A File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard protocol for securely moving files between environments. Each Marketing Cloud Engagement account comes with a Secure FTP (or SFTP) that needs to be configured before you do any import activities.
A send log is a data extension that is created to store specific data about your email sends—beyond the information already stored in tracking.
In Marketing Cloud Engagement, an SQL query activity is used to execute queries and retrieve data for reporting or segmenting audiences.
System data views are Salesforce-created queries that you can use to find information about your subscribers. You won’t be able to make changes to these precreated data views. Here are some of the most commonly used views.
Query these data views in Automation Studio to view click and open data for emails from your Marketing Cloud Engagement account. Helps to identify additional messaging opportunities by indicating subscriber engagement on a specific JobID.
Query this data view in Automation Studio to view complaints data related to emails from your Marketing Cloud Engagement account. Use to prune your lists to ensure more accurate audiences and improve deliverability.
Internet Service Providers (ISP) – An ISP is a provider of an email mailbox to an end user (that is, your subscriber). This can include companies that provide Internet connectivity like a cable company or a service that provides free web-based mailboxes such as Gmail or Outlook.com.
Internet Protocol (IP) Address – An IP address is a unique numeric identifier (for example: 136.147.131.11, one of the Marketing Cloud Engagement sending IP addresses) that every machine connected to the Internet (or network) has to distinguish your online activity from another machine.
Shared and Dedicated IPs – Shared IP addresses are shared with other organizations on an email server. Sending reputation in a shared IP pool is based on a blended reputation of all senders. A dedicated IP address is used by one organization to control its own sending reputation.
Domains and Subdomains – Domain names are friendly names that are associated with IP addresses and are used to identify the sender. You can also have a subdomain that relates to your domain. Here’s an example.
Email Address
Domain
Subdomain
name@email.getcloudyconsulting.com
getcloudyconsulting
email
Private Domains – Private domains (like cloud.getcloudyconsulting.com) can be purchased separately for use with email or for landing pages.
Domain Name System (DNS) – DNS is a database that connects IP addresses with their corresponding domain names. You can delegate your domain to Salesforce to manage DNS on your behalf, or self-host directly through your provider.
Phishing – Phishing is impersonating a trustworthy source to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details.
Spoofing – Spoofing is falsifying information in an email message; for example, using a fake “From” address.
Email Authentication – Email authentication is a process that confirms an email isn’t forged and is from the organization who owns the provided domain name. This process allows an ISP to block known spammers and approve email from reputable domains. This process varies by ISP, with some ISPs being stricter than others.
Sender Authentication Package (SAP) – An SAP is purchased from Salesforce and includes a collection of products, including an authenticated private domain with link and image wrapping, a dedicated IP address, and reply mail management (RMM). We cover this topic in more detail in the next unit.
Security Socket Layer (SSL) – SSL encrypts communications between networks, allowing sensitive information such as credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, and login credentials to be transmitted securely.
Sender Authentication Package (SAP) through Salesforce ensures you have compliant, authenticated email messages when sending from our platform.
IP warming is the process of gradually increasing the volume of mail sent by a new IP address. The goal is to build up at least 30 days of desirable sending history so that ISPs have an idea of the kinds of mail coming from your new IP address.
Ten Marketing KPIs to help you understand how well your messages are connecting:
Delivery rate is the percentage of emails delivered. ((Number of sends) – (Number of Bounces)) / (Number of Sends).
The click-through rate is the percentage of clicks once an email is opened. (Unique Clicks) / (Delivered Emails).
Clicks by link/URL – These are unique clicks on a link within a single email or across many emails. They are sometimes tracked by aliases or UTM parameters.
Event lag is the average time that passed between the click and send time.
Bounce rate by bounce type – Bounce rate is the percentage of messages rejected by the email client (e.g., Google, Apple). Calculation: (Bounces) / (Sends). Bounces are typically organized into a few categories, including:
Block. Bounces resulting from a complaint, blocklist, content, URL block, or authentication error.
Hard. Bounces caused by an unknown domain or user, or syntax error.
Soft. Bounces resulting from a full or temporarily inactive mailbox, or temporary domain failure.
Technical. Number of bounces caused by the server, data format, or network error.
Unsubscribe rate and complaint rate – The Unsubscribe rate is the percentage of unsubscribes per deliveries. The complaint rate is the percentage of complaints per deliveries. A complaint is logged when a subscriber flags the email as spam.
Web traffic and conversions – Indicate the percentage of recipients who completed the email’s intended purpose, such as converting online to visit, purchase, download, or complete a similar call to action.
Campaign performance (by campaign and by email) – Creating distinct email marketing KPIs for each can help; for example, click-through rate for a whole campaign versus click-through rate for individual emails across multiple campaigns. Doing this will help you understand why a campaign is working or not, and which emails to use in future ones.
Subscriber list growth and trends – Tracking the health of your various lists and segments is a vital indicator of how your emails are performing over time, and if your email sign-up CTAs are effective.
Most and least engaged subscribers – High engagement may indicate a customer with high brand loyalty, who maybe should be targeted in an upcoming loyalty offer.
The Journeys dashboard gives you a high-level overview of journey performance for the most recent version of a journey, regardless of whether it’s running, finishing, stopped, or still in draft status.
The Journeys dashboard also includes the number of contacts in the journey’s audience and the percentage who completed the journey.
Journey Builder Reports
Journey Builder Email Send Summary
Tracking and engagement metrics for emails sent in journeys over a specified time frame. Choose specific journeys and versions to include in the report.
Journey Builder Email Sends by Day
Tracking and engagement metrics for emails sent in journeys, aggregated by day, for a specified time frame, along with specific journeys and versions to include in the report.
Journey Builder Reports
Three reports commonly used for journeys:
Email Overview: Provides a high-level view of top KPIs like Sends, Delivery Rate, and Open Rate, as well as how these metrics have performed over time.
Journey Performance by Email: Provides an in-depth view into your journey and activities data, including the journey performance and a detailed breakdown by domain, day of week, audience, and more.
Email Engagement: Provides a detailed visualization of your email engagement data including engagement KPIs, engagement timelines, and in -depth breakdowns by domain, day of week, audience, and more.
Use Journey Tags to organize your journeys and use the search or filter tool to quickly locate them in the Journey dashboard.
Organize your journeys in folders so they’re easy to find.
