happens when the recipient presses the push notification on their mobile device. Open behavior can include opening the app, directing the user to a specific page in the app, or opening another URL.
    22. Marketing Cloud Engagement accounts can store duplicate contact records for several reasons:
      1. Incorrect data models allow for multiple records stored in different data extensions.
      2. Different channels use different IDs (such as a mobile number or an email address) for the same contact.
      3. Incorrect data causes records to sync from other clouds.
      4. Processes reimport contacts even after you imported them once or deleted them.
    23. SAP uses four main tools to vouch for your email messages as timely and relevant communications.
      1. Dedicated domain
      2. Custom account branding
      3. Dedicated IP address
      4. Reply mail management
    24. RMM is a part of the Sender Authentication Package (SAP), and you will need help from your Marketing Cloud Engagement account executive to get everything configured. As part of the process, you need to provide the following information.
      1. Email Display Name—this information is the From name for the replies you send. We recommend you make this personal. Use the actual name of the person that handles the replies, or at least use your friendliest customer service organization name, such as customerservice@example.com.
      2. Reply Subdomain—this is the subdomain that handles all of the RMM rules, such as reply.example.com. RMM uses this subdomain to make sure that it handles all of the replies and forwards correctly.
      3. Email Reply Address—this email address joins the Email Display Name in the From information of any replies RMM sends. And while it looks like an email address—when the time comes, it transforms into a forwarding address to RMM for processing. Magic! You can use a string for this value or define it via a sender profile (which we cover in the next unit).
      4. DNS Record Redirect Complete—this checkbox indicates that you already completed the DNS record direct to Marketing Cloud Engagement. Since you’ll be working with your Marketing Cloud Engagement account rep to accomplish this task, you should wait for their approval before enabling this feature. Trust us, they’ll tell you exactly when it needs to happen.
    25. The sender profile standardizes the From name and email address you use for email sends. Marketing Cloud Engagement stores this information so you can simply select a sender profile whenever you perform a send. Not only can you create several different sender profiles to fit your needs, but you can also use personalization strings or AMPscript to populate the field. For example, if you send to an audience with the data extension field customer_rep, you can include %%customer_rep%% in the From name field when you create the sender profile.
    26. While the sender profile includes the From information for your sends, the delivery profile includes some important message information for each send.
      1. A header with a link to view the email message as a webpage
      2. A footer containing the physical mailing address required by CAN-SPAM regulations
      3. An unsubscribe link allowing users to remove themselves from your mailing list (also in the footer)
      4. You can choose to include the default account information for a delivery profile, select a different delivery profile, or even forgo the delivery profile altogether. If you choose that last option, the email itself must include the physical address and the unsubscribe link. Otherwise, the message will not be sent until you add the information.
    27. Send classifications allow you to create sender and delivery profiles, then join them together in whatever combination you need for your sends.
    28. The best way to develop your email marketing reputation is to send only relevant messages to those who opt to receive them and, of course, follow all sending regulations. So how do you do that if you’ve never sent an email message from an IP address before? As part of the Sender Authentication Package (SAP), you get a dedicated IP address for sending. But before you send, let’s talk about how you can properly warm up your IP address.
  4. Data Management: 18%
    1. Data Extensions in Contact Builder
    2. Use a Smart Capture Form as a Journey Builder Entry Event
    3. With your essential data in mind, you can box it up and start labeling. First, label the data based on field types found in Marketing Cloud Engagement: number, text, date, Boolean, decimal, email, phone number, or locale. Then label and identify your keys. Which keys? Glad you asked. There are three types of keys to keep in mind.
      1. Foreign key: Marketing Cloud Engagement organizes data using a relational database, and in this type of structure, foreign keys are used to connect data between two unique tables or sources. For example, you might find CustomerID on a customer data extension, and PurchaserID on a POS data source. They may have different names, but these fields are the same customer. Therefore these fields become the foreign keys that connect these two pieces of data.
      2. Contact key: The contact key is a unique value you assign to identify a contact within your Marketing Cloud Engagement account. (You may know it as a subscriber key in Email Studio.)
      3. Primary key: A Marketing Cloud Engagement primary key is a unique field on a data extension that identifies a specific and, well unique, data point. Often this is the contact key, but it can be something unique to that data. For example, in a product catalog data extension, SKU can be a unique identifier (and therefore, a primary key).
    4. Contact Key Best Practices
      1. To maintain consistency, use the subscriber key value in Email Studio as your unique contact key in Contact Builder.
      2. Use a unique value that does not relate to a specific channel.
      3. Use a contact key value that does not change based on customer behavior.
      4. If using Marketing Cloud Connect, it is best practice to use the Lead or Contact ID as the contact key. Using this ID will automatically sync with Sales Cloud and Service Cloud data, so you will have a consistent identifier across all clouds.
    5. Things you can find in Data Designer.
      1. Data sources: This is where you identify and organize all your data sources, including synchronized and custom sources.
      2. Data extensions: This is where you build the placeholders for your data. You can also create data extensions in Email Studio.
      3. Attribute group: This is a way of organizing your data model. Within an attribute group you have attribute sets or data extensions, and the attributes are the fields within a data extension.
      4. Populations: These can be used to differentiate between groups of people or data models that have unique attributes or identifiers. Populations are beneficial for a company that has a different model or structure for communicating with customers vs. employees.
    6. These are the basic tools you use to design your data model. So, how do they fit together? An attribute group is a collection of data extensions, with links to tie them together based on common data they share. Let’s review an example of a potential customer attribute group.
      Data Source Associated Data Extension Data Connection
      External Preference Center Master Customer Master Customer DE identifies CustomerID as the primary key attribute.
      Website Browsing Activity Web Activity Web Activity DE links to Master Subscriber DE via the foreign key attribute CustomerID.
      Retail Purchase Data (POS) Customer Purchases Customer Purchases DE links to Master Subscriber DE via the foreign key attribute CustomerID.
      Product Catalog CSV Product Catalog Product Catalog links to Customer Purchases via the foreign key attribute ProductID.
    7. You can have one SFTP per Enterprise account or separate SFTPs for each child account or Member ID (MID).
    8. If your files are encrypted or zipped, a file transfer activity is needed before you can import the file into Marketing Cloud Engagement. A file transfer activity is a two-step process in Automation Studio that
      1. Transfers the file to the safehouse (more on that in a minute) and
      2. Decrypts or unzips the file to prep for import. The safehouse is where Marketing Cloud Engagement stores decrypted or unzipped files for a short period of time. 
    9. There are three ways to get data into Marketing Cloud Engagement. Let’s take a closer look.
      Manual Importing (Email Studio) Import Definition (Contact Builder) Import Activity (Automation Studio)
      Description You can import any data type into Marketing Cloud Engagement manually by navigating to the data extension and clicking on the Records tab. From there, click Import. Follow the instructions on the screen to import your data into the data extension. You can create a reusable import definition within Contact Builder. To run this import definition in Contact Builder, click the action icon in the row of the definition you want to trigger. Create an import definition or reuse an existing one from either Contact Builder or Automation Studio. Once you create the import definition, add steps to the automation and define when you want the automation to run.
      Pros
      • Easy to use
      • Allows you to import a record from your desktop vs. an FTP
      • Helps with planning
      • Can be used in a future automation, or can be used with an API call
      • Automated
      • Can be easily scheduled
      Cons
      • Can’t be automated
      • Can’t be automated
      • Initial setup is more complex
    10. A send log is a data extension that is created to store specific data about your email sends—beyond the information already stored in tracking. Standard tracking options in Marketing Cloud Engagement store email send performance based on a job ID (or a system created ID) at the time of send. You can use a send log to track additional information about the send, based on what matters most to your business.
    11. Before you create your send log, confirm that your account has send logging and data extensions configured. Additionally, if you have an Enterprise 2.0 account, determine if you want to have the send log in the enterprise account or in the individual child accounts.
      Enterprise “Parent” Send Log Business Unit “Child” Send Log
      Pros Good for reporting on emails across business units. Good for reporting on business unit specific campaigns.
      Cons Can get very large, quickly, therefore it is important to establish a data retention policy. Doesn’t show a big picture across lines of business.
    12. While you can add new fields later to the send log, it is better to add all possible required fields at the beginning, since historical data can’t be added after the send log has been created.
      1. Default Data in Template:

        • JobID: The numeric identifier of a traditional email send.
        • ListID: The unique identifier created by the application.
        • BatchID: A number that identifies the batch associated with a Triggered Email Send event. It is used to differentiate between multiple sends to the same Subscriber using a single Job.
        • SubID: The SubscriberID associated with the receiver of the email.
        • TriggeredSendID: The numeric identifier of the triggered send.
        • ErrorCode: Identifies any error found in a send.
        Common Custom Fields:

        • Subscriber-level info (email address, subscriber key, anniversary date, and so on)
        • Email or campaign name
        • Internal campaign ID/code
        • Send date (dates added are in UTC-6)
    13. While the Setup screen provides a general overview of volume for these areas, you need to dig further into your account and evaluate these specific areas in more detail. Here are some questions to consider based on account areas like journeys, automations, content, and more.
      Account Area Questions
      Journeys
      • How many journeys are active vs. drafts?
      • Are there any outdated journeys that can be archived or deleted?
      • Do your journeys have set goals?
      Automations and Integrations
      • How many active automations are running?
      • Do you know what each automation’s purpose is? (Send email, run a report, and so on)
      • What automations are inactive or paused?
      • Are there any common errors or reoccuring query failures?
      • Are you using verification activities?
      • Any outdated automations that can be archived or deleted?
      • Are you using error notifications?
      Data Architecture
      • Are you using Contact Builder?
      • Are you using a common contact key?
      • Are you using lists? How about data extensions? How many?
      • Are there any outdated data extensions that can be archived or deleted?
      • Are you using data retention?
      • What type of data are you storing in Marketing Cloud Engagement? Any sensitive data?
      • Are you using naming conventions for organizing?
      Content
      • What type of content blocks are you using? Templates? HTML?
      • Do your content blocks use a programmatic language like AMPscript or JavaScript?
      • Does anything seem out of place, outdated, or something you want to investigate further?
      • Are you using naming conventions to organize?
      Users and Setup
      • How many active users are in your account?
      • Is there anyone you don’t recognize?
      • Are there any user accounts that should be disabled?
      • What users have API access?
      • How many sender profiles are set up in your account?
      • Have you set up Alert Manager to notify an email address of sending errors?
    14. Review some possible risks and solutions to improve the quality of your data.
      Situation Risk Action Steps
      Customer’s Info Changes
      • Duplicate records in Marketing Cloud Engagement
      • Unable to send an email to a subscriber due to bad info
      • Update DBOR daily. Create an automation to update your database of record when a customer’s data changes in Marketing Cloud Engagement.
      • Update external systems. If Marketing Cloud Engagement is the DBOR, create an automation that sends an updated file to an external FTP. This can also be done via API.
      Inactive Subscribers
      • Deliverability issues caused by email service providers (ESPs) flagging your account
      • Try a reengagement campaign. It’s worth trying to get unengaged subscribers engaged with your emails. If they don’t respond, remove them from your list.
      • Change email frequency. Send your inactive subscribers fewer messages.
      • Test subject lines. Consider trying different subject lines.
      • Test an offer. Try sending a winback email with a great offer.
      Opted Out Subscribers
      • Processing times increase when the system has to review opted out email addresses before a send
      • Scrub lists. Remove opted out subscribers from your sending data extension.
      MC Connect Sync
      • Processing times increase when the system has to sync contacts that won’t be used in Marketing Cloud Engagement
      • Delete contacts. Any contacts that aren’t needed in Sales Cloud should be deleted before syncing with Marketing Cloud Engagement.
      • Adjust sync settings. Only sync contacts or information that will be used in sends or personalization.
    15. Some best practices in data storage that can help with account optimization and email processing times.
      1. Establish naming conventions and limit the number of data extensions in your account.
      2. Limit the amount and content types of stored data.
      3. Limit column length and use the correct type of data extension.
      4. Limit overall table size.
      5. Create a primary key for any data extensions that are updated or added to.
      6. Only update with new data versus a full data refresh.
      7. Use shared data extensions across business units.
    16. One of the easiest options for ongoing data hygiene is to create a retention plan to limit the number of data extensions in your account and the amount of data you store. When you create a data extension in Marketing Cloud Engagement, you can choose how you want to apply data retention by selecting to delete specific data or the entire data extension. 
      1. Allow data to expire when it is no longer needed.
      2. Automatically remove data extensions that are no longer needed regularly.
    17. You’ve moved in to Marketing Cloud Engagement, unpacked, and even started to arrange your space. Now for the finishing touches. As we mentioned earlier, Marketing Cloud Engagement data extensions and Contact Builder use a relational database. So, you need a good way to get to all of that rich data. Enter: Structured Query Language (or SQL), a domain-specific language that can do just that. In Marketing Cloud Engagement, an SQL query activity is used to execute queries and retrieve data for reporting or segmenting audiences.
    18. System data views are Salesforce-created queries that you can use to find information about your subscribers. Just remember, you won’t be able to make changes to these precreated data views. Here are some of the most commonly used views.
      Data View Query Information
      Bounce _bounce Identify and then suppress commonly bounced email addresses from sends.
      Click and  Open _Click

      _Open

      		 Query these data views in Automation Studio to view click and open data for emails from your Marketing Cloud Engagement account.
      Helps to identify additional messaging opportunities by indicating subscriber engagement on a specific JobID.
      Complaint _Complaint Query this data view in Automation Studio to view complaints data related to emails from your Marketing Cloud Engagement account.
      Use to prune your lists to ensure more accurate audiences and improve deliverability.
      Journey _Journey Find a journey’s status, created and last modified date, and other general journey information using this Journey Builder data view.
  5. Reporting and Analytics: 10%
    1. An ISP is a provider of an email mailbox to an end user (that is, your subscriber). This can include companies that provide Internet connectivity like a cable company or a service that provides free web-based mailboxes such as Gmail or Outlook.com.
    2. An IP address is a unique numeric identifier (for example: 136.147.131.11, one of the Marketing Cloud Engagement sending IP addresses) that every machine connected to the Internet (or network) has to distinguish your online activity from another machine. ISPs often look at an email server’s IP address when determining whether to accept the email. 
    3. Shared IP addresses are shared with other organizations on an email server. Sending reputation in a shared IP pool is based on a blended reputation of all senders. A dedicated IP address is used by one organization to control its own sending reputation.
    4. Domain names are friendly names that are associated with IP addresses and are used to identify the sender. You can also have a subdomain that relates to your domain. 
      1. A subdomain enhances security and consumer confidence since email.getcloudyconsulting.com can only be obtained by the domain owner of getcloudyconsulting.com. Alternatively, using something like getcloudy-email.com gives the appearance of a possibly spoofed domain and reduces consumer confidence, since anyone could obtain it.
        Email Address Domain Subdomain
        name@email.getcloudyconsulting.com getcloudyconsulting email
    5. Private domains (like cloud.getcloudyconsulting.com) can be purchased separately for use with email or for landing pages. Private domains don’t include link or image wrapping and aren’t compatible with DMARC authentication (more on that in the next unit).
    6. DNS is a database that connects IP addresses with their corresponding domain names. You can delegate your domain to Salesforce to manage DNS on your behalf, or self-host directly through your provider.
    7. Phishing is impersonating a trustworthy source to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details.
    8. Spoofing is falsifying information in an email message; for example, using a fake “From” address.
    9. Email authentication is a process that confirms an email isn’t forged and is from the organization who owns the provided domain name. This process allows an ISP to block known spammers and approve email from reputable domains. This process varies by ISP, with some ISPs being stricter than others. 
    10. An SAP is purchased from Salesforce and includes a collection of products, including an authenticated private domain with link and image wrapping, a dedicated IP address, and reply mail management (RMM). We cover this topic in more detail in the next unit.
    11. SSL encrypts communications between networks, allowing sensitive information such as credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, and login credentials to be transmitted securely. While not related directly to email deliverability, SSL (HTTPS) links are considered best practice and are often required by large retailers and corporations. Not having SSL on landing pages and clickable URLs can negatively impact deliverability. 
    12. For specific Gmail spam folder issues, you can directly contact Google via the form: Sender Contact Form. Google won’t respond directly to you, but if Google agrees with your request, it adjusts its spam filter settings within 2 weeks. If you don’t want to submit the form, you can open a Support case and the Salesforce Email Reputation team will submit the request on your behalf.
    13. Are Your Marketing Emails Effective? These 10 KPIs Will Tell You
    14. While you can authenticate and register your domain independently, a Sender Authentication Package (SAP) through Salesforce ensures you have compliant, authenticated email messages when sending from our platform.
      1. Message authentication helps ISPs know that your sends are legitimate. Private Domain is a paid product that provides Sender policy framework (SPF) and DomainKeys identified mail (DKIM) authentication to your Marketing Cloud Engagement sending domain.
        1. Sender policy framework (SPF) is a DNS-based email authentication feature that allows senders to publish a list of IP addresses that are used for sending.
        2. DomainKeys identified mail (DKIM) signs messages with a cryptographic signature that verifies the domain and prevents spoofing.Northern Trail Outfitters email with callouts for domains, RMM, bounces, view online, clicks, and images.
    15. Branding matters when it comes to emails! When subscribers know who the email is coming from, it helps reduce spam complaints. Link and image wrapping removes all references to our default Marketing Cloud Engagement address (exacttarget.com) in favor of your authenticated domain.
    16. Some commonly asked questions surrounding DNS and SAPs.
      Question Answer
      Who should purchase an SAP? An SAP is a great choice for anyone sending more than 100k messages/month (the minimum needed to keep a dedicated IP ramped up) who is also concerned about branding and wants to ensure ExactTarget domains aren’t visible in links or images.
      Can I use an SAP for the branding even though I don’t send emails at a high volume to warrant a dedicated IP? Absolutely. If you’re sending less than 100k per month, you can still benefit from authentication and branding aspects of an SAP. Low volume only impacts dedicated IP addresses. More on IP volume in the next unit.
      Can we put multiple SAPs on one account? No, a single Marketing Cloud Engagement account number (each MID) can support only one SAP, but you can have as many private domains on a single account as you wish.

      For example, Get Cloudy has a parent account and two child accounts. They have an SAP for each child account. Child account (MID 12345) uses an SAP for clients with the domain clients.getcloudyconsulting.com. The other child account (MID 23456) uses an SAP for internal emails with the domain consultants.getcloudyconsulting.com. All three accounts use the private domain pages.getcloudyconsulting.com for their landing pages.
    17. IP warming is the process of gradually increasing the volume of mail sent by a new IP address. The goal is to build up at least 30 days of desirable sending history so that ISPs have an idea of the kinds of mail coming from your new IP address. Basically it’s your chance to build your reputation as a desirable prospect. The ramp-up period can take longer than 30 days for some senders and a shorter time for others. Factors such as your overall list size, list quality, send frequency, and subscriber engagement can influence the amount of time it takes for your IP address to be fully ramped up. 
    18. The Journeys dashboard gives you a high-level overview of journey performance for the most recent version of a journey, regardless of whether it’s running, finishing, stopped, or still in draft status. Here’s a handy reference for the different types of journey statuses.
      Version Status Description
      Canceled A Single Send journey was canceled before the scheduled date and time.
      Deleted The journey was deleted.
      Draft A fully editable version that has not been activated. There are no active customers running through or waiting in it.
      Running The most recently activated version. Once activated, it becomes the primary version.
      Scheduled The Single Send journey is scheduled to send at the specified date and time.
      Sent A Single Send journey started or sent a message on the specified send date and time.
      Stopped A running journey version can be stopped at any time. Customers in that version of the journey are ejected and the journey becomes inactive.
      Finishing Existing contacts continue to flow through the journey, but no new contacts enter the journey.
      Pausing A user has requested this journey to be paused, and the process is in progress. The journey’s next status is Paused.
      Stopping A user has requested this journey to be stopped, and the process is in progress. The journey’s next status is Stopped.
      Resuming A user has requested this journey to be resumed, and the process is in progress. The journey’s next status is Running.
    19. Marketing Cloud Engagement provides two standard reports for monitoring email engagement tracking over time for a particular journey. You can run these reports at any time or schedule them to run automatically. The reports can be emailed to one or more addresses, or exported via FTP.
      Journey Builder Email Send Summary Tracking and engagement metrics for emails sent in journeys over a specified time frame. Choose specific journeys and versions to include in the report.
      Journey Builder Email Sends by Day Tracking and engagement metrics for emails sent in journeys, aggregated by day, for a specified time frame, along with specific journeys and versions to include in the report.
    20. Warming up a new IP address can take 4+ weeks to ramp up based on the size of your list. Here’s a general guide for North American ISPs. Do this for any domain where you have more than 20,000 subscribers. Send the suggested volume to your top 10 domains until you’ve reached your complete audience by domain.
      ISPS & DOMAINS DAY 1–3 DAY 4–5 DAY 6–7 DAY 8–14 DAY 15–21 DAY 22–28 DAY 29+
      Gmail 5,000 10,000 20,000 40,000 80,000 160,000 320,000
      All Others (AOL, Yahoo, and so on) 20,000 20,000 20,000 40,000 80,000
    21. List of best practices to help maintain good deliverability, stay out of spam folders, and maintain a favorable IP reputation.
      Best Practice Explanation Consideration
      Ensure that all subscribers you send to have given permission. All of the names on your subscriber lists must give explicit permission for you to send them email via the application.

      Even if you’ve received permission, people often forget that they signed up for emails.
      • Rereview your opt-in process to ensure opt-ins are clear.
      • Possibly add language at the top of your emails stating how the subscriber opted in to receiving your email communications. A reminder can help increase results and reduce complaints.
      Have an easy unsubscribe process. Ensure the unsubscribe process is easy and hassle-free for the end user. It’s better for a user to unsubscribe than mark your email as spam.
      • Consider moving your unsubscribe link to the top of the email.
      • Review the unsubscribe process to make sure it’s user-friendly and easily visible. Making the link difficult to find can result in spam reports from your recipients.
      Send to engaged subscribers. Adapt your sending practices to ensure you only email subscribers who want to hear from you.
      • Run a reengagement campaign for unengaged users and then either opt-down or opt-out those unengaged subscribers.
      Deal with bounce rates greater than 10%. Proactively remove your bounced addresses before your next send. Though the application automatically holds undeliverable emails after the third bounce, a bounce rate over 10% can dramatically harm your deliverability and ISP reputation.
      Be easy to identify. Make sure your from names from email addresses and subject lines are easily recognizable.
      • Review both subject lines and from names, as these are often the first thing people look at when determining what mail to open and which to ignore or complain about.
      • Possibly include the name of your organization in the subject line.
      Add address book instructions to your email. Maximize the number of subscribers who add you to their address book and minimize the number of sends that end up in a bulk or spam folder by adding address book instructions to your email.
      Practice good data hygiene. Do you have names that you haven’t mailed to in 6 months? How about customers that haven’t opened an email or clicked a link in that same time period? If yes, it’s time to see if these old or inactive addresses bring you joy, or if you need to get rid of them. These customers cost money to mail, reduce your ROI, and are more likely to complain.
      Manage frequency and content. Are you sending your emails more often than you promised? Less often? Is the content different from what you promised? 

      Remember that permission communications are to be anticipated, personal, and relevant. 

      If your users don’t anticipate your email or your content, reevaluate why you are sending them email in the first place.

Conclusion

If you have basic experience with all the above topics, passing the exam will be a cinch, and you will be able to earn the much-coveted Salesforce Certified Marketing Associate certification exam! However, if you do not have enough experience (3-5 months) with the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement and plan to become a Certified Marketing Associate. I suggest you draw a 3-4 weeks plan (finish the above Trailhead to prepare for it).

I hope that you find these tips and resources useful. If you put the time and effort in, you will succeed. Happy studying and good luck!

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