Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and Salesforce Campaigns

The interplay between Account Engagement and Salesforce Campaigns often sparks confusion and frustration among users. In this insight, we’ll demystify the disparities between the two and shed light on their respective functionalities. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and Salesforce Campaigns.

Account Engagement Campaigns:

Account Engagement Campaigns serve as the cornerstone of tracking prospect interactions within Account Engagement. When creating marketing assets such as emails, landing pages, or forms, associating them with a Campaign is essential. This linkage facilitates tracking interactions with these assets, with the first Campaign a Prospect interacts with becoming their Source Campaign. Here’s a breakdown:

Source Campaign Identification: The very first Campaign a Prospect interacts with becomes their Source Campaign, providing critical attribution insights.
Prospect Tracking: Account Engagement Campaigns adhere to a first-touch attribution model, meaning a Prospect’s Source Campaign remains consistent throughout their journey in your database.
Revenue Attribution: If a Prospect eventually converts into a customer, any revenue generated is attributed back to their Source Campaign.

Salesforce Campaigns:

Salesforce Campaigns operate differently from Account Engagement Campaigns, serving as a mechanism to track various touchpoints or interactions with leads and contacts. They enable more complex attribution reporting within Salesforce:

Multi-Touch Attribution: Leads and contacts can be added directly to multiple Salesforce Campaigns to track their engagement across different marketing activities.
Attribution Reporting: Salesforce Campaigns allow for sophisticated attribution reporting, enabling users to assign influence percentages to different campaigns based on their impact on deals.

Integration with Account Engagement:

Despite their differences, Account Engagement and Salesforce Campaigns can be integrated to complement each other’s functionalities:

Adding Prospects to Salesforce Campaigns: Completion Actions and Automation Rules in Account Engagement can add Prospects to Salesforce Campaigns based on specific triggers.
Dynamic List Integration: Account Engagement Dynamic Lists can pull in Salesforce Campaign members using predefined criteria, facilitating targeted marketing efforts.

Choosing Between the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and Salesforce Campaigns:

The decision between using Salesforce Campaigns or Account Engagement Campaigns boils down to their distinct utilities:

Account Engagement Campaigns: Ideal for tracking initial touchpoints of Prospects and calculating closed-loop ROI via specialized reports.
Salesforce Campaigns: Best suited for tracking multiple touchpoints with Prospects, enabling robust multi-touch attribution reporting within Salesforce.

Update: Since 2018, Connected Campaigns have bridged the management experience between Salesforce and Account Engagement, streamlining cross-platform alignment and campaign reporting. This enhancement alleviates previous confusion and enhances campaign management efficiency.

In conclusion, leveraging both Salesforce Campaigns and Account Engagement Campaigns is recommended for comprehensive campaign management and attribution analysis. If you require assistance with campaign setup, don’t hesitate to reach out to our experts.

Content updated November 2023.