Learn About Marketing Cloud Personalization
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Describe the basics of Marketing Cloud Personalization.
- Navigate Marketing Cloud Personalization.
- Recognize key features and use cases of Marketing Cloud Personalization.
What Is Marketing Cloud Personalization?
Marketing Cloud Personalization (MCP) is a Salesforce tool designed to help you visualize, track, and manage customer experiences in real time. It empowers you to deliver personalized experiences that increase customer engagement and support your business objectives.
MCP combines in-depth behavioral analytics and advanced machine learning with data from existing sources. It provides your business with a comprehensive view of each of your customers and prospects. You can use that data to deliver maximally relevant, individualized experiences during key moments of interaction throughout the customer journey.
Use Marketing Cloud Personalization to:
- Conduct in-depth behavioral tracking and affinity modeling.
- Unify data and create segments of visitors, customers, and accounts.
- Build and deploy cross-channel testing and personalization campaigns.
- Deliver automated, individualized product and content recommendations.
- Conduct detailed audience, catalog, segment, and campaign analysis.
Log In and Navigate the Platform
Access MCP directly through your Marketing Cloud instance. When you log in for the first time, you might see a padlock icon on the Marketing Cloud Personalization tab. This indicates that your administrator needs to update your permissions. Once you have the proper access, clicking the tab takes you directly into Marketing Cloud Personalization.
Initially, your dashboard might look like a blank slate—a brand-new notebook awaiting data. As you implement and configure the platform, you start to see data flow in, reports populate, and your engagement activities take shape.
Key Features and Use Cases
Real-Time Personalization Across Channels
Marketing Cloud Personalization is built for real-time engagement across digital and physical channels. Whether your customers interact online, in-store, or at an ATM, MCP can integrate their data to create a seamless customer journey.
Some examples include:
- Exit intent popups: When a customer is about to leave your website, a strategically timed popup can capture their email or offer an incentive, keeping them engaged.
- Cross-channel campaigns: You can coordinate personalized messages across web, email, and mobile channels to influence conversion and retention.
Align Use Cases with Business Objectives
It’s important to plan your personalization strategies by aligning use cases with your overall business objectives. For example, if your primary goal is to achieve a specific online revenue contribution, you might:
- Increase site traffic: Set a target to boost site visits by a certain percentage as a means of filling your marketing funnel.
- Reduce cart abandonment: Implement personalization strategies during the conversion stage to lower the rate of abandoned carts.
- Expand cross-sell opportunities: Use data to promote complementary products or services.
- Enhance loyalty programs: Use personalized campaigns to grow your loyalty program membership, which in turn can drive repeat business.
By drafting a use case roadmap that correlates to the different stages of the customer lifecycle—from onboarding to retention—you ensure that your efforts have measurable impact and align with your company’s strategic goals.
Implementation Considerations and Best Practices
Prepare for Change
Introducing MCP requires a thoughtful change management process. Consider how the platform affects your people, processes, and existing technology. A successful rollout depends on preparing your organization for change by ensuring everyone is aligned and trained.
Build Your Implementation Team
A strong implementation process involves assembling a team with clearly defined roles. Here are some key recommendations.
- Engage an experienced implementer: For tasks such as site mapping, configuring data feeds, and setting up APIs, working with an experienced developer or implementation partner is essential. Salesforce AppExchange is a reliable resource for finding qualified partners.
- Define internal stakeholders: Identify the key players in your organization, including an executive sponsor, account administrators, channel managers, and data integration specialists.
- Create a stakeholder map: This ensures that every function—from strategy to execution—has clear ownership and responsibilities.
Plan Your Implementation Timeline
An organized timeline is crucial for a smooth rollout. A typical implementation process might include:
- Discovery phase: Collaborate with your partner or customer success team to outline your personalization goals and identify critical use cases.
- Blueprint development: Define the data points to be collected and establish your site map.
- Build phase: Deploy the Web SDK and configure data feeds to begin collecting customer behavior data.
- Quality assurance (QA): Conduct thorough testing to ensure data accuracy and system functionality.
- Launch: With all stakeholders aligned and quality checks complete, launch your campaigns and monitor their performance.
To make the most of implementation success and achieve rapid time to value, work with your success team or an MCP implementation partner. This team leads the planning effort for your deployment and ensures you go live as soon as possible. If you’re uncertain about the status of your team, or have yet to select a qualified partner, reach out directly to your account executive to assist you.
Follow these recommended steps to successfully deploy Marketing Cloud Personalization.
The journey to making the most of Marketing Cloud Personalization begins with understanding its capabilities and aligning strategies with business objectives.
Next up, learn how to use Marketing Cloud Personalization to promote engagement, enhance customer experiences, and achieve meaningful business results.