With a few busy weeks behind us, there was plenty of attention around what Salesforce deems their hottest product – Data Cloud. The messaging around the trifecta CRM + Data + AI has become more clear with Einstein 1 Studio. How Data Cloud plays a key role here is something we’ll cover in this guide, as well as which member of the C-suite’s interest has developed.
But first, some history. Data Cloud (formerly Salesforce CDP) started off life as a Marketing Cloud add-on product aimed at marketing departments touted for bringing multiple data sources into one interface and compiling certain individuals into an audience (in other words, segmentation). The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) would have been the key stakeholder in this case.
The launch of Salesforce “Genie” at Dreamforce ‘22 (now Data Cloud) marked a point in time with Salesforce framing this new iteration of their former CDP offering into Data Cloud, which we now know underpins the whole Salesforce platform. Data Cloud is an all-encompassing offering stretching beyond the confines of the marketing department. Over time, it’s become of interest for an organization’s Chief Information Officer (CIO).
This guide will compare the interests that the CMO and the CIO* each uphold, and also how Data Cloud has gone from simply CMO to cross-organization.
*Note: I will use these executive titles in this guide, but these could be easily translated to other role titles that you may have in your business around marketing and information technology leadership.
Shared Interests: CMO and CIO
Digital transformation is a term that’s been thrown around (especially heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic). “Digital transformation” is at risk of being diluted or misconstrued. Similarly, customer experience (CX) is another blurry term that could encompass a wide variety of initiatives. Regardless, both the CIO and CMO would lean on each other to meet their own interests.
- CIO: Works on initiatives to ensure that the organization remains competitive and agile in the rapidly evolving digital landscape. The CIO curates the organization-wide data so that it’s usable for other business functions. They evaluate new technologies and take forward those that will deliver value across the organization while ensuring operational efficiency is front of mind.
- CMO: Works to keep pace with digital marketing trends. With brands scaling up their reliance on technology to predict engagement (before it even happens) it’s no wonder no organization wants to be left behind in irrelevant messaging or draining their budget. Data is the fuel for producing impressive, captivating, and not to mention – relevant – customer experiences through personalization at scale (i.e. highly personalized content, at the right time to strike a chord with that individual). As opposed to a ‘one-shot’ success, CMOs want to build loyalty and advocacy through several touchpoints artfully stitched together.
In essence, the CIO and the CMO rely on each other. Gaining and utilizing demographic and engagement data feeds a self-fulfilling cycle – better quality data (first-party, up-to-date) enables better predictive analytics, forming the basis for personalization and driving results (whether that be revenue, or more data about the individual).
Salesforce CDP → Data Cloud: What Changed?
When Salesforce announced Genie (now Data Cloud), we got a glimpse into how CDPs matter across the entire organization – not just for the marketing team. The use cases that have been showcased include sales, service, commerce (and more), proving that a combination of data points from (oftentimes, hundreds) of data sources gives anyone in the organization a more accurate and timely view of their customer, as opposed to applying a “blanket”, “one-size-fits-many” – or even, left up to your users’ assumptions.
Inevitably, multiple considerations for the CIO arrived:
- First-party vs. third-party data: In the current landscape of third-party cookies being depreciated, companies need to collect, combine, and manage their customer data by themselves, instead of relying on third parties to do that for them. One can imagine that there are tons of untapped sources of data that customers are generating – the issue is that they often exist in siloes, and are therefore not usable on one platform.
- Data governance and data quality: Can data, when pulled together from their siloed sources, be assessed and utilized appropriately? With a full scope of data (in one place), one can gain a grasp on someone’s profile, then it can be funneled out to destinations and used in line with regulatory considerations.
- Technology Integration: Integration between systems in an organization’s tech stack clearly reduces data silos – a primary aim of CDPs. In terms of Data Cloud, Salesforce has been thoughtful in who they partner with, including the “bring your own data lake” (BYOL) and zero-copy architecture between providers such as Snowflake.
- AI: Choose your own LLM: With the Einstein Model Builder, organizations can choose the Large Language Model (LLM) for the use case they need to fulfill. Build predictive and generative AI models in other providers (such as Google Cloud’s Vertex AI), and train these models on Data Cloud data – hence the marriage between CRM data and AI.
- Zero-copy architecture: Sustainability has become a corporate priority over the past few years. CIOs are strongly considering the impact that their infrastructure has on the environment. What’s invisible to the typical user is that fetching and storing data within cloud-based technologies places demands on data centers. Salesforce has partnered with popular vendors to enable zero-copy/ETL with Data Cloud. This means that data is accessible and viewable in Data Cloud, but is not actually transferred, thus avoiding additional processing. If you’re interested in this topic, we go into some of these ‘invisible’ impacts in this article.
Compliance With Data Privacy Regulations
The CIO’s role has become more demanding due to two forces driving how data is handled:
- Increasingly complex tech stacks: Beyond the traditional CRM, there is an increasing number of integrated tools and applications installed within Salesforce – not to mention the sophistication of processes configured within each and sharing models (which users/groups of users can access records or perform create/read/update/delete actions).
- Data privacy landscape: What began with GDPR in 2018 is now more regionally regulated in order to mandate how data should be consumed, stored, profiled, and utilized. In the US, a number of state-specific regulations need to be considered.
As a result, it’s not all about compiling data into one place. Instead, it’s about ensuring that the various processes handling data respect regulations – a careful line to toe. With Data Cloud’s expansion across multiple business functions, this web of data has ballooned significantly.
Data Cloud for Marketers: What’s New?
At Dreamforce ‘23, Salesforce announced a freemium version of Data Cloud with 10K unified profiles available at no cost. Alongside the launch of Marketing Cloud Growth Edition in February 2024, Salesforce also advertised “Get Started with Data Cloud”. If you’ve been keeping up with Salesforce news over the past half year, this announcement isn’t much different.
So, what is new? Salesforce is signaling that they want to reiterate how Data Cloud can power up marketing teams.
To clear up a few question marks, here’s some clarity around it:
- Data Cloud operates on usage-based pricing. Credits are consumed to unify profiles (harmonization), build audiences (segmentation), and activate the segments built within Data Cloud to destinations (such as Marketing Cloud).
- Marketing Cloud customers (not Growth Edition) can leverage Data Cloud freemium (as explained above).
- Marketing Cloud Growth Edition is built on Data Cloud. This edition comes with a certain number of credits, 10k of which can be used for segmentation and activation.
To estimate your cost, see Salesforce’s Data Cloud rate cards for platform services and segmentation/activation on their website.
Summary
Salesforce has effectively adapted Data Cloud to cater to the diverse interests of CMOs and CIOs, driving its growth from a marketing-specific tool to a cross-organizational powerhouse.
By addressing the unique requirements of these executives, Salesforce has ensured that Data Cloud remains a versatile and valuable asset for businesses looking to harness the full potential of their data.