Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement

About the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement app

The Marketing Cloud Engagement app connects your Contentful space to Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement, so approved content is ready to use in emails, journeys, and personalization without manual copy-and-paste. Admins pick a content type in Contentful and either create a new Data Extension from it or link it to an existing one. The app then copies every published entry into that Data Extension.

After that, sync is automatic. When an editor publishes an entry, its row is updated in Marketing Cloud Engagement. When an editor unpublishes it, the row is marked inactive. For accounts with multiple business units, the app can create Shared Data Extensions in the parent business unit, so one set of Contentful content can be shared with every child business unit that needs it. Marketers can then use the content with AMPscript, SQL Query Activities, and Journey Builder, the same way they use any other Data Extension.

Features

• Create Data Extensions from content types: Generate a new Data Extension directly from a Contentful content type. The app builds the columns from the fields you choose, and you can add extra text columns of your own.
• Link to existing Data Extensions: Connect a content type to a Data Extension that already exists. The app warns you when the Data Extension's columns don't match the content type.
• Automatic sync on publish: Publishing an entry updates its row in Marketing Cloud Engagement. Unpublishing marks the row inactive, so campaigns never use withdrawn content.
• One-click backfill: When you link a content type, every published entry is copied into the Data Extension. You can run the backfill again at any time.
• Choose what syncs: Pick which fields sync for each content type. When you add a field later, the app adds a matching column to the Data Extension for you.
• Multi-business-unit support: Create Shared Data Extensions in your parent business unit and share them with child business units from Marketing Cloud Engagement.
• Localized content: Each locale of an entry is written as its own row, so localized campaigns get the right language.
• Built-in connection check: Confirms your credentials, business unit access, and Shared Data Extensions folder before you sync anything.

Use Cases

Built for marketing and CRM teams that send email and run journeys in Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement and want Contentful to stay the source of truth for the content inside them.

1. Email content at scale: Keep offers, product details, and promotional copy in Contentful and pull them into emails with AMPscript lookups.
2. Long-running journeys: Content updates in Contentful reach journeys that are already running, without rebuilding emails.
3. Multi-brand or multi-region accounts: Share one Data Extension of Contentful content with every child business unit, instead of maintaining copies in each one.
4. Localized campaigns: Sync every locale of an entry so regional sends use the right language.

Requirements

To use this app you will need:

• Space Admin access to the Contentful space where you are installing the app.
• A Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement account.
• A Marketing Cloud Engagement user with permission to create Installed Packages (the Installed Package | Administer permission, included in the Administrator and Marketing Cloud Administrator roles).
• An Installed Package with a Server-to-Server API Integration that has Data Extensions Read and Write access. This gives you the Client ID, Client Secret, and Authentication Base URI the app needs. Step-by-step instructions are in the app's help documentation.
• Optional: your parent business unit's MID, if you want to create Shared Data Extensions for child business units.

Limitations

• Reference fields, media fields, Rich Text, JSON object, and location fields aren't synced yet. Short text, long text, number, integer, date, boolean, and short text lists are supported.
• Unpublishing an entry marks its rows inactive (IsActive = false) rather than deleting them. Filter on IsActive in your queries.
• Which child business units can see a Shared Data Extension is configured in Marketing Cloud Engagement, not in the app.
• Synced data appears in Contact Builder › Data Extensions, not in Content Builder.
• Very large content types (thousands of entries) can time out during a backfill.

Screenshots