Study Guide for Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification

Posted: Jan. 15, 2024

Updated: Apr. 2, 2025

The purpose of this post is not to provide the answers, but rather to share the materials that I personally used to pass the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification.

Let's start with the basic terms to know for each section of the exam.

Email Marketing Best Practices (10%)

Hard Bounce: the recipient's email address is invalid or no longer in use, and the email is permanently bounced back to the sender.
Soft Bounce: the recipient mail server is temporarily unavailable due to maintenance, being offline, a full mailbox, or the email address was removed from the server.
List Detective: List Detective is a tool that maintains information on email addresses and domains that could cause deliverability problems for your email sends.
IP Warming: build up approximately 30 days (depending on overall list size, list quality, and subscriber engagement) of sending history and data so that ISPs get familiar with email coming from your new IP address, by slowly and methodically sending small volumes of email, then gradually increase your volume to the providers’ users.
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) email authentication mechanism: assigns dedicated IP addresses to your domain, and ensures that only you can send outgoing messages as part of your dedicated domain.
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) email authentication mechanism: uses a system of encryption keys and digital signatures to ensure that the message comes from a verified user and contains only the intended content.
Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC): an email authentication, policy, and reporting protocol built on top of SPF and DKIM protocols.
Send Classification: defines CAN-SPAM classification (commercial or transactional), delivery profile, and sender profile parameters for an email job in a central location.
Sender Profile: specifies the from information for an email send (ie. ‘From Name’, ‘From Email Address’), in a central location, for use across multiple sends without needing to recreate it each time.
Delivery Profile: specifies the IP address, and the header and footer you have chosen to use for a send.
Dictionary Attack: try to guess a user's password to their online accounts by quickly running through a list of commonly used words, phrases, and number combinations.

Content Creation and Delivery (24%)

Content Builder: cross-channel content management tool that allows you to consolidate images, documents, and content in a single location for use in the Marketing Cloud.
Dynamic Content: define a dynamic content block in an email to render information based on the subscriber’s attributes, data extension values, or audiences.
Enhanced Dynamic Content: import a delimited file containing text and image URLs to create enhanced dynamic content for emails.
Interactive Email Form Block: allows marketers to receive subscriber information like profile data, product reviews, and sales leads directly from embedded forms in an email.
Personalization Strings: insert basic attributes such as first name, last name, today's date, links, sender information, etc. into email subject line or body.
AMPscript: Salesforce propriety scripting language that interacts with Marketing Cloud emails, landing pages, SMS and MMS messages, and push notifications.
AMPscript lookup(): advanced method of personalization to dynamically pull in content associated with customers preference or profile, such as order date, each customer's accumulated loyalty points, etc.
Server-Side JavaScript (SSJS): mainly used for Integrations and includes additional features (like arrays, array function, JSON parsing) that don't exist in AMPscript.
Guide Template Language (GTL): Marketing Cloud's newest programmatic language that can create personalized, repeatable content blocks and templates with fewer lines of code than AMPscript.
Send Throttling: limits the maximum number of outbound messages Marketing Cloud MobilePush queues to send in a specified time period.
Multipart MIME: determines whether the system sends the message using multi-part MIME, then provides an HTML version of the message content to inboxes that can display it and a text-only version to inboxes that can’t render HTML.
Send Flow (previously Guided Send): allows you to see what you are sending to reduce errors, and consolidates all major sending functionality into a simple, highly visual interface.
Triggered Sends: create and send automated messages to Salesforce contacts, leads, or person accounts when object records are created or updated.
Single Email Send: send an email in 3 steps: 1/ select the email you want to send, 2/ choose the Data Extension that contains the target audience (add more filters if required), 3/ schedule the send.
User-Initiated Send: emails are sent to multiple recipients (at the same time) to Data Extensions, either immediately or scheduled for a specific date and time.

Einstein Features

Content Selection: no-code, open-time experimentation tool for personalized content that selects content at open time, and continues to evaluate for winning content while also experimenting to ensure that click-through rates are optimized.
Messaging Insights: analyzes emails at journey and batch level per BU for anomalies in open, click, unsubscribe.
Engagement Frequency: provides a breakdown of email saturation across subscriber base, based on past 90 days data.
Copy Insights: quantitative and qualitative subject line analysis, based on 90-day rolling window of email engagement data.
Email Recommendations: observe customer behavior, build preference profiles, and deliver the next-best content or product.

Marketing Automation (26%)

Journey Builder

Entry sources

Batch Entry sources: data extension, GA360, audience studio, audience (Mobile Connect List)
Triggered entry sources:
- Data extension - scheduled, automated, or trigged
- API event: add customers through API when they take a specified action
- CloudPages: CloudPages Smart Capture form
- Inbound Chat: admit contacts who send specific keywords
- Salesforce Data - object data or campaign
- Event - key contact date or date relative to it
Contact entry modes:
- No re-entry: contact enters the journey one time and never reenter, even after completing the journey
- Re-entry at any time: contact can enter the journey an unlimited number of times, even if they're currently already in the journey
- Re-entry only after exiting: contact can reenter if they're not currently in the journey, so there’s maximum of one instance of each contact in the journey

Activities

Messaging and advertising
- Email: send email to the journey records
- Mobile: admit audience from Audience Studio
- Advertising: select customers in a MobileConnect List to add to a journey in bulk
Splits
- Decision Split: uses data attributes to evaluate the data of that specific contact, and sends them down the path they are eligible for
- Engagement Split: sends contacts down a Yes or No path based on whether they open or click a link in an email or the email bounces
- Random Split: split the contacts randomly to determine which email version performs better
Waits
- Wait by Duration: wait for specified hours or days
- Wait Until Date: wait until the specified end day and time
- Wait by Attribute: wait until the day and time stored in a date field is reached
- Wait until Event: setup an API event, log the data in a data extension, add filter criteria and maximum wait period
- Wait unit Chat Response: a WhatsApp Chat Messaging feature
- Wait until Push Engagement Event: select the Push message and configure based on engagement
Path Optimizer Test: multi-variant tool to test up to 10 paths across content, send frequency, etc.
Sales and Service Cloud: create lead, account, contact, case, task, update and add campaign members and work with any customer object from within the journey
Preview and Test tab: review personalization options and see how your message appears to a recipient
Validation: confirms that the journey’s components are working correctly, by checking for errors or configuration issues in the following activities: entry source, entry schedule, decision splits, wait activities, update contact activities, email engagement splits, journey settings, journey goals and exit criteria.

Automation Studio

Starting Sources

Schedule
API Event
File Drop Automation: starts when a file is uploaded to Marketing Cloud Enhanced FTP, based on folder or naming convention

Activities

Filter: filtered data extension or automated filter activity using a data filter created in Email Studio
SQL: use SOQL (Salesforce Object Query Language) to segment data from data extensions or views
Verification: set conditions for a data extension used in the automation, and receive a notification and/or stop the automation if conditions are not met
File Transfer: securely transfer files from SFMC's secure file transfer location (Safehouse) to FTP, or unzip or decrypt a file in Enhanced FTP directory
Import: usually following a file drop automation or file transfer activity, import uses data from an outside file to update a subscriber list or data extension
Script: execute Server-Side JavaScript to accomplish tasks in an email or landing page
Report Definition: defines the parameters for running a report one time to be used every time the report is run using the activity
Data Extract (Tracking Data Extract): creates a zipped file to use outside of SFMC, such as converting an xml file into csv or excel and export to datalake
Refresh Group: reapply the rules in a group definition to create a subset of subscribers in a list
Fire Event: signal that new contacts were added to an Event Data Source in Journey Builder, then the newly-added data is injected into all Interactions whose Entry Events are configured to detect changes in this data source
Error Handlings: receive email notifications when an automation completes or fails

Subscriber and Data Management (26%)

Data Extensions
- Standard: used to create a new data extension and add custom fields as needed.
- Filtered: select an existing data extension and filter out the records by defining a criteria.
- Random: select a percentage or number of subscribers from an existing source data extension.
Send Log: Data extension that stores specific data beyond the information already stored in tracking.
Data Views: built-in backend data extensions with data about your subscribers and sends, which can be leveraged in SQL queries and used with SSJS
Web Collect: tool in Email Studio that gives subscribers the option of filling out a form, but the data is added to Lists (legacy data storing method) and not Data Extensions.
Marketing Cloud Connect: tool that allows an application to establish a connection with Sales or Service Cloud.
Smart Capture Forms: forms for lead generation from webinar signups, newsletters, or in-person events, with data stored in Data Extensions.
List Unsubscribe: occurs when a user unsubscribes from a list only - for example, if a user unsubscribes from your Monthly Newsletter, they remain on any other email lists under which they exist.
Master Unsubscribe: causes the subscriber to be marked as unsubscribed on the all subscriber list and any other lists that they appear in.
Universal Unsubscribe: occurs when a subscriber unsubscribes from every email your company sends, then their status is set to Unsubscribed on all your lists and your universal list.
Publication Lists: manage subscribers' unsubscribe or opt-out actions with separate publication lists for each communication type.
Double Opt-In: requires your subscribers to confirm their email address by clicking a link in an email they receive after subscribing, to ensure that the subscribers on your list want to be there, and minimize invalid email addresses.
Auto-Suppression List: used to suppress the sends automatically for all subscribers part of the list, such as competitors or subscribers addresses with bad delivery issues.
AppExchange: the Salesforce marketplace, offering thousands of solutions and services that extend Salesforce.
External Key: unique identifier used by developers in their API calls to access the data extension programmatically.
Tenant-Specific Endpoint: individualized address for communicating directly with Marketing Cloud (ex. REST and SOAP API requests, FTP activities, and Mobile Push interactions).

Insights and Analytics (14%)

Tracking: an aggregated collection of data that allows you to view critical elements such as email opens, clicks, undeliverable messages, and other metrics online.
Measure: a unit of subscriber behaviour defined in Email Studio, for example total unsubscribes for marketing sends in the last 30 days, total unique opens in the last 30 days, etc.
Dimension: non-quantifiable category of data such as sender id, date.
Subscriber Engagement Report: displays which subscribers are most or least engaged with emails, based on clicks, delivered ratio, opens, open ratio.
Email Performance Over Time: report for all sends during a specific period, including date/time, send count, delivered vs undeliverable, unique opens, unique clicks, unsubscribes.
Account Send Summary: report that displays all responses for an Marketing Cloud account, organized by send.
Email Performance by Domain: report of email sends results for each domain sent to for a single send.

Practice Questions

Now, test your knowledge with the following practice questions.

Q: What data models are available in Marketing Cloud, and when should each one be used?

A: Data extensions are tables used to store subscriber data, or any other relational data such as product data. The following data types are supported: text, number, date, boolean, email, phone, decimal, and local. Data extensions should be used if you have over 1 million subscribers, plan to use global messages or triggered sends, rely on SOAP or REST APIs, or are looking for a flexible subscription model. The second data model available in Marketing Cloud is lists. Users may opt for the list model if they have less than 500k subscribers, require a limited number of attributes, or prefer simplicity over high data import speed and performance.

Q: What is a transactional send journey?

A: Transactional Send Journeys enable users to create and manage transactional API messages in the same Journey Builder workspace used to manage Single Send and Multi-Step journeys. This journey type allows non-technical users to configure a Transactional API entry source without assistance from a developer. You can also monitor journey performance, such as error counts and queue depth, from the Journeys Dashboard.

Q: What are some ways to acquire new subscribers?

Social ads - for example, using Facebook lookalike audience
Sign ups - member registration, mobile app registration, newsletter opt-ins, offline events
Incentives - deals, discounts, contents, content upgrades

Q: What are profile and preference attributes?

A: Marketing Cloud users can specify whether profile and preference attributes are required information for every subscriber, and whether subscribers can see and edit their own attributes in the Profile Center. Profile attributes include full name, email, userdefined (a default generic attribute that you may use as needed), and html email preference (set to yes by default). Preference attributes are related to how a subscriber prefers to receive email, and are defined by yes/no in response to a declarative statement, such as "the subscriber prefers to receive email as html."

Q: What are some of the best practices to ensure email deliverability?

Include an actual name, add your organization's name in both the From address and subject line
Purge old or inactive addresses from mailing lists
Remove subscribers with bounce rates 20%+ so that your ISP reputation won't be negatively impacted
Authenticate email to distinguish it from spammers
Encourage subscribers to add the company's domain to their address books

Q: What is send relationship in sendable data extensions?

A: Send relationship assigns each row of data to a specific subscriber. In other words, send relationship answers the question of "in this data extension, which field defines the person (subscriber key) that is being sent to?" Contact ID is the standard option, but other values such as email address or some other internal id could be your subscriber key, depending on the architecture of your Marketing Cloud instance.

Q: What are some reasons for separating BU's?

Maintain separate branding based on regions or geography
Restrict data access from users from other BU's
Keep the data organized

Q: How is data shared between different BU's?

A: Data extensions in the parent BU can be shared with a child BU by placing them in the "Shared" folder.

Q: When a contact unsubscribes from the parent BU, will they also be unsubscribed from the child BU?

A: If the "Unsubscribe from this Business Unit Only" setting is enabled, then the Active/Unsubscribed status in All Subscribers will be maintained separately across BU's.

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In addition to studying the above concepts, I also took a practice test on webassessor, watched a series of tutorial videos on YouTube, and reviewed the following Quizlet decks.

Quizlet Decks for Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist

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When you're ready, go ahead and register for the exam. Whether you take it at home or at a test center, the exam is administered on a computer system. After submitting your answers, you'll see the results on the screen immediately. The system will tell you whether your passed or failed, and then show your scores for each section.

If you're curious about your overall performance, use this site to figure out how many questions you actually got correct and what your overall score was: https://scuvanov.github.io/SalesforceCertScoreCalculator/

How to Maintain the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification

In order to keep your Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification, you'll need to take Salesforce maintenance exams twice a year. These can be accessed via your Trailblazer profile. Under the certification section, for each of your Salesforce certifications, there will be either a green "Active" or red "Maintenance Due" icon.