Marketing Cloud Implementation – Email Setup

Setting up the Email section of the Marketing Cloud Required Setup is a critical step.  Let’s go!

This blog will cover all the elements of the Email Section.

Configure Email Delivery

First, let’s work on configuring the Email Delivery.

Go to Add Domain.

Salesforce strongly recommends that companies use a subdomain to improve email sending.

Example:

Domain – greenkeydigital.com

Subdomain – go.greenkeydigital.com

Add an email address. This is the Email Sender on your emails.

Click on Manual DNS Records Information to obtain the required record values.

Add each of these records to your DNS provider. These lines must include all information presented by the domain registrar.  Learn More in Salesforce Help.

Once all the domain entries are made, check the box and “Activate the Domain”

You can set up a notification to get an email when complete.

Add or Update Physical Address

Next, let’s take care of the physical email address.

This address is required for regulatory (CANSPAM) purposes, and it will appear at the bottom of all of your emails.

Edit the address. This is a global email address that will be used for all emails.

Manage Consent Validation

You can choose to use consent for promotional and/or transactional emails.

By default, the system setting “Check consent for promotional emails” is enabled, but it can be toggled to Disabled. (Salesforce recommends keeping promotional emails enabled.)

Only email addresses that you uploaded with consent will get your emails.

Read more about consent topics here.

Add Contacts

This section is for companies that are brand new and don’t have Contacts.

Clicking into this will start a four-step process to import Contacts.  You can also load in Leads or Prospects.

If you already have this data in your CRM, you can skip this step.

Create Subscriptions

Next, let’s talk about subscriptions.

A subscription controls who gets each specific communication. Marketing Cloud includes a default subscription called “Marketing.” You can have multiple channels for each subscription.

For example, if I want bob@gmail.com to receive marketing emails, I need to ensure Bob has opted into the Marketing subscription and the email channel.

Only contact points (email addresses/phone numbers) that are opted in to that subscription on that channel can receive the message. The on/off status is stored in Communication Subscription Consent records in Data Cloud. If a Contact has no consent record, Marketing Cloud treats it as opt-out by default.

The standard unsubscribe link opts the person out of the specific subscription you selected for the send.

Create new subscriptions by selecting “New Subscription” and the respective channels.

Salesforce recommends starting with one subscription. As of today, the preference centers are channel-specific, and each channel needs to be managed individually.

When you select “View page,” you will see the unbranded preference page. Below is an example of the email preference page. As of today, you cannot customize the appearance of the preference page.

Add or Update Consent Records

Next up – consent. Click “Go to Consent Imports.”

Consent data holds the information of who can receive your communications.  Marketers can upload consent data by channel per subscription, and you can import either Opt In or Opt Out statuses.

Next, you need to upload your consent data.  Salesforce tracks explicit consent data.

Click on the link, and you can download a spreadsheet with the correct formatting.  It has an example files for email, SMS and Whats App.  Salesforce highly recommends using the sample file (email example below).

Additionally, pay attention to the format for the consent date and time.

If you are unsure about what to use for date/time of consent here are some examples:

• First form completion date
• Publication opted-in date
• Enrollment date of customer membership
• The day the prospect became a customer

IMPORTANT: Make sure you already have your Contacts, Leads or Prospects in Salesforce before you load consent data.  This is a common mistake.

Optional Setup

You will see some additional setup items at the bottom of the screen.

I recommend enabling the first three settings.  Talk with your team about enabling Einstein Scoring.