Maintain Your Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification for Spring ‘21

Learning Objectives

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

• Create and send AMP-Powered Emails.
• Analyze emails and journeys with Datorama Reports.
• Experiment in Journey Builder with Path Optimizer.
• Reengage online shoppers with Behavioral Triggers.
• Use Journey Builder’s Journey History feature to view information about a specific contact, journey, or journey version.
• Pause and resume journeys in Journey Builder.
• Create, send, and monitor single-send SMS journeys from Journey Builder.
• Build Interactive Email Forms in Content Builder.
• Create accessible HTML with Standard Content Builder blocks.
• Copy image URLs faster.

Salesforce Certification—the Big Picture

If you hold the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist credential, keep in mind you need to complete this module by the due date to maintain your certification. Another important part of maintaining your credential is ensuring your Trailhead and Webassessor accounts are linked. 

Interested in learning more about getting certified? Check out the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist credential. 

Salesforce introduced a ton of great feature enhancements. Let’s take a look at some of the more important ones for this release. 

Create and Send AMP-Powered Emails in Marketing Cloud

AMP for Email is a new open-source email standard that allows customers to interact with messages directly in their inbox. AMP for Email offers interactive, real-time content and data upon open—enabling marketers to create highly personalized email experiences. You can use AMP for various promotional and transactional use cases such as responding to events, leaving feedback, completing surveys, and getting order status updates—all within the inbox. Other common AMP email use cases include: carousels, confirmations, opt-ins, real-time data, browsing and research, and appointment booking.

Who gets it? This feature applies to all Marketing Cloud Pro, Corporate, and Enterprise editions.

When is it available? This feature is available now.

How does it work? You can use Content Builder to create and save AMP emails. You can send AMP emails using any existing send options in Marketing Cloud. AMP emails are supported in Gmail, Yahoo, and Mail.Ru mail clients. Because AMP emails expire in 30 days and some clients don’t support them, AMP emails require an HTML fallback. Access to AMP can be disabled via Content Builder Admin.

Analyze Emails and Journeys with Datorama Reports

Datorama Reports for Marketing Cloud is a new way to generate, view, and share a detailed analysis of your campaign-level data for emails and journeys. 

Who gets it? This feature applies to all Marketing Cloud Pro (with Discover enabled), Corporate, and Enterprise editions. 

When is it available? This feature will be provisioned based on renewal date, starting on February 16, 2021. For more information about access, contact your Marketing Cloud account representative.

How does it work? From Analytics Builder, select Datorama Reports.

You can optimize performance and increase engagement with your customers using the tools available in Datorama Reports. 

• Dashboards: Easily analyze your data and make informed, data-driven decisions with prebuilt dashboards that visualize email and journey campaign-level data up to the business unit.
• Scheduled Reports: Retrieve, view, and share a detailed analysis of your data. You can easily schedule and share reports via Excel, CSV, and text, as well as visual formats like PowerPoint, PDF, and PNG.
• Pivot Tables: Explore your data and create custom reports that organize, summarize, and slice your data so that you can view comparisons, trends, and patterns.

Experiment in Journey Builder with Path Optimizer

Start experimenting in Journey Builder with tests based on email engagement metrics or other outcomes using Path Optimizer. Keep the journey running with new entrants receiving the winning path. 

Who gets it? This feature applies to all Journey Builder accounts. 

When is it available? This feature is available now.

How does it work? Available in the Flow Controls section of Journey Builder, the Path Optimizer activity allows you to:

• Test the flow of your activities and messages within the context of a customer journey.
• Experiment and vary the cadence, frequency, and channel, in addition to the content.
• Determine the best way your customer journeys integrate with Salesforce CRM.
• Review historical test context for better decision-making.

When configuring a Path Optimizer activity, you can: 

• Choose a winning path either automatically—based on engagement metrics—or manually.
• Test beyond email parameters to include most Journey Builder activities, like:
  • Wait
  • All messaging activities
  • Sales and Service Cloud activities
  • Update Contact
  • Custom activities

Reengage Online Shoppers with Behavioral Triggers

An estimated $4.6 trillion of merchandise is left unpurchased in shopping carts online. Reengage shoppers who abandoned an online shopping session with Abandoned Browse and Abandoned Wishlist triggers. These behavioral triggers allow you to send highly personalized, effective emails to encourage subscribers to come back to your site.

Who gets it? This feature applies to Marketing Cloud Pro, Corporate, and Enterprise Editions and uses Amazon Web Services. To configure the Journeys or Automations, contact Marketing Cloud support.

When is it available? This feature is available now.

How does it work? To configure the flow of behavioral trigger data, use Journey Builder’s navigation. Manage behavioral content, such as the abandoned items, in Content Builder.

Navigate to Behavioral Triggers in the Journey Builder menu to configure your behavioral trigger data extensions. If you haven’t already done so, configure a product catalog and install Collect Tracking Code on your commerce site. 

Create your abandoned cart messages in Content Builder. Use the Behavioral Triggers content block to dynamically add a subscriber’s abandoned items to the body of the email. Use the Behavioral Trigger data extensions in Journey Builder as a Data Extension entry source. To see basic metrics for each trigger, return to Behavioral Triggers.

Use Journey History to View a Specific Contact, Journey, or Journey Version

Use Journey Builder’s Journey History feature to view information about a specific contact, journey, or journey version. You can also view the activity and status history of a contact, journey, or journey version. This view displays the past 30 days of activity by default. It includes the total number of contacts across all journeys in your account.

Who gets it? This feature is available to all accounts with Journey Builder.

When is it available? This feature is available now. 

How does it work? To narrow the journeys included in the history view, set filters for date range, activity, status, or journey. The filter options you select persist after the filter pane closes. To remove filters, click Clear.

Using Journey History, you can:

• See a Journey’s Status. Understand the status messages shown on the Contacts page in Journey Builder.
• View a Contact Path. Use this feature to locate a contact in a running or stopped journey and view the path they took within the past 30 days. From here, you can determine where a contact is in a journey and if they exited a journey early or finished a journey. You can also remove the contact from any point in the journey.
• View a Contact’s Journey History. You can view a contact’s journey history from the Journey Dashboard. Results are shown for the previous 30 days by default.
• Troubleshoot Error Messages. Review possible solutions to common contact journey errors in Journey Builder. These errors can cause a contact to exit a journey earlier than expected.

Pause and Resume Journeys in Journey Builder

Pause a running journey for up to 14 days to temporarily stop contacts from moving through the journey and pause messages sent from Journey Builder. You can use this feature in Marketing Cloud or via REST API requests. Temporarily halt sending messages for various business reasons, such as a natural disaster, when updating the email content, or when your website is experiencing downtime.

Who gets it? This feature applies to all Marketing Cloud accounts with Journey Builder. 

When is it available? This feature is available now. 

How does it work? Now you can pause your running journeys using the new Journey Pause API, and when ready, use the API to resume the paused journey. Previously, there was no option to temporarily pause running journeys. Instead, marketers had to stop the journey and then re-create it later. Stopping a journey removed contacts from the journey. As a result, marketers had to decide whether the removed contacts should complete a new version of the journey later or not complete the journey at all. Now, with the Journey Pause API, you can temporarily pause processing contacts through the journey and then resume the paused journey later. 

Create, Send, and Monitor Single-Send SMS Journeys from Journey Builder

Use Single-Send Journeys to send single SMS messages, such as promotions or service updates, to a batch audience through a streamlined user experience in Journey Builder. Schedule a single-send journey for a future date and time or send it immediately. 

Who gets it? This feature applies to all Marketing Cloud accounts with Journey Builder and MobileConnect enabled.

When is it available? This feature is currently available. 

How does it work? Learn Journey Builder through a streamlined experience for simpler sends to increase sophistication through multi-step journeys. Manage single-send and multi-step journeys from the Journeys Dashboard to increase visibility across campaigns and streamline navigation. Simplify new team member onboarding with a unified user experience for three types of sends across multiple channels. For updated API information related to single sends, review the developer documentation at Single-Send Journeys.

To create a new single-send SMS journey, click Create New Journey, and then select SMS.

Build Interactive Email Forms with New Content Builder Block

Use the Email Form block to build forms that render directly in a recipient’s email client. The block helps marketers reduce friction around gathering more customer information. Use cases can include anything from progressive profiling to product reviews. This feature requires CloudPages.

Who gets it? This feature applies to all Pro, Corporate, and Enterprise accounts. 

When is it available? This feature is available now. 

How does it work? Drag the Email Form block in the editor and configure your settings. Ensure that you create and publish the CloudPages Interactive Email page before configuring the Content Builder block. Admins can control the block’s availability to other users in Content Builder Setup administration.

Create Accessible HTML with Standard Content Builder Blocks

To allow screen readers and assistive software to read block HTML, Marketing Cloud Content Builder added HTML attributes to the HTML, FreeForm, Image, Text, and Button blocks. 

Who gets it? This feature is available to all Marketing Cloud accounts.

When is it available? This feature is available now.

How does it work? The new attribute role=presentation designates the HTML table as a presentation table rather than a data table.

Copy Image URLs Faster

Who gets it? This feature is available to all Marketing Cloud accounts. 

When is it available? This feature is available now.

How’s does it work? Marketing Cloud Content Builder users can now copy the published image URL from the Content Builder library actions dropdown instead of from the properties view.

Resources

• Salesforce Help: Create and Send AMP-Powered Emails in Marketing Cloud
• Salesforce Help: Analyze Emails and Journeys with Datorama Reports
• Salesforce Help: Experiment in Journey Builder with Path Optimizer
• Salesforce Help: Reengage Online Shoppers with Behavioral Triggers
• Salesforce Help: View a Contact Path
• Salesforce Help: Pause and Resume Journeys in Journey Builder 
• Salesforce Help: Create, Send, and Monitor Single Send SMS Journeys from Journey Builder 
• Salesforce Help: Build Interactive Email Forms with New Content Builder Block 
• Salesforce Help: Standard Content Builder Blocks Now Output Accessible HTML 
• Salesforce Help: Copy Image URLs Faster