Featured · Salesforce Ben
Marketing Cloud Data Views: 10 Data Views You Should Know
A tour of the system data views behind Marketing Cloud's tracking — what each one holds, and the reporting questions each can actually answer.
Writing
Notes on Marketing Cloud, data, and building things
I write when something takes me longer to figure out than it should have. Some of these were published elsewhere — Salesforce Ben, Medium, SFMC Stack — and link out to the original.
Series
Marketing Cloud Next, explained simply
Short notes grouped by topic — setup, data and consent, segments, automation, and the AI settings — in ordinary language.
Docs · always current
Marketing Cloud Next Docs
A living reference, tab by tab — what each tab does and what's in its settings. Checked against every new release.
Archive
Which Einstein Settings Are Worth Enabling
Send time optimisation, metrics guard, engagement scoring and frequency — what each does and which edition has it.
Marketing Cloud NextEinsteinAIReporting
Campaigns, Briefs, and the Campaign Agent
Next-gen campaigns hold assets, automations and journeys together — and an agent will draft the brief and the copy if you let it.
Marketing Cloud NextCampaignsAgentforceContent
List Sends, RCS and Content Variants: Reading the Latest Marketing Cloud Next Release
A short note on the Summer '26 Marketing Cloud Next changes worth an architect's attention, and how I read release notes generally.
Marketing Cloud NextMarketing Cloud NextRelease notesChannels
Event-Triggered Sends Without a Journey
When a record change should just send the message — and how to keep those small automations from multiplying.
Marketing Cloud NextFlow BuilderTriggered sendsOperations
Flow Builder or Journey Builder?
Two automation tools, one platform. A simple way to decide which owns a given piece of logic.
Marketing Cloud NextFlow BuilderJourney BuilderArchitecture
Letting AI Draft the Segment
Segment Creation drafts an audience from a prompt. Useful as a starting point, not as an approval.
Marketing Cloud NextAgentforceSegmentsAI
Segments Instead of SQL
How audience building works on unified Data 360 data, and what an Engagement person has to unlearn.
Marketing Cloud NextSegmentsData 360Audiences
Flow in Marketing Cloud Next vs Journey Builder: What Actually Transfers
A short note for Engagement architects on which Journey Builder instincts survive the move to Flow, and which ones mislead you.
Marketing Cloud NextMarketing Cloud NextFlowJourney Builder
Where Consent Lives in Marketing Cloud Next
Consent moves from Engagement's subscription model to platform consent records and Privacy Center — what that changes in practice.
Marketing Cloud NextConsentPrivacyData 360
Data Kits, and Why They Come First
What a data kit installs, why the marketing kit is a prerequisite for reporting, and what to check after installation.
Marketing Cloud NextData 360Data kitsSetup
The First Setup Steps, In Order
The sequence Marketing Cloud Next setup actually wants: admins and permissions, enablement, data kits, identity resolution, email, reporting.
Marketing Cloud NextSetupPermissionsAdmin
Event-Triggered Flows in Marketing Cloud Next
A short note on moving from batch sends to flows that start the moment something happens — and what that demands of your data.
Marketing Cloud NextMarketing Cloud NextFlowReal time
What Marketing Cloud Next Actually Is
A plain-language description of Marketing Cloud Next, how it relates to Marketing Cloud Engagement, and what the names mean.
Marketing Cloud NextOverviewEditionsTerminology
Segments in Marketing Cloud Next: What Changes When Data 360 Is the Source
A short note on how segmentation works in Marketing Cloud Next, and the habits from Engagement that no longer apply.
Marketing Cloud NextMarketing Cloud NextSegmentationData 360
Marketing Cloud Next: A First-Project Readiness Checklist
What to confirm before committing to a first Marketing Cloud Next project — data foundation, identity, channel scope, and team skills.
Marketing Cloud NextMarketing Cloud NextReadinessData 360
Consent and Identity Across Marketing Cloud Products
Where consent lives in each Marketing Cloud product, and how to end up with one answer instead of three.
ArchitectureConsentPrivacyIdentity
Data Cloud Identity Resolution: Matching and Reconciliation Explained
How match rules and reconciliation rules differ, what a unified individual really is, and how to test the ruleset before trusting it.
Data CloudIdentity resolutionData CloudData modelling
Web Behavioural Events into Marketing Cloud: Comparing Integration Patterns
Collection options for on-site behaviour, the latency each one really gives you, and what each pattern costs to run.
IntegrationsBehavioural dataLatencyArchitecture
A Useful Checklist for Reviewing an Inherited Marketing Cloud Account
The first week in somebody else's Marketing Cloud account, in the order I actually do it.
ArchitectureAuditDeliveryHandover
Contact Count Growth: Finding the Sources of Unnecessary Records
Auditing where contacts come from in Marketing Cloud, and which ones should never have been created in the first place.
ArchitectureContact modelData hygieneCost
Tracking Email Engagement with Data Views: Scope and Limitations
Retention windows, what the tracking data views do and don't contain, and where reporting quietly drifts away from reality.
Marketing Cloud EngagementData ViewsReportingSQL
Designing Reliable REST and SOAP Integrations with Marketing Cloud
Authentication, retries, idempotency and error surfaces — and what each Marketing Cloud API is genuinely good at.
IntegrationsREST APISOAP APIIntegration design
AMPscript vs SSJS: A Practical Division of Responsibilities
Where each language is the right tool inside Marketing Cloud, what each costs you in readability, and how to stop them tangling.
Marketing Cloud EngagementAMPscriptSSJSDevelopment
Debugging Journey Entry and Re-entry Problems
Why a contact didn't enter a journey, what re-entry modes actually do, and the difference between an entry event and an entry filter.
Marketing Cloud EngagementJourney BuilderDebuggingAutomation
Salesforce Ben
Marketing Cloud Data Views: 10 Data Views You Should Know
A tour of the system data views behind Marketing Cloud's tracking — what each one holds, and the reporting questions each can actually answer.
Medium
The Importance of Data Management and Privacy in Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Why data management and privacy decisions in Marketing Cloud are architecture decisions, not an afterthought bolted on before go-live.
Medium
Best Practices for Implementation and Usage of Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Practical habits that keep a Marketing Cloud implementation maintainable after the launch team moves on.
SFMC Stack
Challenges and Solutions in Implementing Salesforce Marketing Cloud
The recurring obstacles in Marketing Cloud implementations — data, integration, and expectation shaped — and how to get around them.
New long-form pieces land here roughly every month or two.