Data And Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Which databases are used within Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Relational databases aim to represent the world in a logical way

One such database is a relational database — a digital database founded on the relational model of data.
Normalization is the process of organizing data. This includes the creation of tables and then establishing relationships between them, according to rules designed to protect the data while making the database more flexible. This eliminates redundancy and inconsistent dependency.
The normalized data model is used in the data designer function of Contact Builder, which we cover in more detail in a later chapter. Keep reading and we’ll get to that 🙂

Flat-file databases represent the world in a more practical way
However, it’s also possible to denormalize data, by designing your data model using as few objects as possible, so you can read data with simple queries and fewer joins between tables. Essentially, when you denormalize data you get flat-files DBs.
With a flat-file database, records follow a uniform format, and there are no structures for indexing or recognizing relationships between these records. The file is simple. A flat-file can be plain text or a CSV. Relationships can be inferred from the data, but the database format does not make those relationships explicit.
An example of a flat-file data model would be a data extension in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

These tables might be familiar to some Salesforce users, as the Salesforce CRM uses a normalized data model like the one below: 

However, when you start to manipulate the data in relational data models in Marketing Cloud (for instance when querying the data), it converts into the flat-file data model for easier use in the actual marketing campaigns. In Marketing Cloud, you will use tables called data extensions (as visualized in the screenshot above). We will cover the subject of Salesforce Marketing Cloud data extensions later in the eBook. Keep reading 🙂
It is important to remember that your data (just like your customers!) will continue to evolve. Many factors can influence that. For example, over time you may add or rework data sources that feed into Marketing Cloud, which might impact your data model. You may initiate new campaign initiatives that require an enhancement of your data model or require you to recombine pieces of your relational data model into new flat-files.
We refer to this as “having an agile data model”. Your agility is the key to ensure easy adaption to any new reality, to make sure you can keep optimally leveraging your data model in a future-proof way.

• In the next chapter, we’ll dive into data itself, identifying what data we need to store in Marketing Cloud and how to prepare your data to upload in SFMC.

Data Privacy

We live in an age where data privacy is paramount for organizations that collect, store, and manipulate users’ data. It’s key to comply with GDPR and CCPA data privacy guidance (amongst other worldwide data privacy regulations).
Be aware of your organization’s data retention policy. It stipulates when data might no longer serve its purpose (and should thus be deleted). This documentation also records whether the data retention period has expired. The process of implementing a data retention policy begins by knowing what kind of data your organization holds so that you might classify it.
Data privacy also implies the right to be forgotten; where a Contact’s entire record must be deleted upon request. In Chapter 3 we will discuss Contact deletion options in Marketing Cloud.

Identifying and preparing the data for Salesforce Marketing Cloud

So in our last chapter, we explored the nitty-gritty of the different types and uses for data models, as well as some cautionary words about data privacy. In this next chapter, we’ll talk about preparing your data specifically for Marketing Cloud.

• We assume that this chapter can be most beneficial for Marketing Cloud Admins and Marketing Automation professionals. Since in order to leverage most of the functionality mentioned in this chapter you have to obtain a certain level of permissions.

What source data do you want to use in Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

As we’ll see, Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) provides a great deal of flexibility to our data model. As a consequence, SFMC can support nearly as many use cases and journeys as you can think of, provided you have the data to support them.
For starters, it can make great sense to collect Subscribers, leads, and other customer information, and store it in SFMC. This can immediately be used for campaigns, or even trigger the start of a real- time journey such as a welcome or confirmation email.
Many SFMC customers choose to connect their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to the platform. This allows them to not only push relevant contact information to SFMC but also commercial information, such as orders (usually B2C) or opportunities (usually B2B). Doing so allows for myriad automated journeys, and can provide marketers with the right information to execute cross-sell or up-sell campaigns.
Depending on your industry, you may also be able to obtain useful commercial data from other systems. For instance, think of common retail point-of-sale (POS) systems that can be used during the customer checkout process. The digital equivalent is of course eCommerce platforms, of which we’ve seen a great rise not just in B2C, but also in B2B. Other customers may keep track of things like orders in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. This too can provide useful data to be leveraged (or at least to trigger) a journey inside SFMC.

Whilst the above examples cover the use of that data for commercial purposes, you may have realized you can also use SFMC for transactional communication. The platform even allows you
to set up different send classifications that come with their own unsubscribe mechanisms. Indeed, there are communications from which a customer should not even be able to unsubscribe. Think of communications you may have a legal obligation to send out, such as invoices or updates in your terms & conditions. You can also create transactional send journeys by managing transactional API messages using Journey Builder. We will cover Journey Builder and how to use it soon. Keep reading 🙂
Some customers seek to connect their social media to SFMC in different ways. A common use case is connecting the out-of-the-box Facebook lead capture feature, supported by Salesforce Marketing Cloud Advertising Studio.
If you’re considering triggering different kinds of time-sensitive and real-time communication, you may wish to contemplate logging certain ‘events’ inside SFMC. Think of events such as webpage visits, physical store visits (using technology such as beacons or geofencing), or user actions inside one of your mobile apps. Besides leveraging such data as triggers for real-time communication (mobile push message, SMS, etc.), just having the data in SFMC may open up interesting scenarios for targeted outbound campaigns. Just be mindful of the amount of data you may need to store.
There could be other data you want to use (event attendees, brokered data, legacy data from your
previous marketing automation platform, etc.) and there are probably as many cases as there are tools and systems out there. However, it’s not important to have all your data inside SFMC. Neither is it important to have all your data in SFMC at once. What is important is that such data is useful and used. Marketing automation platforms, just like your organization, tend to evolve and grow. Take it one step at a time. After all, you’ll also need to consider how to get your data inside of SFMC.
It’s more important to realize the data that you actually need to use in Marketing Cloud; think in advance
which marketing channels you’ll use. Is it just email marketing? Or is it full-on mobile marketing and complex journeys? Thinking in this way will help you determine what kind of data you’ll need to store in Marketing Cloud. Remember it’s not a data warehouse!

How will you integrate your data in Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

There are several ways you can integrate data inside Marketing Cloud. Deciding this will depend a lot on the source and the purpose of the data. Remember that just because a certain way to integrate data is available, does not mean you have to use it. Always prioritize the journeys you want to support, then consider how best to support them.
The most basic way to integrate data is through manual imports. Throughout SFMC, there are places you can upload files in different formats, such as CSV or Excel files. Check out the video tutorials we made on how to upload CSV files in Marketing Cloud here. This process is relatively quick, easy, and may already be familiar to many marketers. It could be used when you first set up SFMC, have a one-off list (from an event, for example) that you want to use, or when you don’t have an immediate alternative. However, imports can be laborious and increase the risk of human error. It also leaves the door open for poor data quality or even mismanagement of customer consent. This is an important consideration in the post-GDPR era.

Many SFMC customers will already be using Salesforce CRM solutions, such as Sales Cloud or Service Cloud. Sometimes, these solutions are collectively referred to as ‘Salesforce Core’. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll use the term SFDC (Salesforce.com) which has been around for longer. In this case, it usually makes a lot of sense to use ‘Marketing Cloud Connect’, the out-of-the-box connector that is available in Salesforce Marketing Cloud under the Contact Builder. We’ll revisit this subject in the next chapter in more detail. In the meantime, just be aware that this connector is unidirectional (data will only sync from SFDC to SFMC, not vice versa), and a given record may take up to ten minutes to sync (which may be a problem for journeys that need to be real-time).
If you’re looking to integrate a system other than SFDC with SFMC and that integration does not have to be real-time, then using FTP (file transfer protocol) integration may be a good option. SFMC allows you to set up FTP server locations on which files can be placed (manually or automatically). SFMC can then fetch these files and import the data they contain into the platform. For this, you will need to use SFMC Automation Studio, which can fetch and import data at a set time — something commonly referred to as a “batch process”. By the way, the same process in reverse can allow you to export data to other systems.
You can set up automation on an everyday basis; this way you’ll avoid uploading all the data in Marketing Cloud at once. Instead, you’ll upload only the data you need for the specific campaigns.
FTP integration can support many use cases, but if you’re looking for something that can let data sync
in real-time and be more secure, you may want to go with API integration. A word of caution: This will effectively require you to write and manage your code to integrate SFMC to other internal applications. This may be excessive if it’s only to support a specific journey or use case. If you intend to make this integration robust and scalable, this may require the allocation of several full-time resources. Having said that, API integration is the way to go for real-time communication and truly leveraging capabilities like triggered send.
A technical side note to the API integration: A significant portion of the SFMC API is not based on REST API (the more common industry standard these days), but also SOAP API (which resembles XML to some extent). In particular, the SFMC API to manage data is SOAP-based, so there is no real way around this. As a developer, you will first want to create a standardized methodology to interact with SFMC. This is essentially what we did at DESelect to create the plug-and-play app that it is. By taking care of a robust API ourselves, we allow customers to leverage all their data immediately, and in real-time, inside of our app.

• If you look for a way to integrate additional data sources (either real-time or in automatic patch uploads), then DESelect Connect may be something for you! Essentially, this is our connector custom-made for Marketing Cloud, allowing admins to integrate data sources with simple plug-and-play.

Lastly, there are some ways to integrate data inside of SFMC that could be categorized as ‘other’, because they serve to connect very specific apps or modules within the platform. For instance, Mobile Push allows you to integrate Marketing Cloud with a mobile app your company has built.

What data to store in Salesforce Marketing Cloud and how to use it?

With Marketing Cloud, you have a powerful platform in which to store and integrate many data sources. Throughout this chapter, we’ve emphasized the importance of asking some key questions: What journeys do you want to support with SFMC? What campaigns will you run using SFMC? How will you use your data within SFMC? Only when you’ve answered such questions will you have a framework to help decide what data sources to integrate into SFMC. Once things have taken off, you will want to review and revise that framework from time to time. Consider then if there are new journeys you want to implement, or perhaps more personalized versions of existing journeys can be designed. When that happens you can always return to this eBook for guidance.

Business units in Marketing Cloud

If you’re an Enterprise 2.0 tenant (like most Marketing Cloud users these days), you’ve probably come across the concept of business units in Marketing Cloud. What are they for? And how can you leverage business units for your needs?
Marketers work within Marketing Cloud as team or sub-team members. These teams can be divided into various categories depending on the enterprise or specific use cases. The marketing teams can be categorized based on factors like region, markets, organizational hierarchy, products, brands, or any particular setup. This categorization helps the organization and its marketing teams recreate an ideal working environment within Marketing Cloud.
This functionality is facilitated within Marketing Cloud through a feature known as ‘business units’. business units within Salesforce Marketing Cloud help organize and control access to the information with various marketing teams. Content can be in the form of templates, Subscriber data, and settings. business units can control all of these.
A Business Unit typically performs one or many business functions and has a specific place in the
organizational hierarchy. Usually, each Business Unit has a manager, strategic objectives, a level of autonomy, and responsibility for its profit and loss.