Explore the Data Activation Journey
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Explain how Data 360 functions as the data management layer within Marketing Cloud Next.
- Describe what data activation means in Marketing Cloud Next.
- Describe the purpose of each stage in the Data 360 activation process.
Before You Start
Before you start this badge, consider completing this recommended content.
Turn Data into Actionable Insights
When customers interact with a brand, they leave a trail of data behind. A purchase here, a support ticket there, a loyalty balance that grows with every order. That information exists somewhere, but getting it to marketers in a usable form is rarely straightforward.
You've probably experienced this before. Marketing teams sit on a wealth of customer information collected across a dozen different systems. But when it's time to send a message or build a customer journey, that data is somewhere else. It’s either behind an API, locked in a data warehouse, or accessible only to the engineers who know how to query it. The result is disconnected campaigns, inaccurate audiences, and irrelevant customer experiences.
The gap between data that exists and data that works is one of the most common challenges in marketing today. Marketing Cloud Next is designed to close that gap.
Data 360 is the data management layer built into Marketing Cloud Next that sits between raw data sources and the marketing tools. It standardizes incoming data, unifies it into consistent customer profiles, and makes it accessible to marketers without requiring engineering support. The result is data that doesn't just exist, but works.
Making data useful for marketing is called activation. Activated data is connected to the tools marketers use every day, ready to filter an audience, personalize a message, branch a journey, or prefill a form. To get data from raw to ready, Data 360 moves it through four stages: a data stream ingests it, field mapping organizes it, identity resolution unifies it, and a data graph connects it to the rest of Marketing Cloud Next.
You walk through these stages in detail. But first, let's explore a scenario that puts all of this in context.
Review the Activation Journey
Meet Linda Rosenberg, an admin at Cloud Kicks, a footwear company with a growing loyalty program. Cloud Kicks members earn points, move up three tiers, and generally spend more than non-members. Linda's marketing team knows this, but they can't act on it. The loyalty data lives in a third-party platform that isn't connected to Marketing Cloud Next. That means that every member–whether they're a Platinum member with 15,000 points or a Silver member who just signed up–gets the same campaign, same email, and same offer.
Linda's job is to fix that. That's where you come in.
In this module, you step into Linda's role and take that loyalty data from a spreadsheet to a fully activated marketing asset. Here's the path you follow.
Set up a data stream: This is how external data enters Data 360. Using a CSV file exported from the Cloud Kicks loyalty platform, you set up a data stream that reads the file and brings the records into a data lake object (DLO).
Map fields: After the data is in, you map each field to tell Data 360 what it means, what type of data it holds, and which object it belongs to. Then identity resolution links each loyalty record to the right person in the platform, turning separate pieces of data into a single, unified view of the customer.
Set up identity resolution: After mapping fields, Data 360 uses identity resolution to figure out who each record belongs to. It compares incoming records against existing customer profiles using known identifiers, such as email address, and merges matches into a single profile called a Unified Individual. That unified profile is what makes personalization meaningful. Instead of engaging a fragmented record, marketers can reach a complete, accurate view of a real customer.
Create a data graph: This is the step that connects Data 360 to the rest of Marketing Cloud Next. You add mapped fields to the data graph and define how they relate to the customer profile, making the data available in segments, flows, forms, and personalizations across the platform.
You complete each of these steps in a special playground in the next two units. In the final unit, you learn what the Cloud Kicks marketing team does with the activated data. Excited to get started? First, review the details of the CSV file that the Cloud Kicks team exported for you.
Bring Cloud Kicks Data into Marketing Cloud Next
The CSV file contains one record per loyalty member with the following fields.
- First Name
- Last Name
- Member ID
- Email Address
- Loyalty Tier (Silver, Gold, or Platinum)
- Points Balance (a number)
With those fields activated, the Cloud Kicks marketing team can build targeted segments, send personalized messages, route members through different journey experiences, and prefill redemption forms with each member's details. It all starts with the work you're about to do. In the next unit, you bring the Cloud Kicks loyalty data into Marketing Cloud Next and map it so the platform understands it.