(API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud connection

Overview

(API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud (formerly known as ExactTarget) is a digital marketing suite that allows you to build and customize journeys for visitors and customers to personalize their experience.

IMPORTANT

Note the difference between this connection and the other Salesforce Marketing Cloud connection that exists within the Email marketing catalog section. The other Salesforce Marketing Cloud connection allows you to export files to a specified storage location, whereas this is an API-based streaming connection.

This Adobe Experience Platform destination leverages the Salesforce Marketing Cloud update contacts API, which allows you to add contacts / update contact data for your business needs after activating them within a new Salesforce Marketing Cloud segment.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud uses OAuth 2 with Client Credentials as the authentication mechanism to communicate with the Salesforce Marketing Cloud API. Instructions to authenticate to your Salesforce Marketing Cloud instance are further below, in the Authenticate to destination section.

Use cases

To help you better understand how and when you should use the (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud destination, here is a sample use case that Adobe Experience Platform customers can solve by using this destination.

Send emails to contacts for marketing campaigns

The sales department of a home rental platform wants to broadcast a marketing email to a targeted customer audience. The platform’s marketing team can add new contacts / update existing contacts (and their email addresses) through Adobe Experience Platform, build segments from their own offline data, and send these segments to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which can then be used to send the marketing campaign email.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites in Experience Platform

Before activating data to the (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud destination, you must have a schema, a dataset, and segments created in Experience Platform.

Prerequisites in (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Note the following prerequisites in order to export data from Platform to your Salesforce Marketing Cloud account:

You need to have a Salesforce Marketing Cloud account

A Salesforce Marketing Cloud account with a subscription to the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement product is mandatory to proceed.

Reach out to Salesforce Support if you do not have a Salesforce Marketing Cloud account or your account is missing the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement product subscription.

Create attributes within Salesforce Marketing Cloud

When activating segments to the (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud destination, you must input a value in the Mapping ID field for each activated segment, in the Segment schedule step.

Salesforce requires this value to correctly read and interpret segments coming in from Experience Platform and to update their segment status within Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Refer to the Experience Platform documentation for Segment Membership Details schema field group if you need guidance on segment statuses.

For each segment that you activate from Platform to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, you need to create an attribute of the type Text within Salesforce. Use the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Contact Builder to create attributes. The attribute field names are used for the (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud destination field and should be created under the Email Demographics system attribute-set. You can define the field character with a maximum of 4000 characters, according to your business requirement. See the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Data Extensions Data Types documentation page for additional information on attribute types.

Refer to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud documentation to create attributes if you need guidance on creating attributes.

An example of the data designer screen in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, into which you will add the attribute is shown below:
Salesforce Marketing Cloud UI data designer.

A view of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Demographics attribute-set is shown below:
Salesforce Marketing Cloud UI email demographics attribute-set.

The (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud destination uses the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Search Attribute-Set Definitions REST API to dynamically retrieve the attributes and their Attribute-Sets’ defined within Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

These are displayed in the Target field selection window when you set up the mapping in the workflow to activate segments to the destination. Note that only mappings for the attributes defined within the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Demographics attribute-set are supported.

IMPORTANT

Within Salesforce Marketing Cloud, you must create attributes with a FIELD NAME that exactly matches the value specified within Mapping ID for each activated Platform segment. For example, the screenshot below shows an attribute named salesforce_mc_segment_1. When activating a segment to this destination, add salesforce_mc_segment_1 as Mapping ID to populate segment audiences from Experience Platform into this attribute.

An example of attribute creation in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, is shown below:
Salesforce Marketing Cloud UI screenshot showing an attribute.

TIP
  • When creating the attribute, do not include whitespace characters in the field name. Instead, use the underscore (_) character as a separator.
  • To distinguish between attributes used for Platform segments and other attributes within Salesforce Marketing Cloud, you could include a recognizable prefix or suffix for the attributes used for Adobe segments. For example, instead of test_segment, use Adobe_test_segment or test_segment_Adobe.
  • If you already have other attributes created in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, you can use the same name as the Platform segment, to easily identify the segment in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Gather Salesforce Marketing Cloud credentials

Note down the items below before you authenticate to the (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud destination.

Credential Description Example
Subdomain See Salesforce Marketing Cloud domain prefix to learn how to obtain this value from the Salesforce Marketing Cloud interface. If your Salesforce Marketing Cloud domain is
mcq4jrssqdlyc4lph19nnqgzzs84.login.exacttarget.com,
you need to provide mcq4jrssqdlyc4lph19nnqgzzs84 as the value.
Client ID See the Salesforce Marketing Cloud documentation to learn how to obtain this value from the Salesforce Marketing Cloud interface. r23kxxxxxxxx0z05xxxxxx
Client Secret See the Salesforce Marketing Cloud documentation to learn how to obtain this value from the Salesforce Marketing Cloud interface. ipxxxxxxxxxxT4xxxxxxxxxx

Guardrails

  • Salesforce imposes certain rate limits.
    • Refer to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud documentation to address any probable limits that you might encounter and reduce errors during execution.
    • Refer to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement Pricing page to Download the Full Edition Comparison Chart as a pdf which details the limits imposed by your plan.
    • The API overview page details additional limits.
    • Refer here for a page which collates these details.
  • The count of custom fields allowed per object varies according to your Salesforce Edition.
    • Refer to the Salesforce documentation for additional guidance.
    • If you have reached the limit defined for custom fields allowed per object within Salesforce Marketing Cloud you will need to
      • Remove older attributes before adding new attributes in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
      • Update or remove any activated segments in Platform destinations which use these older attribute names as the value provided for Mapping ID during the segment scheduling step.

Supported identities

(API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud supports the activation of identities described in the table below. Learn more about identities.

Target Identity Description Considerations
contactKey Salesforce Marketing Cloud Contact Key. Refer to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud documentation if you need additional guidance. Mandatory

Export type and frequency

Refer to the table below for information about the destination export type and frequency.

Item Type Notes
Export type Profile-based
  • You are exporting all members of a segment, together with the desired schema fields (for example: email address, phone number, last name), according to your field mapping.
  • Each segment status in Salesforce Marketing Cloud gets updated with the corresponding segment status from Platform, based on the Mapping ID value provided during the segment scheduling step.
Export frequency Streaming Streaming destinations are “always on” API-based connections. As soon as a profile is updated in Experience Platform based on segment evaluation, the connector sends the update downstream to the destination platform. Read more about streaming destinations.

Connect to the destination

IMPORTANT

To connect to the destination, you need the Manage Destinations access control permission. Read the access control overview or contact your product administrator to obtain the required permissions.

To connect to this destination, follow the steps described in the destination configuration tutorial. In the configure destination workflow, fill in the fields listed in the two sections below.

Within Destinations > Catalog, search for (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Alternatively you can locate it under the Email marketing category.

Authenticate to destination

To authenticate to the destination, fill in the required fields below and select Connect to destination. Refer to the Gather Salesforce Marketing Cloud credentials section for any guidance.

(API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud destination Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Subdomain Your Salesforce Marketing Cloud domain prefix.
For example if your domain is
mcq4jrssqdlyc4lph19nnqgzzs84.login.exacttarget.com,
you need to provide mcq4jrssqdlyc4lph19nnqgzzs84 as the value.
Client ID Your Salesforce Marketing Cloud Client ID.
Client Secret Your Salesforce Marketing Cloud Client Secret.

Platform UI screenshot showing how to authenticate to Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

If the details provided are valid, the UI displays a Connected status with a green check mark, you can then proceed to the next step.

Fill in destination details

To configure details for the destination, fill in the required and optional fields below. An asterisk next to a field in the UI indicates that the field is required.
Platform UI screenshot showing the destination details.

  • Name: A name by which you will recognize this destination in the future.
  • Description: A description that will help you identify this destination in the future.

Enable alerts

You can enable alerts to receive notifications on the status of the dataflow to your destination. Select an alert from the list to subscribe to receive notifications on the status of your dataflow. For more information on alerts, see the guide on subscribing to destinations alerts using the UI.

When you are finished providing details for your destination connection, select Next.

Activate segments to this destination

IMPORTANT

To activate data, you need the Manage Destinations, Activate Destinations, View Profiles, and View Segments access control permissions. Read the access control overview or contact your product administrator to obtain the required permissions.

Read Activate profiles and segments to streaming segment export destinations for instructions on activating audience segments to this destination.

Mapping considerations and example

To correctly send your audience data from Adobe Experience Platform to the (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud destination, you need to go through the field mapping step. Mapping consists of creating a link between your Experience Data Model (XDM) schema fields in your Platform account and their corresponding equivalents from the target destination.

To correctly map your XDM fields to the (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud destination fields, follow the steps below.

IMPORTANT

Although your attribute names would be as per your Salesforce Marketing Cloud account, the mappings for both contactKey and personalEmail.address are mandatory. When mapping attributes, only attributes from the Experience Platform Email Demographics attribute-set should be used within the target fields.

  1. In the Mapping step, select Add new mapping. You will see a new mapping row on the screen.
    Platform UI screenshot example for Add new mapping.

  2. In the Select source field window, choose the Select attributes category and select the XDM attribute or choose the Select identity namespace and select an identity.

  3. In the Select target field window, choose the Select identity namespace and select an identity or choose Select custom attributes category and select an attribute from the Email Demographics attributes displayed as needed. The (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud destination uses the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Search Attribute-Set Definitions REST API to dynamically retrieve the attributes and their attribute sets defined within Salesforce Marketing Cloud. These are displayed in the Target field popup when you set up the mapping in the activate segments to workflow. Note, only mappings for the attributes defined within the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Demographics attribute set are supported.

    • Repeat these steps to add the following mappings between your XDM profile schema and (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud:

      Source Field Target Field Mandatory
      IdentityMap: contactKey Identity: salesforceContactKey Mandatory
      xdm: person.name.firstName Attribute: Email Demographics.First Name -
      xdm: personalEmail.address Attribute: Email Addresses.Email Address -
    • An example using these mappings is shown below:
      Platform UI screenshot example showing Target mappings.

When you have finished providing the mappings for your destination connection, select Next.

Schedule segment export and example

When performing the Schedule segment export step, you must manually map Platform segments to the attributes in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

To do this, select each segment, then enter name of the attribute from Salesforce Marketing Cloud in the (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud Mapping ID field. Refer to the Create attribute within Salesforce Marketing Cloud section for guidance and best practices on creating attributes in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

For example, if your Salesforce Marketing Cloud attribute is salesforce_mc_segment_1, specify this value in the (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud Mapping ID to populate segment audiences from Experience Platform into this attribute.

An example attribute from Salesforce Marketing Cloud is shown below:
Salesforce Marketing Cloud UI screenshot showing a attribute.

An example indicating the location of the (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud Mapping ID is shown below:
Platform UI screenshot example showing Schedule segment export.

As shown the (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud Mapping ID should exactly match the value specified within Salesforce Marketing Cloud FIELD NAME.

Repeat this section for each activated Platform segment.

Depending on your use case all activated segments can be mapped to the same Salesforce Marketing Cloud FIELD NAME or to different FIELD NAME in (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud. A typical example based on the image shown above could be.

(API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud segment name Salesforce Marketing Cloud FIELD NAME (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud Mapping ID
salesforce mc segment 1 salesforce_mc_segment_1 salesforce_mc_segment_1
salesforce mc Segment 2 salesforce_mc_segment_2 salesforce_mc_segment_2

Validate data export

To validate that you have correctly set up the destination, follow the steps below:

  1. Select Destinations > Browse to navigate to the list of destinations.
    Platform UI screenshot showing Browse Destinations.

  2. Select the destination and validate that the status is enabled.
    Platform UI screenshot showing Destinations Dataflow Run.

  3. Switch to the Activation data tab, then select a segment name.
    Platform UI screenshot example showing Destinations Activation Data.

  4. Monitor the segment summary and ensure that the count of profiles corresponds to the count created within the segment.
    Platform UI screenshot example showing Segment.

  5. Log in to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud website. Then navigate to the Audience Builder > Contact Builder > All contacts > Email page and check if the profiles from the segment have been added.
    Salesforce Marketing Cloud UI screenshot showing the Contacts page with profiles used in the segment.

  6. To check if any profiles have been updated, navigate to the Email page and verify if the attribute values for the profile from the segment have been updated. If successful, you can see that each segment status in Salesforce Marketing Cloud was updated with the corresponding segment status from Platform, based on the Mapping ID value provided in the segment scheduling step.
    Salesforce Marketing Cloud UI screenshot showing the selected Contacts Email page with updated segment statuses.

Data usage and governance

All Adobe Experience Platform destinations are compliant with data usage policies when handling your data. For detailed information on how Adobe Experience Platform enforces data governance, see the Data Governance overview.

Errors and troubleshooting

Unknown errors encountered while pushing events to Salesforce Marketing Cloud

  • When checking a dataflow run, you might encounter the following error message: Unknown errors encountered while pushing events to the destination. Please contact the administrator and try again.
    Platform UI screenshot showing error.

    • To fix this error, verify that the Mapping ID that you provided in the activation workflow to the (API) Salesforce Marketing Cloud destination exactly matches the name of the attribute you created in Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Refer to the Create attribute within Salesforce Marketing Cloud section for guidance.
  • When activating a segment, you might obtain an error message: The client's IP address is unauthorized for this account. Allowlist the client's IP address...

Additional resources

  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud API
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud documentation explaining how contacts are updated with the specified information in the specified attribute groups.

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