Salesforce continue to bolster their marketing and commerce offerings, centered around the theme “data-driven moments”.
There’s a big focus on Marketing Cloud CDP – Salesforce’s customer data platform – as the springboard from which the other innovations lead.
Another focus is the connection between Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud; Salesforce’s objective is to automate what has traditionally involved integrations that are expensive to build and maintain.
Finally, Salesforce are venturing into Web 3.0 with NFT Cloud entering the customer pilot phase.
These innovations were unveiled at Salesforce Connections, the flagship event for Salesforce marketing, commerce, and digital professionals, taking place on June 8-9th, 2022 in Chicago, and available online on Salesforce+, globally.
“Get ready to reunite with marketing, commerce, and digital professionals to learn, get inspired, build relationships and succeed together”
New for Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Lidiane Jones (EVP & GM, Digital Experiences) sets the scene. We’re facing ever-changing data privacy regulations, a cookieless future (which could reduce revenues by as much as 30%, according to a report by Accenture), and – within organizations – shrinking budgets, and rising operating costs. It’s harder both to hire and retain talent.
Automation and AI have become imperative to business infrastructure – not just as shiny new toys. With the world in flux, changes at every level (international, national, and within organizations) have made tried-and-tested business processes obsolete.
New Salesforce Marketing Cloud highlights include:
- New AppExchange Partners for CDP
- Triggered Campaign Messages
- Intelligence Commerce Insights App
- Digital Command Center for Slack
Marketing Cloud CDP, the jewel in the crown, connects data from across the entire Customer 360 platform (i.e. all Salesforce products and integrated data sources) to build unified customer profiles.
It’s not just about the segmentation. Activation is crucial – as in, activating personalized engagement across marketing, sales, service, commerce, etc. – in a way that’s efficient. Traditionally, marketers would need to do ‘heavy lifting’ afterward to activate segmentation in a meaningful way. Segmentation + activation is what differentiates Marketing Cloud CDP from its competitors in this crowded market.
New AppExchange Partners for CDP
No doubt you’re familiar with the AppExchange, the leading enterprise cloud marketplace, with solutions to extend the Salesforce platform. There are 12 new marketing intelligence partnerships that will extend Marketing Cloud CDP capabilities, including The Trade Desk, Acxiom, LiveRamp, Neustar, and others.
Triggered Campaign Messages
Marketers can deliver personalized 1-to-1 engagements to customers based on new product catalog additions alongside behavioral triggers – truly the perfect marriage!
The emphasis is on trusted, first-party data. Using data that’s generated by your organization to understand customer product preferences is the future-proof way to go, especially in light of the “cookieless future” and demise of third-party data. You can then interact with customers with visibility into the real-time status of those products – are they in stock, launching, or expiring soon?
The trigger event setup interface is shown below:
Intelligence Commerce Insights App
At a glance, this app from Marketing Cloud Intelligence (formerly Datorama):
- Connects: The Intelligence Connector for B2C Commerce Cloud connects commerce and marketing data across platforms, such as order data and product-level data.
- Visualizes: Out of the box, interactive dashboards bring to life performance data over time.
Digital Command Center for Slack
Stay ahead on marketing and commerce performance with alerts sent to Slack. Avoid adverse business impacts (e.g. revenue loss) by pooling team members to take proactive actions, and hit “resolved”.
The rules engine (pictured below) is a clear interface to define “job duration” and the time period, as well as which Marketing Cloud business units and journeys should be considered, and more.
Commerce
The ‘next gen’ of Commerce Cloud comes with the tagline “make every transaction more profitable”. This wraps up the following Commerce Cloud aims:
- To help customers get to market faster.
- Be easy to use.
- Drive greater brand loyalty.
Scot Gillespie (EVP & GM, Commerce Cloud) shared that Commerce Cloud customers outpace the wider industry by 8% in terms of gross merchandise value (GVM) growth. It’s no surprise that Commerce Cloud is a huge investment area for Salesforce; the rich portfolio of both B2B and B2C commerce products supported organizations’ success during the pandemic, and accelerated post-pandemic growth.
Out of the Commerce Cloud portfolio, the new innovations are highlighted in the image below, demonstrating how they work together from discovery to fulfillment, to loyalty:
New Salesforce Commerce Cloud highlights include:
- TikTok Integration
- Marketplace
- Seamless Commerce and Partner Ecosystem
- Commerce for Customer Service
TikTok Integration
TikTok – the social platform for making and sharing videos – has taken the world by storm. It spread like wildfire, especially among Gen Z, but you’ll find TikTok-ers of all ages due to the platform’s engaging (addictive!) user experience.
Commerce Cloud customers can tap into TikTok to support their brand discovery. In practice, marketers can create adverts for TikTok and redirect TikTok-ers to your site. Then additional actions can occur, such as sending an offer. These ad campaigns are easy to launch from Commerce Cloud, thanks to the closer integration.
Pilot June ‘22.
Marketplace
Launch your own marketplace, bolted on top of Commerce Cloud. An online marketplace is an e-commerce site that connects buyers and sellers. Often, a Marketplace will support many vendors, for example, Amazon or Etsy.
But it’s not just the household names that are interested in the marketplace model. According to Salesforce’s State of Commerce Report, 37% of respondents intend to launch marketplaces.
Salesforce acquired Atonit, a marketplace management solution built on the Salesforce platform, back in February 2022. Fast forward a few months, and Salesforce are going to make building marketplaces far easier – marketplaces that are capable of handling processes such as seller onboarding, catalog integration, order routing, payouts, and compliance.
General availability est. Sept ‘22.
Seamless Commerce and Partner Ecosystem
Simply put, Seamless Commerce is a bundle of offerings to help organizations launch end-to-end e-commerce – from discoverability through to the ‘last mile’ – much faster.
Solutions within Seamless Commerce are supplied by partner services including commerce payments, order management, and BNPL (buy now, pay later), among other essentials.
Generally available today.
For example, for BNPL, Salesforce launched their partnership with PayPal a while ago. They are now joining forces with Klarna to offer their Commerce Cloud customers solutions from the wider market to fit their needs.
Generally available today.
Commerce for Customer Service
The final piece of the “make every transaction more profitable” big picture is making commerce accessible to service agents, by giving them “one pane of glass” to understand every commerce interaction (e.g. returns, exchanges, promotions) and to order on behalf of the customer, too.
Order management has been gaining significant traction among customer service teams. After all, customer service is one channel for generating highly profitable purchases (i.e. it’s much more cost-effective to sell to an existing customer than acquire a new one).
Salesforce NFT Cloud
In mid-February 2022, reports leaked that Salesforce had started working on an NFT Cloud. Divided opinions immediately spread across the Salesforce ecosystem.
Ben, who had an interest in NFTs, wrote an article summarizing the truths, rumors, and controversies: “Salesforce NFT Cloud – The Good, the Bad & the Ugly”. If you have no idea what an NFT is, or why the rumors sparked controversy, follow the link to get yourself up to speed.
“Our customers have been asking us to help them navigate Web 3.0. NFT Cloud is all about helping our customers mint, manage, and sell NFTs – and of course, it’s all no-code.” – Adam Caplan, SVP of Emerging Technology
NFT Cloud will start its pilot phase in June 2022. The aim is for NFT Cloud customers to drive communities who are passionate about the brand. It’s a shift from being a customer to an audience, and now to a true community due to the element of ownership.
Salesforce see the appetite for NFT Cloud across retail (especially fashion), CPG, and media.
Salesforce have thought this through carefully. NFT Cloud will go to market with trust and sustainability, two of Salesforce’s core values, by design.
“Salesforce are driven by our core values. As we enter into this space, trust and sustainability are paramount to how we’re approaching this.” – Adam Caplan, SVP of Emerging Technology
Read more about how Salesforce NFT Cloud is coming to the market here.
Summary
Marketers are facing ever-changing data privacy regulations, a cookieless future, and – within organizations – shrinking budgets, and rising operating costs. Automation and AI have become imperative to business infrastructure, and CDP is the beating heart of personalization and relevancy. Triggered Campaign Messages, Intelligence Commerce Insights App, Digital Command Center for Slack – all enable marketers to be proactive with a world in flux.
‘Next gen’ of Commerce Cloud comes with the tagline “make every transaction more profitable” – to help customers get to market faster, be easy to use, and drive greater brand loyalty. From the TikTok advert integration, marketplaces, and Seamless Commerce – Commerce Cloud’s product portfolio gets richer.
Finally, Salesforce NFT Cloud has been made official, starting its pilot phase in June 2022. The aim is for customers to drive an entirely new breed of communities – a shift from being a customer to an audience, and now to a true community due to the element of ownership. Salesforce have thought this through carefully. NFT Cloud will go to market with trust and sustainability, two of Salesforce’s core values, by design.
Read more: Salesforce NFT Cloud Officially Announced