Publish date:

• 20th March, 2025

Marketers today face many challenges. They deal with excessive information, spam, and intense competition. Protecting customer data is also very important. Keeping customers interested and engaged in products is becoming more challenging.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud emerges as a key partner in this complex environment. This article examines the details and challenges of contemporary marketing, highlighting how Salesforce Marketing Cloud's features enable organizations to cut through digital clutter, provide targeted and personalized experiences to customers, and cultivate lasting customer relationships.

What is Salesforce Marketing Cloud Used For?

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a marketing automation platform that helps businesses design, automate, and execute multi-channel marketing campaigns. It seamlessly integrates with the Salesforce ecosystem to enhance customer engagement and drive results.

What does Salesforce Marketing Cloud Do?

Salesforce Marketing Cloud comprises a range of tools designed to manage, optimize, and analyze marketing efforts. Its features include tools that assist businesses in executing email marketing campaigns, design customer journeys, interact with customers via social media, promote products to generate new leads, customize communication, personalize customer experiences, automate data collection and analysis, and strategize marketing plans.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Features

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a single platform that offers a range of marketing tools. These tools are grouped into three main areas: messaging and automation, data and advertising, and measurement and analytics. You can use the products in Salesforce Marketing Cloud individually or in custom combinations to help meet your digital marketing goals.

Customer Journeys Creation and Management

• Create tailored, multi-step, cross-channel customer journeys from beginning to end with a drag-and-drop interface; 

• Map out and streamline all phases of your customer's experience in marketing communications; 

• Initiate automated responses based on customer interactions to trigger relevant actions; 

• Recommend additional customized products for your customers by leveraging data from various sources and channels; 

• Utilize AI to automate decision-making splits and A/B testing to roll out more effective campaigns at a larger scale; 

• Assess the effectiveness of journeys using integrated dashboards while reviewing the performance and engagement of marketing efforts across email, mobile, and advertising.

Tailored Email Campaigns

• Develop email campaigns from the ground up using a collection of pre-designed email templates or create your custom emails with user-friendly drag-and-drop features;

• Initiate, oversee, and evaluate your email marketing initiatives;

• Leverage AI to tailor all campaigns based on target audience segments, purchase stages (warmup, post-purchase, retention), or other pertinent customer details;

• Consolidate all your email marketing efforts in one location, whether they are transactional or promotional;

• Monitor your email sender's reputation score.

Mobile Apps Marketing

• Use a mobile app to promote your special offer to customers.

• Connect with your customers through easy in-app messages and send push notifications.

• Use geotargeting or customer behavior data to create marketing campaigns that target specific audiences most likely to be interested in your product or service.

Social Media Engagement

• Oversee your business's social media profiles from a single interface;

• Interact with clients on all major social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, utilizing key features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud;

• Handle social media posts, manage community interactions, and provide outstanding customer service.

• Track monthly mentions;

• Spot emerging trends;

• Evaluate customer data available on social media channels;

• Simplify your social media content planning, scheduling, and audience sentiment assessment;

• Leverage Salesforce Marketing Cloud integrations to create a comprehensive and enhanced social media marketing strategy.

Advertising Capabilities

• Enhance your business marketing strategies by leveraging the capabilities of Salesforce Marketing Cloud for targeted advertising.

• Initiate promotional campaigns on platforms like Google, Meta, and Twitter.

• Expand your reach by leveraging first-party customer data to refine targeting and messaging.

• Target specific segments of your audience through customized advertising campaigns.

• Effortlessly integrate advertising into customer journeys.

• Utilize real-time analytics to assess the effectiveness of advertising and ensure seamless coordination across various channels.

Optimized Web Experiences

• Manage customer web experiences using Salesforce Web Studio.

• Create and improve landing pages and microsites.

• Centralize all web content management, including forms and coupons.

• Utilize customizable templates to create distinctive web pages; 

• Leverage various traditional advantages of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, such as drag-and-drop tools for straightforward web design and A/B testing features to refine web content; 

• Integrate your CRM, customer management systems, and marketing efforts using Salesforce Marketing Cloud integrations.

Unique Content Creation

• Simplify the integration of images, documents, and content using a cross-channel content management solution.

• Utilize an easy drag-and-drop interface to develop engaging content for emails and web pages.

• Produce various content types, including emails, images, videos, and social media posts and messages.

• Work together with your team throughout the content creation process.

• Consolidate your content across multiple channels using a content repository (CMS), API, a content management application, and a new HTML content editor.

• Leverage asset management, versioning, and collaboration features to curate the best content and monitor changes in its versions.

Customer Loyalty Increase

• The Loyalty Management Platform, part of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud solutions, enables you to customize your loyalty programs to meet your specific requirements.

• Simplify the collection of member information to gain a comprehensive 360-degree view of member details and activities.

• Initiate and oversee loyalty processes, including accruals, redemptions, tier management, and point expiration.

• Implement loyalty guidelines through a centralized management system, establishing vouchers for discounts and rewarding members for qualifying actions.

• Monitor redemptions and request vouchers from external systems to improve the overall effectiveness of loyalty program management within Salesforce.

Advanced Analytics Capabilities

• Compile and consolidate customer data to establish a unified customer profile for more focused and personalized marketing efforts.  

• Gather customer information from multiple sources, whether internal or external, including third-party sources.  

• Clean and transform the datasets to eliminate irrelevant contacts or information, and analyze and model the data to uncover connections, achieving a comprehensive understanding of your audience and customers.  

• Evaluate data to determine the most effective communication channel for each customer in your database, ensuring that all customers receive messages in the most appropriate format for them.  

• Segment your target audience based on their preferences regarding marketing communication channels, product or service types, interests, location, or potential.  

• Consolidate customer information into a single database and define customer demographics using Salesforce Marketing Cloud's advanced data collection features.  

• Collect, filter, and model customer data, utilizing Salesforce Marketing Cloud's capabilities to build high-quality customer profiles.  

• Monitor, view, and manage customer interactions while gathering relevant data to enhance personalization levels.  

• Employ filtering, sorting, and grouping functionalities to generate customized reports and facilitate insights sharing among various teams.  

• Implement behavioral targeting based on customer interactions to enable real-time personalization.  

• Enhance marketing campaigns and plan them proactively based on trustworthy data and valuable insights.  

• Utilize Salesforce Marketing Cloud features to assess and visualize the performance of marketing initiatives, customer engagement, and long-term retention across multiple channels and touchpoints.  

• Comprehend customer behavior to enhance personalization in the future and project, plan, and modify upcoming marketing strategies effectively.  

• Eliminate duplicate contacts in your imported data to ensure a higher-quality customer contact database.  

• Optimizing launched and scheduled campaigns utilizing Salesforce Marketing Cloud's functionalities can help you manage cross-channel expenditures and boost marketing efficiency.  

Combined Features for B2B Marketing

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) enables effective lead capture, segmentation, and tailored cross-channel journeys. Utilizing AI-driven lead scoring and grading boosts successful lead nurturing. The platform enables seamless interaction across multiple channels, seamlessly integrating third-party forms, surveys, and SMS applications with marketing initiatives. It also delivers insights into lead and account scoring based on user behavior, while dynamic dashboards provide a detailed overview of customer engagement across various levels. As exemplified by AI-driven Multi-Touch Attribution, Salesforce Marketing Cloud automation offers significant insights into how marketing and sales efforts influence the pipeline and overall performance.

Integrate with Salesforce Clouds

All Salesforce Marketing Cloud offerings can be seamlessly integrated and connected as needed, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud is included in this capability. You can use the built-in tools in Salesforce Marketing Cloud to create smooth customer journeys. This ensures customers have a consistent experience across marketing channels, service centers, sales representatives, and loyalty programs. The platform enables you to collect data from these channels and apply it to marketing efforts, enhancing personalization in customer journeys and allowing for more effective customer communication.

How Can Salesforce Marketing Cloud Solve the Challenges of Modern Marketing?

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Integrations

Salesforce is well-known for its ability to integrate various systems and ease business management business management using a single platform. Some integrations, such as Google Analytics 360, are built-in, while others require Marketing Cloud Connect. Marketing Cloud Connect enables users to integrate Salesforce Clouds, such as Sales Cloud, with other third-party applications within Marketing Cloud. Typically, integration is feasible only if users possess specific types of accounts across both applications.

For example, to connect Salesforce Marketing Cloud with Sales Cloud, your Marketing Cloud account must be one of the following: Core Edition, Advanced Edition, Agency Edition, Enterprise 1.0 Lock and Publish, Enterprise 2.0 Edition, Reseller Edition, or a Marketing Cloud sandbox, and your Sales Cloud account needs to be one of these versions: Salesforce Unlimited, Enterprise, or Performance Editions, or a Developer Edition sandbox.

Technical know-how and experience with Salesforce products may be required to finish this work. Salesforce account types, editions, products, and cloud services should all be familiar. Hiring a Salesforce expert to help handle the integration process can save time, money, and effort. The Codleo team has extensive knowledge in Salesforce consulting and decades of CRM consulting experience, making it easier to enhance your business operations and strategic planning.

Integrations within the Salesforce Marketing Cloud could involve third-party applications or other clouds within the Salesforce ecosystem.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Integrations

1. Salesforce Sales Cloud. Salesforce Sales Cloud integration enables seamless collaboration between marketing and sales teams. The marketing team can access up-to-date customer information, like leads and opportunities, to create targeted campaigns. This integration provides a clear view of customer interactions, enhancing lead nurturing and conversion efforts.

2. Service Cloud. Integrating Salesforce Marketing Cloud with Service Cloud allows you to address customer questions and feedback instantly. This connection promotes coherent messaging throughout marketing and customer service platforms, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. Data from service interactions can be leveraged to tailor campaigns based on customer support experiences.

3. Commerce Cloud. Connecting with Salesforce Commerce Cloud allows for the personalization of campaigns according to customer buying habits and preferences. This integration enables a seamless transition for customers from marketing initiatives to their online shopping experience, enhancing opportunities for cross-selling and upselling.

4. Experience Cloud (former Community Cloud). Integrating Salesforce Marketing Cloud with Experience Cloud enables customer engagement within online communities. Features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud enable you to develop targeted content and campaigns for specific audiences, fostering a sense of community and encouraging user-generated content that can be leveraged in broader marketing strategies.

5. Data Cloud. By adding third-party data, Salesforce Marketing Cloud connects with Salesforce Data Cloud to improve customer profiles. This integration offers valuable data on client demographics and behavior.  As a result, it enhances audience segmentation, allowing Salesforce Marketing Cloud to generate more precise and targeted campaigns based on a deeper understanding of the target demographic. Access to a large dataset provides a more complete perspective of customers, resulting in improved strategies for effective engagement.

6. Tableau (former Analytics Cloud). Integrating Salesforce Marketing Cloud with Tableau improves data visualization and reporting features. You can create dynamic dashboards and reports to track the success of your campaigns, customer interactions, and other essential metrics. This helps you make informed decisions and optimize your strategies.

7. MuleSoft (former Integration Cloud). MuleSoft's integration with Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides smooth connectivity to external data sources. Information from various applications and systems can be leveraged to enhance customer profiles, enabling more targeted and data-driven marketing campaigns.

Benefits of Salesforce Marketing Cloud

As part of a comprehensive customer engagement platform, Salesforce Marketing Cloud enables the large-scale distribution of tailored messages to specific audiences across multiple channels, including email, web, mobile, social media, and digital advertising.

• Multi-Channel Marketing Automation. Salesforce Marketing Cloud features include optimizing and automating marketing campaigns across multiple channels, guaranteeing uniform and precise messaging on different platforms.

• Journey Automation with Trigger Responses. The Salesforce Marketing Cloud automation tool, Journey Builder, has been implemented to design personalized customer journeys that activate responses at key points in the customer lifecycle.

• Advanced Personalization Tools. Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers powerful tools for customizing marketing materials, allowing personalized content to be distributed to particular audience segments.

• Scalability and Adaptability. The platform can expand through various integrations with Salesforce Marketing Cloud to accommodate businesses' changing requirements, serving multiple sectors with adaptable features. Marketing Cloud integrates with Salesforce Sales Cloud, the leading CRM, and other Clouds within the ecosystem and third-party applications.

• Comprehensive Analytics. Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers comprehensive analytics and reporting features that enable marketers to extract actionable insights and enhance their strategies.

• AI Integration. It utilizes Einstein Analytics, a product from Salesforce Marketing Cloud, to deliver actionable insights, improving data-driven marketing strategy decision-making.

• Centralized Data Management. Salesforce Marketing Cloud features a data analytics tool that collects and integrates data from various sources into a single platform, providing a comprehensive view of customer interactions.

• Enhanced Customer Engagement. Salesforce Marketing Cloud's key features include tailored communication, enhanced customer interaction, improved satisfaction, and stronger brand loyalty.

• Continuous Innovation. Salesforce frequently launches new features and enhancements, enabling businesses to stay ahead of marketing technology trends and ensuring that Salesforce Marketing Cloud solutions remain consistently relevant and current.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Pricing

Salesforce Marketing Cloud combines critical marketing products for promotion, lead generation, customer retention, and analytics. It benefits businesses that want a customized optimal solution, as each company can select the most valuable features.

As a result, it can be challenging to provide a definitive answer to the question of ‘what is the cost of Salesforce Marketing Cloud.’ The price of Salesforce Marketing Cloud will be determined by the combination of products you need. Let’s explore the pricing plans for the existing Salesforce Marketing Cloud products.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Products Pricing Range for Existing Products and Salesforce Marketing Cloud Integrations

Ways to Make Your Salesforce Marketing Cloud Most Effective

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a robust platform that provides excellent marketing solutions, process enhancement, and automation capabilities.

Thanks to its seamless integration within the Salesforce ecosystem and third-party applications, its ability to handle large volumes of data, and AI features embedded throughout, enables businesses to design targeted and effective marketing campaigns that boost user engagement, retention, and profitability.

Mastering automation in Salesforce Marketing Cloud can be challenging. Given its impressive range of products and tools, it can be difficult to determine which solution aligns best with your business requirements. Here's how you can better understand the capabilities of Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

• Training and Learning. Understanding Salesforce takes time and effort.  Salesforce provides a learning platform called Trailhead.  This platform allows you to explore Salesforce Marketing Cloud's functionalities.  It reveals which functions are required and which may be excessive. Keep updated with the most recent features and updates through Salesforce Trailhead and other professional training resources. Ongoing education ensures that your team fully leverages the capabilities of Marketing Cloud for sustained success.

• Test Different Strategies. Marketing involves experimentation, and utilizing Salesforce Marketing Cloud does not guarantee immediate success in your marketing efforts. It may take some time to determine which strategies are suitable for your business and which products are most beneficial. Conduct A/B testing on your emails, make split decisions in Customer Journeys, and use cross-platform marketing communication to gain insights into what is most effective for you.

• Hire a Salesforce Consultant. Navigating the complex Salesforce ecosystem alone can feel overwhelming, or it may seem like a poor investment of your time and resources. Hiring a Salesforce consultant enables you to gain expert knowledge, which in turn helps you utilize Salesforce Marketing Cloud effectively. A consultant will assess your business needs, optimize your setup, and recommend the optimal combination of Salesforce products. This way, you can maximize the use of all available features for optimal results.

Codleo for Salesforce

As a distinguished Salesforce consulting partner, Codleo Consulting has effectively assisted over 200 clients across various industries.

Our expertise in Salesforce has increased deal closure rates by 26% and improved sales productivity by 38%, as demonstrated by more than 100 favorable reviews on platforms such as AppExchange and Clutch.co, along with numerous success stories highlighted on our website. Our support for Salesforce Marketing Cloud will enable you to customize the solutions to suit your business requirements.

Arrange a complimentary Salesforce consulting call with us to learn how Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud solutions can be tailored to meet your specific demands.