Marketing Automation26% of the exam
Choosing Automation Studio, Journey Builder or triggered sends
How to pick the automation tool from the requirement: Automation Studio for preplanned data tasks, Journey Builder journey types for per-contact paths, triggered sends and Behavioral Triggers for event-driven messages, and Fire Event to hand an automation's audience to a journey.
Given a customer scenario, recommend the appropriate marketing automation solution.
~7 min read · 10 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Recommend Automation Studio for preplanned data tasks and Journey Builder when each contact needs its own path, timing or engagement branch.
- Choose a journey type (Single Send, Transactional Send, Multi-Step) or a Journey Template.
- Choose between an Email Studio triggered send and a Transactional Send journey, and recommend Behavioral Triggers for abandoned items.
- Combine the tools with Fire Event, and name the Einstein feature that times each send.
- Key terms: automation (a preplanned, multistep chain of activities); journey (the communication plan contacts move through individually); audience-driven send (a preselected audience at a set time); event-driven send (sent because of an event or user action); Fire Event (signals new contacts are ready to enter a journey).
Key facts
Automation Studio
- Detail
- Preplanned, multistep activities; schedule, run once, API event or file drop
Journey types
- Detail
- Single Send, Transactional Send, Multi-Step
Journey Templates
- Detail
- Pre-defined journeys by Salesforce or other users; use as-is or modify
Transactional Send journey
- Detail
- REST API, asynchronous; dashboard shows error counts and queue depth
Email Studio triggered send
- Detail
- External key via SOAP or MessageDefinitionSends REST; synchronous or asynchronous
Behavioral Triggers
- Detail
- Abandoned-item data into data extensions for sends and journeys
Fire Event
- Detail
- Signals new contacts are ready to enter a journey
Same-step activities
- Detail
- An activity placed in the same step as the query that fills its data extension gets no results
Einstein STO
- Detail
- Best time to send an email or push notification
Sources for this section (5)
- Automate Marketing Cloud Engagement Taskstrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Manage Customer Journeyshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Choose Your Send Methodtrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Journeys and Automationshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Einstein for Marketing Cloud Engagementhelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Why is a Single Send journey the wrong tool when contacts need different follow-ups depending on what they do?
- When does an automation start without a marketer clicking run?
- Which two Journey Builder activities does Automation Studio add?
- Which Einstein feature analyzes the language of subject lines?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
Keep reading with the Marketing Cloud Engagement Specialist pack
- Core concepts
- Exam traps
- Worked scenario
The pack includes:
- All 31 lessons of the Marketing Cloud Engagement Specialist guide, with reading progress
- Interactive decision walks and step-by-step sequence steppers
- Practice exams purchase adds inline bank questions and topic practice (10 questions for this lesson)
- An official source cited for every claim
- An AI tutor that answers from the guide
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