The final Salesforce Marketing Cloud release of 2020 is here, and they have jampacked each studio with new enhancements. This is in addition to the newly announced Trailblazer Community for Marketing Cloud, which Salesforce is hoping will further educate and empower users with content creation using their Content Builder. But before we get into that, what is new, and should we be excited? Let’s examine the updates made in October which will serve us for the remainder of 2020.
General Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Chrome Blocking Mixed Content
You may have seen this warning in your account. This one is particularly critical for you if you are using image domains (usually using a Sender Authentication Package; SAP) without SSL certificates or if you are utilising external content through an unsecured web server or Digital Asset Management (DAM) system with unsecured (HTTP) domains.
Content over HTTPS is becoming a stronger browser requirement: starting in September 2020, Google Chrome introduced a series of warnings and will commence blocking what is called ‘mixed content rendering’. Google Chrome will also start blocking mixed content downloads in January 2021
So how do you know if your content domain has SSL?
You can determine if your image domain has SSL by navigating to Setup → Company Settings → Account Settings. If you have SSL, your Portfolio Base URL will start with HTTPS. If you do not have SSL the Portfolio Base URL will start with HTTP.
For more information, including scenarios and a work around visit this page or check out the announcement from Google.
Secure Custom Domains in MC Setup in less than one week
If you have purchased an SSL through Salesforce, you will be able to secure custom domains directly from the MC Setup UI in early November. Salesforce have made this process easier and faster! In what could previously take 6 weeks, can now be achieved within a week by the Salesforce support team.
Email Studio
Recycle Bin API
Have you been on the receiving end of a frenzied call from a colleague who accidentally deleted something and is in a panic to revert their mistake? This previously meant you had to create a case with support to restore the deleted asset and this would often be an overnight restoration task. Now, with a Recycle Bin API available in Content Builder, you can restore file-based assets that are marked for deletion within the last 30 days to Content Builder. This empowers you to be able to self-serve and resolve this issue without any assistance from Salesforce support. This one receives a gold star from the community as the number one idea in the Trailblazer Community for Marketing Cloud.
Setup Alert Manager
This is a welcome change and has been a source of frustration for marketing teams to learn the day after an email was sent that has failed to send to a portion of the audience due to the data issues or content issues.
Users can now set up an alert to receive a summary notification at send completion if more than 100 subscribers in the audience failed to process in either Email Studio or Automation Studio. This only applies to batch sends.
General Email Form Block Enhancements
Interactive Email Forms are a hot topic for marketers in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, as these are a relatively new feature after Salesforce’s acquisition and subsequent integration of acquisition of Rebel. Salesforce have been busy tweaking and improving accessibility of these forms, adding to the rating and select input, and enhancing the code generated by elements on the Design tab, including the button choice inputs that allow more consistent control of the border width.
Standard Content Builder Blocks Now Output Accessible HTML
To allow screen readers and assistive software to read block HTML, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Content Builder now adds HTML attributes to the HTML, FreeForm, Image, Text, and Button blocks. The new attribute role=presentation designates the HTML table as a presentation table rather than a data table.
Campaigns Removed from Email Studio
Salesforce has removed the ability to create, view, and associate campaigns from Classic Email, triggered sends, subscriber list, and subscriber groups in Email Studio. Use the Campaigns app to create, view, and associate campaigns. This change does not affect SOAP API integrations.
Synchronized Data Extensions: Limit of 250 Fields
A synchronized entity is limited to synchronizing data for up to 250 fields. Any entity currently synchronizing more than 250 fields can continue to synchronize all fields but no new fields can be added to the entity until the field count is below the 250 field limit.
This will impact many larger customers that were initially set up to sync all fields from a Salesforce Object.
Mobile Studio
iOS 14 Impact on MobilePush Customers Who Use Geofences and Beacons
MobilePush customers who use geolocations and beacons must be aware of behaviour implications with iOS 14. With this update, users can grant approximate location permission instead of precise location. Users who choose to use this new approximate location permission cannot expect the SDK to trigger geofences or beacons. MobilePush SDK doesn't have enough precision to determine whether the user is in a geofenced area.
Automation Studio
Track Automation Studio Changes with Advanced Audit Trail
Now your Advanced Audit Trail users can view logged events for automations and activities in Automation Studio for the last 60 days and they can identify who made those changes.
Advertising Studio
LinkedIn Account Matching in Ad Studio
Prior to today, you could target individuals on LinkedIn, using email addresses. Now, you can find unknown buyers within target accounts, based on company name and other company identifiers kept in Salesforce. You also have the ability to target or suppress ads based on opportunity stage or account status.
Einstein
Redesigned Einstein Engagement Frequency & Journey Builder Activity
A new EEF split activity in Journey Builder segments contacts based on their desire to receive emails, using real-time send metrics to decide.
Get Send Time Insight in Single Send Journeys
Use Journey Builder’s Einstein STO (Send Time Optimisation) activity to get the power of Einstein in single send journeys. For maximum engagement, send your messages when they're mostly likely to be opened.
Predict Engagement for MobilePush Messages
Einstein Engagement Scoring for MobilePush predicts consumer engagement with mobile push notifications and mobile push applications to help you segment and personalise based on how likely someone is to engage.
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These updates are genuinely exciting as in our experience they are addressing some of the most common pain points users have in their daily use of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. The next release is due January 2021 for the next scheduled update , so mark your calendar!
To view the 2021 release schedule please visit this page here.
