Salesforce Marketing Cloud Reviews

The main use case for Salesforce Marketing Cloud is email marketing through Salesforce for the B2B segment on a day-to-day basis.

For B2B email marketing using Salesforce Marketing Cloud, I can provide a specific example where we have divided the flow into two campaign types: always-on journeys which last for around six months to almost a year, and quick campaigns such as New Year wishes which are non-always-on journeys with only one event that ends in a day. There can be journeys that follow the marketing funnel structure and can run for an entire year. For organizations where events are occurring, there will be invitation campaigns, initially with lead selection, then invitation emails, and then registration emails, which include the flow for event-based emails such as registration, invitation, and thank you emails.

For setting up these campaigns in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, they are set up via Journey Builder only, with automations to process the audience as it flows from the SQL database to Salesforce into the data extensions.

The best features Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers include being easy to set up, having a strong Automation Studio, and providing excellent reporting along with the data views it provides. This allows me to obtain extensive information on my email campaigns that have been sent out, letting me know the interactions happening. There are many integrities that it captures, and we can send it back to the SQL database to store it for a longer duration to run machine learning models on it, to analyze the data, and for reporting purposes.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud has positively impacted my organization by reducing costs while significantly increasing the return on investment.

I feel that Salesforce Marketing Cloud can be improved in how the data views are accessed; it would be better to have something more physical. With data extensions, you can view them directly, but for data views, it is very difficult as you can only send it out or load it into data extensions. Improvements can also be made in the connections to different external tools such as Azure or AWS.

Customer support can be improved in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, as sometimes it is not clear what the issue is or how to approach solving it, and it also takes time to resolve issues.

I have been using Salesforce Marketing Cloud for around two and a half to three years.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is stable, with issues occurring sometimes, but it is stable approximately 90% of the time.

I find Salesforce Marketing Cloud to be scalable, as we can easily send out campaigns; I have tested sending out to somewhere around 100,000 to 200,000 people at a time, and we have even sent out more than that.

Customer support can be improved in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, as sometimes it is not clear what the issue is or how to approach solving it, and it also takes time to resolve issues.

I previously used Marketo and switched because it was charging us too much, while Salesforce Marketing Cloud was offering a lower price. Additionally, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is gaining significant momentum in the market, and other companies and competitors are using it, which was another reason to adopt Salesforce Marketing Cloud to stay competitive and upgrade with changing technology.

There are certain features in Salesforce Marketing Cloud that I have noticed differ from Marketo; Marketo is more flexible, and since I am from a coding background, working on Salesforce Marketing Cloud is easy for me. However, I feel that for people who are from a non-coding background, Marketo is a better tool to work on, but it also adds to the cost as Marketo stands at a higher cost compared to Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

My advice for others looking into using Salesforce Marketing Cloud is to analyze and review your use case carefully. If you plan to run marketing campaigns using Salesforce Marketing Cloud, you definitely need people who are well-versed in Salesforce Marketing Cloud's development side since it is not a tool where you can drag and drop to run a campaign or find an easy user interface, as you need to write code and be skilled in server-side JavaScript or SQL scripting to fully explore the capabilities of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Overall, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a good product, and organizations can definitely consider adopting it. I would rate this product a 7 out of 10.

As a consultant, I partner with organizations to optimize their use of Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC). My engagement often begins pre-implementation, where I lead the requirements gathering process, analyze data structures, and design customized workflows to ensure the system aligns perfectly with their business goals.

Our core use cases revolve around Email Studio and Journey Builder. This includes executing ad-hoc monthly campaigns as well as orchestrating complex, automated customer journeys driven by behavioral triggers. We leverage granular data attributes to build highly targeted audience segments.

In terms of analytics, we closely monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as Open Rates, Click-Through Rates (CTR), and Unsubscribe Rates. Furthermore, I assist clients in troubleshooting and optimizing email deliverability, specifically addressing bounce rate management and improving sender reputation.

Journey Builder is undoubtedly one of the platform's most valuable features. While I oversee its utilization from a strategic level rather than hands-on execution, I am deeply familiar with its vast capabilities. It is important to note that the module is not entirely "plug-and-play" and involves a learning curve. However, following proper onboarding and training by their implementation partner, the marketing team became fully self-sufficient. Today, they operate the system fluently and can manage complex workflows independently, without the ongoing need for dedicated technical resources.

Regarding areas for improvement, the realization of value from Salesforce Einstein's predictive AI features is a notable challenge. Although the implementation partner highlighted these capabilities, we have yet to see tangible success or ROI. There appears to be a gap in translating these advanced AI options into actionable, successful use cases.

Furthermore, while SFMC offers a highly robust suite of tools, this richness comes at a cost to the user experience (UX). The sheer volume of features creates a steep learning curve. While lighter, alternative platforms are often more intuitive, SFMC users face a distinct trade-off: it is a highly reliable and comprehensive enterprise solution, but it is inherently complex and carries a premium price point

I have been working specifically with Salesforce Marketing Cloud for about five years. However, my broader experience consulting and working within the general Salesforce ecosystem spans over a decade.

Yes, Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers true enterprise-grade stability. The platform consistently delivers exceptional uptime and robust scalability. In fact, its unmatched reliability is one of the core benefits of choosing SFMC, and technical outages are rarely a concern.

However, the challenges I observe in the field are rarely tied to technological stability; they are almost entirely operational. The real hurdles include:

• Implementation and maintenance complexity


• The accumulation of technical debt over time


• A lack of proper internal documentation

To summarize: The system itself is highly stable; it is often the organization's internal processes that are not.

I rate Salesforce Marketing Cloud an 7 out of 10. Overall, it is a highly reliable and robust enterprise system. While it operates at a premium price point, my clients consistently choose it due to its extensive capabilities, integration opportunities, continuous platform evolution, and the strong corporate backing of Salesforce. Ultimately, the long-term strategic benefits justify the investment.

My primary advice to organizations considering SFMC is this: Do not choose the platform solely for its capabilities; choose it based on your organizational readiness. Too often, I see companies buy a "Ferrari" only to drive it like a "Toyota". To truly maximize your ROI, ensure you have the following prerequisites in place before making the purchase:

• A clear Customer Journey strategy
• A well-defined Data Model
• Clear ownership and alignment across Marketing, CRM, and IT departments
• A structured Governance process
• Dedicated internal resources for ongoing operations and execution.

We are working with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and we have some products. We recently acquired the Salesforce Data Cloud, along with several other Salesforce products.

We have the Salesforce Marketing Cloud and E-commerce, and we recently obtained the CDP for the Salesforce Data Cloud.

For the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, we mainly use it for communication and notifications to customers. They perform some templating and rendering.

Regarding the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, we are satisfied with the product for our campaigns, orchestration, emails, and notifications.

We are satisfied with the Salesforce Marketing Cloud products, which is why we have extended and acquired the Data Cloud as integration.

The integration of customer data across channels functions effectively because we also have Salesforce CRM and Velocity. It integrates seamlessly with these systems.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud works effectively as a suite, best-of-suite solution. However, if you want to reuse specific components, it doesn't have the same solution flexibility since it's not microservices-based, considering it's a metadata architecture.

I'm uncertain if the products are exactly decoupled and can plug and play with others. If someone wants to implement a best-of-breed solution, I'm uncertain whether Salesforce Marketing Cloud will be able to work, fit, or integrate smoothly.

In the future, I would appreciate seeing AI capabilities.

We have been using Salesforce Marketing Cloud for several years. I have been with the company for two and a half years, during which time we have had both Salesforce Marketing Cloud and E-commerce.

I am not involved in the installation of Salesforce Marketing Cloud and haven't performed any deployments. We have Salesforce Marketing Cloud installed on our private cloud.

The stability rating would be nine out of ten.

Everything is scalable because we use the cloud now. When you deploy in clouds, they provide scalability. The rating would be eight out of ten.

I don't have experience with technical support.

Neutral

I have worked with other solutions similar to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, such as Tealium. Tealium has a CDP solution called IQ Tealium. For marketing, we have worked with a combination of tools including Adobe Target and Adobe personalization. They have products that work together to support campaigns. We have also worked with Pega for marketing campaign management.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a more complete product than Adobe.

I am an architect and am aware of the capability to create journeys, but I'm not entirely certain about the extent of Journey Builder usage.

I am not familiar with the recommendations from Einstein AI.

I don't typically get involved with commercial aspects. I focus on design and architecture, ensuring the product meets our business requirements.

We are using it as a suite since we have multiple products that work together effectively.

My overall experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud rates as eight out of ten.

I mainly use Salesforce Marketing Cloud for inside sales, cold calls, sending emails, and doing roadshows, among other things.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides an edge for my organization by tracking the budget, how it is spent, where we stand, and how many cold calls or nurtured calls have been converted into sales. While there are not direct reports available, we are able to see a complete 360-degree understanding.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is definitely a good product, and the seamless integration between the CRM and the marketing is what really helps the sales and marketing team.

More than the feature, I find the seamless integration of Salesforce Marketing Cloud most useful. Once I nurture the leads and they become eligible sales contacts, moving them to the CRM allows the sales team to take further action, and that seamless integration is something I really appreciate about working with Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

I would recommend that Salesforce Marketing Cloud improve on three-dimensional or 360-degree reporting, as I feel that is something missing.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is expensive; it can be more affordable, but it doesn't matter where we implement or use it for our organization since we are able to manage well so far.

I have been working with Salesforce Marketing Cloud for almost six to seven years.

I cannot say that I have had any issues or problems with Salesforce Marketing Cloud during this period of time; it was seamless for me.

The performance in Salesforce Marketing Cloud is definitely very good, and both the Salesforce CRM and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, being part of the native Salesforce platform, offer superior performance.

I have not worked on the TIBCO Spotfire solution.

The initial setup for Salesforce Marketing Cloud was very straightforward and seamless.

Internally, my company may have calculated ROI with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, particularly the sales team, but I am from the technical side, so I do not get involved in these calculations.

I have experience with Oracle ERP and Salesforce CRM.

I implement and use Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

I have not had a chance to use Journey Builder in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

We have been using some paid and unpaid products on predictive recommendations from Einstein AI, although I'm not exactly able to articulate all the details, but we are still utilizing those capabilities.

I definitely recommend Salesforce Marketing Cloud as it is a good product to use, and it is a pioneer; it is easy to use and hassle-free. I would definitely recommend Marketing Cloud, Community Cloud, and Sales Cloud, as they are all very good.

I rate Salesforce Marketing Cloud nine out of ten.

I am working with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Field Service Cloud, and Agent Force. I work with the flow and automation to send notifications, chat messages, and emails to Omni-Channel, which are the usual use cases for Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

The features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud that I have found most valuable are the Journey Builder and Flow. These capabilities are valuable because they make managing automation easy.

Automating customer journeys saves time when scheduling content through every channel, and we can set the automation in advance when planning marketing content.

The AI-powered tools such as Salesforce Datorama and Einstein save time and have an impact on marketing strategy decisions for my customers.

I have noticed a positive impact from Salesforce Marketing Cloud through customer feedback. For example, a customer mentioned after project completion that it had a significant impact on their marketing team by eliminating the need to hire additional staff for marketing content and planning.

An area of Salesforce Marketing Cloud that could be improved is the connectivity between Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud platforms.

The issues with integration between different platforms arise because Marketing Cloud was previously exact target software. When customers use the Salesforce platform, they need to integrate the connector to connect the data. It would be beneficial if marketing were on the same platform as Sales Cloud or Service Cloud.

I have been working with Salesforce Marketing Cloud for one year, and with Experience Cloud for over five years.

I evaluate Salesforce Marketing Cloud as stable. The stability of Marketing Cloud is important for customers, as they consider using enterprise software for more than five to ten years. Stability and security are their primary concerns before implementing the system.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is quite easy to scale when customers want to set up new business or implement marketing campaigns. Customer growing needs can be easily fulfilled.

I rate the technical support and customer service of Salesforce Marketing Cloud an eight out of ten. When facing technical issues such as coding, they provide valuable suggestions for my developer team. Their services currently require no improvements as everything functions properly.

Positive

As a solution consultant who does not handle the configuration part, I cannot fully comment on the initial setup of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. However, from what I understand, the initial setup process is straightforward.

While Salesforce Marketing Cloud pricing is relatively high, in the APAC region, it is comparable to competitors such as Braze or Adobe, making it competitively priced among similar software solutions.

I am working with Sales, Service, and Agent Force platforms. Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides good value for the money that customers invest in it. I have rated this solution 8 out of 10.

I am currently working with Salesforce Marketing Cloud and recall doing discovery between Sprinklr and Marketing Cloud, which is why I accessed your website. It was quite helpful for me as it gave me insights regarding Sprinklr.

My usual use cases for Salesforce Marketing Cloud mostly involve addressing issues with the Journey, querying for Query Studio, or searching for some admin-related tasks I need.

The features I found most valuable in Salesforce Marketing Cloud include auto-generated reports for the Journey, which are quite helpful, and the reports are sufficient, though I am not able to recollect much currently.

The feature of Salesforce Marketing Cloud that has had the largest impact on improving my campaign outcomes is the recent WhatsApp integration, which allows Salesforce to connect with subscribers through different channels such as SMS, email, or WhatsApp.

Regarding customer engagement, personalization capabilities in Salesforce Marketing Cloud enhance engagement because when customers feel that a brand knows them better, they recognize their choices better. In Marketing Cloud, I am able to personalize based on user choices and address them directly without coming across as a bot message.

Query Studio in Salesforce Marketing Cloud needs to be improved because not all queries are supported and we cannot debug the AM Script or SSJS code, which makes code debugging manual.

I have been using Salesforce Marketing Cloud as a developer for four years now.

I faced a few challenges during the initial setup, but that could be due to my limited knowledge or not knowing the full process.

I am not exactly from Salesforce, and while I do not track downtimes or outages directly since I work from the partner community, I have experienced some, though they were resolved immediately. The maximum downtime I faced was about two to three hours.

I would rate the scalability of Salesforce Marketing Cloud as a seven or five.

Not everyone can use Salesforce Marketing Cloud unless they have some exposure to the platform and understand how it works, which informed my scalability rating.

I have communicated with the technical support of Salesforce Marketing Cloud and would give them a rating of 9.5 since they have resolved my issues most of the time and are quite responsive.

Positive

I have not used a different solution for my use cases before working with Salesforce Marketing Cloud for the last four years.

I would rate the initial setup of Salesforce Marketing Cloud as an eight.

I am not really sure how many people are needed for the maintenance of Salesforce Marketing Cloud as it totally depends on the requirement and how many users there are since I am basically a developer.

I have seen some return on investment with Salesforce Marketing Cloud through features such as reporting, automation, and Journey parts that save resources, as well as Email Studio, which is useful for creating emails.

I do not know the pricing of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, so I would prefer to skip this question.

I did not evaluate any other options before choosing Salesforce Marketing Cloud because I work in it.

The site I mentioned again is peer spot.com, and I am certain it could be something helpful regarding Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

I am not sure how many users are currently using Salesforce Marketing Cloud in my company.

I do not have any plans to use this solution more in the future to increase usage.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Salesforce Marketing Cloud an 8.5 overall.

My primary use case for Salesforce Marketing Cloud involves managing the communication journey of customers interested in purchasing automotive vehicles from dealers. This process starts when customers express interest in learning about new vehicles and continues until they receive vehicle delivery. It also includes after-sales services like regular service communications. I have developed and implemented all of this communication for many customers, particularly in the Australian region.

The most valuable features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud include the timely alerts and notification systems, which greatly enhance communication not only with customers but also within dealerships. This leads to improved effectiveness, especially when a dealer operates multiple branches.

I would like to see improvements in the integration between Salesforce platforms and AgentForce. There are inaccuracies in how AgentForce retrieves information or interprets data. It still shows some inaccuracies, but improvements are continuously being made.

I have been working with Salesforce Marketing Cloud for the past four months.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is highly stable. I have never experienced any issues with stability, outages, or downtime.

The scalability of Salesforce is very good. It is essential because the application may need to be implemented across multiple branches, or more applications might be required for integrations. For instance, when more branches are opened for a dealer, or when the vehicle manufacturing company implements the software nationwide, the application needs to handle many changes and business rules smoothly.

Customer support could be improved, especially for new features where I do not always receive proper solutions from the platform provider. I would rate the technical support a seven out of 10.

Neutral

The initial setup was very easy, and I would rate it a nine out of 10.

Salesforce is one of the most expensive tools. The pricing is around $10,000 per annum per user. It is a very expensive solution that I would rate a nine out of 10 in terms of cost.

Overall, I would rate Salesforce Marketing Cloud a nine out of 10. Except for the pricing, other aspects of the solution are very satisfactory. While support and new features could use some enhancement, the reliability and scalability are excellent.

Neutral

I have implemented four to five projects from scratch with Salesforce Marketing Cloud. I handle domains such as hospitality, technology, and food and beverage companies. It was an amazing experience because the solution specifically works for B2C companies. My clients use the solution for marketing automation.

Email Studio is one of the core parts of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. It provides a complete solution where you can manage everything. You can create dynamic email templates and personalization. You can use that email in various journeys in Journey Builder. Automation Studio is one of the core parts of the solution. Overall, all the studios and builders in Salesforce Marketing Cloud are great features.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud should provide some debugging facilities for every user. Apart from Data Views, nothing is available for debugging purposes. I cannot check for any errors or status behind every system journey. The solution's debugging and reporting could be improved.

I have been using Salesforce Marketing Cloud for the last three years.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight to nine out of ten.

It is not suitable for small companies because of its high product cost. However, SMBs and large enterprises should use this product for marketing automation purposes.

I rate the solution’s scalability a nine to ten out of ten.

When we face issues and glitches, we contact the technical support team, and they resolve our issues immediately.

I rate the technical support an eight to nine out of ten.

Positive

The solution's initial setup is quite complex for new and nontechnical users. However, it is very easy for a Salesforce Marketing Cloud expert or certified professional.

The solution has helped our clients optimize their marketing campaigns and achieve a better ROI. Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a very cost-effective solution for every business. The tool's personalization feature allows you to increase the number of openings, which in turn helps generate revenue.

The solution's pricing is very high and should be more flexible for smaller companies.

The solution's strong competitors are Adobe's Marketo and Oracle's Eloqua. Salesforce Marketing Cloud comes under the Salesforce ecosystem, and most large enterprises currently use Salesforce CRM for their business. They also use other platforms like Pardot, CPQ, or Service Cloud.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is one of the good products for the Salesforce ecosystem. It is easy to implement the flow of data from other systems to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which makes it convenient for businesses.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a totally cloud-based solution. I have used the pilot portal for Salesforce Marketing Cloud, specifically in Email Studio, to generate some templates based on various historical data. That is also very useful for every marketer. I would recommend the solution to other users.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I use this tool to reach out to the customers by sending emails. We used to reach out to the customers. Marketing campaigns are made through this tool, and even the transactional emails are sent through Salesforce.

In Salesforce Marketing Cloud, the ability to send emails effectively is very valuable.

In the SMS area, it is not up to the mark, compared to what has been developed for email. 

I have used the solution since 2020, which is around four years.

I would rate stability as a good nine out of ten. 

I find it scalable and rate it eight out of ten.

In terms of support, I would give it around nine out of ten.

Positive

I used IMI only for SMS, and the email function was not available. We had to use another tool called Strayata for sending emails, and nothing was in our control. We needed to send all the documents to them for deployment. Nothing was announced, and it was costlier compared to what Salesforce is offering.

The initial setup is straightforward and not complex.

The implementation was done by my team and myself.

I do not have much visibility regarding ROI. I am just working as a developer, so those who are at a top-level in my team may know.

The cost is cheaper compared to other tools.

I recommend Salesforce Marketing Cloud. It is easier to implement and cost-effective. You pay as you use, so if you are using more, then pay more. If you are using less, pay less. That is the concept there. It is Cloud-based. We do not need to deploy anything at our end. With just a URL, you can automatically start using it. No deployment or software requirement is needed. 

Overall, I would give the product eight marks out of ten.