Quick Guide for Implementing Marketing Cloud Basic Settings
Setting up Salesforce Marketing Cloud Growth Edition can feel daunting.
The implementation is new to everyone, the documentation is hard to decipher, and something changes every few months. (Agh!)
Keep reading to make Marketing Cloud Growth implementation as simple as pressing the EASY button.
Getting Started with Salesforce Marketing Cloud Growth Implementation
I created this blog as a quick-start guide for a basic Marketing Cloud setup.
Please note that your implementation may have differences. Examples:
- Data Cloud is already installed.
- Your company didn’t purchase SMS so you won’t see those Data Kits.
- Your company already has Identity Resolution rulesets.
- And more!
Use my blog as a starting point, but be aware of your company’s unique differences. As always, refer to Salesforce’s official documentation on Marketing Cloud Growth.
Good luck!
1. Add the correct Permission Sets
First, ensure you have the Data Cloud Admin and Marketing Cloud Admin permission sets. If you add from the permission sets, the system will automatically add the licenses simultaneously.
2. Install Data Cloud
NOTE: If you already have Data Cloud installed, go to the next step.
You have to provision Data Cloud for Marketing Cloud because they are interconnected.
To install Data Cloud, go to Data Cloud setup.
Choose “Get Started” at the bottom. This step took about 40 minutes.
The system will look like this when complete. (Below)
3. Enable Marketing Cloud
Next, go to the setup box and type “Assistant Home.” This is the primary page for setting up Marketing Cloud. Note this location because we will be coming back here numerous times.
Select “Go to Basic Settings”
Check that Marketing Cloud is enabled. If it needs to be enabled, it doesn’t take long. Maybe 10 minutes.
4. Install Marketing Data Kits
Next, select “Install” on the Marketing Data Kits. This step can take 1/2 to 1 hour.
If some kits don’t deploy, you can try “Refresh” and “Retry.”
NOTE: I often have problems with the Data Kit installation. Salesforce Marketing Cloud consultants Claudia Hoops and Nobuyuki Watanabe provided these tips for Data Kit installation headaches.
Troubleshoot idea #1: Make sure the latest version of Salesforce Data Model (latest version) is installed. Read this Salesforce documentation.
Troubleshoot idea #2: Manually deploy Data Kits. (Sales Data Kit example below)
Then, go back to Assistant Home > Basic settings and retry the Sales Data Kit installation.
Troubleshoot idea #3: If you are implementing an SDO (development org), you might want to check permissions on the Account object.
This error is often caused by missing permissions on the “Account” object within the “Data Cloud Salesforce Connector” permission set.
To resolve this, follow these steps:
1. Navigate to Setup > Permission Sets
2. Find and open Data Cloud Salesforce Connector
3. Inside the permission set, go to Object Settings
4. Click on Accounts
5. Ensure all permissions (Read, Create, Edit, etc.) are enabled. Enable them if necessary and save.
6. Retry the Sales Data Kit installation.
When complete, all Data Streams should show a green “Deployed.” If not, you might need to submit a Salesforce support ticket.
Be sure your Sales Data Kit and Consent Objects Data Kit are in good order before running Identity Resolution Rules.
5. Configure Identity Resolution Rulesets
Next, you need to set your Identity Resolution Rules.
Identity resolution combines and standardizes records from your source data to create a single, unified profile for the same person or business. Running identity resolution rulesets uses Data Cloud credits, which affects your billing.
Salesforce recommends maintaining only one active ruleset for Individuals and one for Accounts.
Click “Generate Ruleset” to create a basic ruleset from only Normalized Email as match criteria to create an identity resolution ruleset for the Individual object.
Reload your browser to see the Identity Resolution Ruleset Success and the Unified Individual Object is automatically populated.
If you need to customize your Identity Resolution, you should go directly into Data Cloud.
In the example below, I use “Fuzzy Name and Normalized Email.” Discuss with your team if you should use a different Match Rule. Every business is different.
If you have Marketing Cloud Advanced, you can also set up a unified Account.
6. More to do for a Salesforce Marketing Cloud Implementation
You still have much more to implement.
I will be writing more blogs on the Required Setup. More to come!
