📧 Salesforce Marketing Cloud

What is Email Studio?

Email Studio is Marketing Cloud's dedicated email marketing tool. It manages subscribers, data extensions, email creation, sending, and tracking. It is the core sending engine for all commercial email campaigns.

Send Methods

Send Method	Use Case	How It Works
Guided Send	One-time batch sends	Step-by-step wizard
User-Initiated Send (UIS)	Scheduled batch sends	Configured send definition, scheduled
Triggered Send	Real-time transactional emails	API call fires individual email
Automation Studio	Recurring automated batch sends	Schedule-driven workflow

All Subscribers List

The All Subscribers list is the master list of all email addresses in your Marketing Cloud account. It acts as a master suppression list — unsubscribes here prevent any further commercial email sends regardless of which list the subscriber is on.

Publication Lists vs Suppression Lists

• Publication Lists: Represent specific communication types. Subscribers opt in/out of individual lists (e.g., Weekly Newsletter, Product Updates).
• Suppression Lists: Prevent specific addresses from EVER receiving sends, regardless of other lists. Used for legal opt-outs, complainers, and blocked addresses.

Content Builder

Content Builder is Marketing Cloud's centralized content management system for creating, organizing, and reusing email templates, content blocks, images, and documents across all channels and campaigns.

What is Journey Builder?

Journey Builder orchestrates personalized, multi-channel customer journeys triggered by customer behaviors or data events. It supports email, SMS, push notifications, paid ads, and Salesforce CRM actions across the full customer lifecycle.

Entry Sources

Entry Source	Trigger
API Event	External system sends API call to start journey
Salesforce Data	CRM record creation/update (via MC Connect)
Data Extension	Contacts added to a Data Extension
Date-Based Event	Triggered on a specific date (birthday, renewal)
CloudPages Form Submit	Customer submits a web form

Key Journey Activities

• Send Email: Sends a configured email to the contact
• Wait: Pauses the contact for a set duration or until a date
• Decision Split: Routes contacts based on data criteria (e.g., field value)
• Engagement Split: Routes based on email/SMS engagement (opened, clicked, not opened)
• Random Split: A/B testing — randomly splits contacts into groups
• Update Contact: Updates a Data Extension field for the contact
• Salesforce Activity: Creates tasks, updates records in Salesforce CRM

Journey Settings

• Re-entry: Whether a contact can re-enter the journey after completing it
• Contact Exit Criteria: Conditions that remove a contact from the journey early
• Goal: Tracks the % of contacts who achieve a defined outcome

What is a Data Extension?

A Data Extension is a table (similar to a database table) that stores structured data in Marketing Cloud. They replace the traditional List model and offer more flexibility, scalability, and SQL query capability.

Data Extension Types

• Standard: General-purpose data storage
• Sendable: Can be used as a send source for emails. Must have a field mapped to Email Address and a Subscriber Key field.
• Synchronized: Auto-synced from Salesforce CRM via Marketing Cloud Connect

Retention Policies

• No Retention Policy: Records kept permanently until manually deleted
• Individual Records: Delete individual records after X days/weeks/months
• All Records: Delete all records after X days/weeks/months
• Reset Period: Delete all records on a specific date

Subscriber Key (Contact Key)

The Subscriber Key is the unique identifier for each contact in Marketing Cloud. Best practice: use your CRM Contact ID (Salesforce Contact or Lead ID) as the Subscriber Key to enable seamless data integration and avoid duplicate contacts.

Contact Builder

Contact Builder defines how data across Marketing Cloud is organized and linked to a single contact. It creates relationships between Data Extensions, linking them to the Contact Key for a unified customer view — essential for accurate journey targeting.

SQL Query Activity

SQL Query Activity in Automation Studio lets marketers write SQL queries against Data Extensions to create segmented audiences. It's the most powerful segmentation tool for complex criteria not achievable with standard filters.

What is Automation Studio?

Automation Studio schedules and automates recurring marketing workflows — importing data, running SQL queries, sending emails, exporting data, and executing scripts. It's the backend orchestration engine for data management processes.

Automation Types

• Scheduled Automation: Runs on a defined schedule (hourly, daily, weekly)
• File Drop Automation: Triggered when a file is dropped on an FTP folder

Key Activities in Automation Studio

Activity	Purpose
SQL Query	Query Data Extensions using SQL
Import File	Import CSV files from FTP into Data Extensions
Send Email	Send a configured email or user-initiated send
Data Extract	Export data to FTP for external systems
Script Activity	Run AMPscript or SSJS (Server-Side JavaScript)
Filter Activity	Filter a Data Extension based on criteria
Refresh Group	Rebuild a subscriber group or random data extension

Automation Studio vs Journey Builder

• Automation Studio: Backend data processes, batch sends, scheduled operations. No real-time individual contact tracking.
• Journey Builder: Individual contact journeys with real-time decision-making, engagement tracking, and multi-channel orchestration.

What is AMPscript?

AMPscript is Marketing Cloud's proprietary server-side scripting language that enables dynamic content personalization in emails, SMS, landing pages, and CloudPages. It runs at send time — each recipient gets a version of the email rendered specifically for them.

Common AMPscript Functions

Function	Purpose
Lookup()	Retrieve a value from a Data Extension
LookupRows()	Return multiple rows from a Data Extension
AttributeValue()	Retrieve a subscriber attribute value
IIF()	Inline if-then-else for simple conditionals
FormatDate()	Format a date value for display
Concat()	Concatenate strings together

Dynamic Content Blocks

Dynamic Content Blocks allow marketers to display different content to different subscriber segments — without writing code. Rules are configured in the Content Builder UI. Each rule checks a data value and shows the matching content block.

Einstein Content Selection

Einstein Content Selection uses AI to automatically select the best content block for each individual subscriber based on their predicted engagement — going beyond rule-based dynamic content to true 1:1 personalization.

Personalization Strings

Personalization Strings (like %%FirstName%%) are the simplest form of personalization — they insert subscriber attribute values into email content. They work even without AMPscript and are supported in subject lines.

What is Deliverability?

Deliverability is the ability of emails to reach recipients' inboxes (rather than spam folders or being blocked). It's influenced by sender reputation, authentication, list hygiene, and engagement metrics.

Authentication (SAP)

Sender Authentication Package (SAP) configures:

• SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Authorizes your IP addresses to send email for your domain
• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Adds a digital signature to emails for verification
• DMARC: Policy telling ISPs what to do with emails that fail SPF/DKIM
• Custom Sending Domain: Sends email from your branded domain instead of salesforce.com
• Custom Unsubscribe Domain: Hosts the unsubscribe page on your domain

List Hygiene Best Practices

• Regularly remove hard bounces (invalid addresses)
• Run re-engagement campaigns for inactive subscribers before removing them
• Use Double Opt-In for highest-quality subscriber acquisition
• Never use purchased or scraped email lists
• Honor unsubscribes immediately

Bounce Types

Type	Meaning	Action
Hard Bounce	Permanent failure (invalid address)	Auto-removed from sends
Soft Bounce	Temporary failure (full mailbox, server down)	Retry, then unsubscribe after threshold
Block Bounce	ISP blocking the sender	Review sender reputation

Einstein Send Time Optimization

Einstein STO analyzes each contact's historical engagement to predict and send at the optimal time for each individual — maximizing open rates for the same campaign without manually managing send windows.

Double Opt-In

Double Opt-In sends a confirmation email after initial signup. Only contacts who click the confirmation link are added to the sendable list. This improves list quality and provides stronger consent documentation for regulatory compliance (GDPR, CASL).

Item	Key Fact
All Subscribers	Master list — unsubscribe here blocks all commercial sends
Subscriber Key best practice	Use Salesforce CRM Contact ID
Triggered Send	Real-time, 1:1 transactional email via API call
Sendable Data Extension needs	Email Address field + Subscriber Key field
Journey entry sources	API Event, Data Extension, Salesforce Data, Date-Based, CloudPages form
Email Opens as entry source	NOT valid — used in Engagement Splits inside a journey
AMPscript runs	Server-side at send time
SAP components	SPF, DKIM, DMARC, custom sending domain, custom unsubscribe domain
Hard bounce action	Auto-removed from future sends
Double Opt-In purpose	Confirms subscription via email click — improves list quality
Automation Studio vs Journey Builder	Automation = batch/data processes; Journey = individual contact orchestration
SQL Query Activity location	Automation Studio
Dynamic Content Blocks	No-code rule-based content variation (vs AMPscript which is code-based)
Suppression List	Prevents specific addresses from receiving ANY sends
Publication List	Specific communication type — subscribers opt in/out individually