Data views are system-generated tables, known as data extensions (DEs), in Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC). They contain different information about subscribers and events such as email/SMS sends, email opens, or links clicked. You can also view behavioral information such as emails forwarded, the status of your subscribers and contacts, or view the bounce rate of a particular email.
There are currently 24 different data views in SFMC that you can check out here.
Data views are somewhat hidden in Marketing Cloud, and you can’t just look at them like data extensions – you can only leverage them using SQL.
Basically, to find the information you need in data views, you can create an SQL query in Automation Studio. So if you wanted to find subscribers who have bounced or subscribers who haven’t opened the email in the last 14 days, there are plenty of possibilities working this way.
Here you can find the example of the SQL query where the data view _Sent is used:
Note that the distinction between a data extension and a data view is that data views always start with an underscore. If you want to query them, this is the correct way to find one.
In this article, we want to highlight the top 5 data views that we think are the most useful, especially, while working with the Email Studio in Marketing Cloud.
5 Data Views You Should Know
1. _Subscribers: find out which accounts are subscribers in SFMC, as well as know their status.
2. _Click: find data on email clicks from your campaign in SFMC.
3. _Bounce: find data on bounces from your email campaigns in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
4. _Open: contains the information about the email opens in SFMC.
5. _Sent: find the list of subscribers the communication was sent to from your Salesforce Marketing Cloud account.
Final words
We think that every email marketer working with Marketing Cloud can easily benefit from better understanding data views. The information in them can be very useful when segmenting your audience for future campaigns, as well as extracting information for reporting purposes.
We hope this article has sparked your interest in leveraging data views in Marketing Cloud. If you want to see a detailed visualization of all the data views and how they can work together, have a look here.
Finally, if you’re interested in how data views can be used in real-life scenarios while working with Marketing Cloud, you can also check out these articles:
How to exclude customers who have been targeted recently in Salesforce Marketing Cloud
How to manage marketing pressure in Salesforce Marketing Cloud: A practical guide
You can also have a look at this article with the top 10 data views in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.