What Marketing Cloud Next Actually Is

The naming has confused almost everybody I've spoken to, so start there. Marketing Cloud Next is the marketing product that runs on the Salesforce platform itself, sold as Growth and Advanced editions. Marketing Cloud Engagement is the older, separate product with Email Studio, Automation Studio and Journey Builder. They are two different things, and for now they live side by side.

Where the pieces come from

Next is less a new application and more an assembly of Salesforce parts pointed at marketing. Your data and audiences come from Data 360. Automation comes from Flow. Campaigns use the standard campaign object. Reporting uses platform analytics. Content is built with platform tooling rather than Content Builder.

That matters practically: if you already administer Salesforce, a lot of Next will feel familiar. If your background is purely Engagement, the first week is mostly vocabulary.

And Engagement+

Engagement+ is the middle path. Existing Engagement customers can buy the plus licence and get access to next-generation features — segments, Flow, next-gen campaigns, the marketing performance reporting — from inside their existing account, via a Next button in the navigation or the App Launcher.

Edition names and availability move. Check the current Salesforce Help page for your edition before quoting any of this in a proposal.

What I'd tell a team deciding

• If Engagement works and the pain is reporting and data silos, Engagement+ is the low-disruption step.
• If you are starting fresh and already live on Salesforce CRM, Next is the more coherent place to build.
• Nothing forces a big-bang migration right now, and I would not volunteer for one.