Configure Agentic Campaigns

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Identify the permissions and prerequisites required to set up the agent.
  
• Explain how to configure a business unit and activate campaign goals in Marketing Expert System Setup.
  
• Describe how to configure message budget and cost definitions for a campaign.
  
• Summarize how to set up and customize campaign plan approval flows.
  

Prepare Your Org for the Agent

Isabelle Givens, digital marketing manager at Northern Trail Outfitters, has a clear goal: launch the NTO Urban Explorer Plan 2026—a subscription renewal campaign targeting lapsed and at-risk subscribers across North America. She’s eager to optimize her campaign strategy with agentic campaigns. But before she can create an autonomous campaign, her Salesforce admin needs to configure the org.

This unit includes interactive simulations that walk you through key steps of the agentic campaign process. Some screens include instructions telling you what to click—follow those instructions to select the area described. As you move your cursor over the screen, a highlight will appear to confirm you've found the right spot. Other screens don't require an interaction; on those, click Next to move to the next screen.

If a simulation doesn't fit fully in your browser window, scroll down within the module to see the rest of it. You can also click Open in new window at the top of the simulation to view it in a larger, separate window.

Completing the simulation is a great way to practice—but it isn't required for the module quiz. Your quiz score is based on the module's quiz questions only, so feel free to explore the simulation at your own pace.

Confirm Permissions and Prerequisites

Before you begin configuring your agent, confirm that the right permissions are in place.

In addition to permissions, your org needs to meet these prerequisites before the agent can run.

• Marketing Cloud Next, Advanced edition is active and basic setup is complete
  
• Data 360 is deployed and data graphs are current
  
• Published segments are available
  
• At least one business unit is configured
  
• Data Cloud Salesforce Connector Permissions perm set is configured with the Marketing Expert Channel Rates object
  
• Marketing Intelligence Marketing Performance App is configured
  

Configure Your Marketing Goals Agent

With permissions and foundational components confirmed, you’re ready to configure the agent in Setup. All configuration happens in Marketing Goals Agent Setup. Start by navigating to Setup and searching for Marketing Goals Agent. From there, configure your approvals, message budget and cost definitions, business goals, adaptive campaign audience arbitration, and optimal sending times. Let’s take a closer look at each of those steps.

Set Up Campaign Plan Approvals

Before any campaign goes live, it needs sign-off from a human approver who reviews and approves the agent’s execution plan.

Out of the box, the approval flow handles the basic mechanics—marking the plan as pending, then approving it. What you’ll want to do is customize that flow so it routes to the right person.

To do that, head to the Approvals app and open Manage All Flow Approval Processes. You’ll find the flows created during the Marketing Goals Agent setup listed here—if you don’t see them yet, go to Setup and click Create Foundational Data for each relevant business unit. Open the flow you want to update in Flow Builder, click into the approval step, and under Select the Approver, choose User as the approver type and pick the right person. Then save the flow as a new version and activate it.

Once the flow triggers, the approver can review and act on it from the Approvals app, under Review My Approval Work Items.

Choose Your Notification Method

Approvers can receive notifications via Slack or email—choose the option that fits your org’s workflow.

Set Your Message Budget and Cost Definitions

Message budget and cost fields are informational—they don’t drive optimization, but they give marketers visibility into how their campaign is tracking against message budget thresholds in Agentic Campaign Insights.

Default costs are provided, but you’re encouraged to enter your organization’s actual costs. These values populate the Cost Per Goal Unit metric and the Budget Spend Trend chart, so accurate inputs lead to more useful reporting.

The Marketing Goals Agent Channel Rate Table stores your message budget and cost values. They’re not connected to Digital Wallet or credit consumption.

Activate Campaign Goals

The agent can only optimize toward goals you explicitly activate. Enable only the goals that match the types of campaigns your organization typically runs. For example, if you’re not running ecommerce campaigns, leave Orders off. Keeping the list focused reduces noise in campaign creation and makes it easier for marketers to pick the right goal without second-guessing.

Each goal is tied to a specific conversion event that the agent tracks in Data 360. Enabling a goal is also a useful validation step: if something’s off in the underlying Data 360 mappings, the agent will flag it right away, so you can fix the data before any campaigns get built on top of it.

If a goal doesn’t activate, the system tells you exactly which Data 360 mappings need attention.

Set Up Adaptive Campaign Audiences

To ensure the right subscribers are added to the right campaigns, the Adaptive Campaign Audiences arbitration feature determines how the Marketing Goals Agent assigns subscribers across competing campaigns. Define eligibility rules, channel caps, and the arbitration strategy used at send time.

Activate Send Time Optimization

To maximize message engagement, use send time optimization to send messages to each subscriber when they’re most likely to open and click on your message.

What’s Next?

With the agent configured and approvals in place, Isabelle’s org is ready to launch the NTO Urban Explorer Plan 2026. In the next unit, you help Isabelle through the end-to-end marketer workflow—creating the campaign, sending it for approval, and monitoring performance in Optimization Insights.