Best Practices to Integrate Third-Party Triggers in Marketing Cloud Engagement

Marketing Cloud Engagement offers two powerful ways to integrate third-party triggers for sending marketing communications. In this article, we’ll explore the two primary options – Triggered Sends and API Event Journeys. 

We’ll start by outlining the key differences between them, then take a deeper dive into the criteria that can guide your approach, along with configuration best practices to ensure success.

Why Third-Party Triggers Are Important

In most cases, Marketing Cloud Engagement doesn’t operate in isolation – it needs to integrate with other systems to deliver timely, relevant communications. A classic example is an abandoned cart journey: when a customer leaves items in their cart, your e-commerce platform must pass details like name, email, and cart contents to Marketing Cloud Engagement, so the right message can be sent. 

While options like SFTP (secure file transfer protocol) can transfer this data, they often lack the immediacy required. For real-time responsiveness, API-triggered events are the most effective approach. By understanding the different ways to handle API-based triggers in Marketing Cloud Engagement, you can design more advanced, efficient, and customer-centric solutions for your team.

Triggered Sends vs. API Event Journeys

Marketing Cloud Engagement provides a robust way to integrate third-party triggers through its Triggered Send functionality. However, as a best practice, it’s worth considering API Event Journeys as a powerful alternative that can elevate your marketing capabilities in many scenarios.

Let’s dive into the key differences between traditional Triggered Sends and API Event Journeys:

Comparison Deep Dive 1: Setup Complexity 

It’s true, Triggered Sends are quick and straightforward to configure. That said, if you’re comfortable working in Journey Builder, API Event Journeys are not significantly more complex.

For this comparison, let’s start with a common baseline and assume the following assets are already in place for both options:

1. Data Extensions are set up and ready (note: Triggered Sends require a specific Triggered Send Data Extension template).
2. Email Content has been created and mapped to the appropriate data points in the Data Extension.

Trigger Send Setup

We won’t walk through the entire setup of the Triggered Send definition – only call out a few areas to be mindful during setup.

Be careful when naming your External Key, as it will be used by the third-party system in their API call URL. Ensure it is unique, contains no spaces, and is not overly long or complex. It’s also best to document it for easy reference.

1. Be sure to document the data extension folder path, as once the Trigger is saved, the folder location will no longer be displayed.
2. Also, ensure you select All Subscribers or the appropriate Publication List to validate subscriber status. The selection isn’t obvious, since there’s no checkbox – clicking on All Subscribers will turn the background grey, as shown above, indicating it’s selected.
   • If this step is missed and All Subscribers isn’t chosen, the triggered sends will not respect key statuses, such as unsubscribed.
3. Don’t overlook these critical selections, as they directly affect the updating and maintenance of your All Subscribers list or publication lists.

API Entry Journey Setup: Two-Part Setup

Setting up an API Event Journey begins with creating an Entry Source, followed by building the Journey itself. The Entry Source establishes the connection between the Journey and the Data Extension that receives the payload from the API call, while also generating the key needed to trigger that call.

Rather than walking through the API Entry Source configuration step by step, we’ll highlight a few important considerations to keep in mind during setup.

Journey Entry Source can be found in the Journey Builder top menu under Events.

When you create an API Event Source, the Event Definition Key is created automatically. You will provide this key to the third-party platform to be used in their API connection configuration.  This key will point to the data extension to populate the data and fire the subscriber into the journey.

Once the Entry Source is created, you can simply use the API Event and select the one you just created.

Once the Entry Event is configured, completing the rest of the Journey canvas is straightforward. Each activity provides step-by-step guidance for setup and configuration, much like the process used in a Triggered Send.

For example, the email activity in the Journey allows you to select the send classification and sender profile during configuration.

1. Selecting the same send classification.
2. And Sender profile.

Triggered Sends are quick to set up with a simple, one-page configuration. If you’re managing a high volume of straightforward, one-off sends and your team isn’t deeply experienced with Journey Builder, this approach is often the most efficient.

However, if your team is comfortable with Journey Builder, consider using an API Event Journey. While the setup involves a few additional steps, the added flexibility and scalability often make it well worth the effort.

Comparison Deep Dive 2: Extensibility

Triggered Sends: While Triggered Sends can handle large sending volumes, their extensibility is limited, given that they are confined to delivering a single communication.

API Event Journeys: By contrast, API Event Journeys offer virtually unlimited extensibility. As your use case evolves, you can easily expand with multi-step flows, branching logic, and engagement-based decision points. The Journey Builder canvas provides a visual framework that not only executes the send but also unlocks opportunities to enrich and extend the customer experience.

1. Journey Testing: You can add a decision split to only let in emails from your domain while you are testing.
2. Update Data Extensions: Using the Update Contact activity, you can update data extensions based on how the subscriber travels through the journey.
3. Update Salesforce CRM: With Object Activity, any object in Salesforce can have a record created or updated with a few configuration clicks.
4. Multi-Send: Triggered sends no longer have to be one-and-done sends – you can add multiple sends across email, SMS, push, and more.

Comparison Deep Dive 3: Send Data Populated In Salesforce

If your use case requires tracking data to be captured in Salesforce Sales or Service Cloud, the best option is the API Event Journey. 

Because Journeys function much like Salesforce flows, they automatically log valuable send-time tracking data on the Individual Email Results record for each Contact, Lead, or Person Account.

1. In Sales/Service Cloud.
2. Navigate to the Individual Email Results, most likely on your related records tab.
3. You should see each email send.
4. Along with engagement data that you can leverage in Salesforce reports.

Final Thoughts 

When you receive a request to integrate a triggered send from a third party, don’t default immediately to the traditional Triggered Send approach. API Event Journeys can not only fulfill the same request but also unlock additional capabilities that elevate the overall use case.

During your discovery phase, take time to evaluate the key criteria discussed above:

• High-volume, transactional, one-and-done emails (like password resets or order confirmations) may be best suited for Triggered Sends.
• Use cases that benefit from follow-ups or multi-step logic (like abandoned cart reminders or onboarding sequences) are often better handled with an API Event Journey.
• Team expertise and comfort level also matter. If Journey Builder is new to your team, start with Triggered Sends and gradually expand into API Event Journeys.

As a general rule, when in doubt, lean toward API Event Journeys. They align more closely with Salesforce’s future direction, integrate seamlessly with Salesforce core, and will position your team for success – especially if you anticipate moving to Marketing Cloud Growth or Advanced editions in the near future.