Marketing Cloud Administrator Certification Study Guide – Part 2: Subscriber data management

Uncategorized 3 Minutes

This section of the exam makes up 18% of the overall exam, ~10 questions, and tests these topics:
• Profile center and preference attributes
• Data quality and mail management
• Contact model

Data Extension

  • Data extensions represent tables containing attributes and related values.
  • Data extensions contain information entered manually or imported through an import definition or an API.
  • Attributes and values contain specific contact record information or related information, such as sales or shipping information.
  • You can establish relationships between data extensions to provide flexible and powerful access to contact data.
  • Use DE when your lists are going to be greater than 500,000 subscribers

Types of Data Extensions

  • Standard data extensions are used for building a custom set of fields.
  • Filtered data extensions are used to create a subset/segment from an existing data extension.
  • Random data extensions allow you to randomly select subscribers from a source data extension

Data Retention

Data Import

Your account must use enhanced FTP to import data. Before you import, you must create a data extension and the import file. Your import file must contain a header row and at least one row of data, and it must be a comma-delimited, tab-delimited, or other delimited file. You can use the Automation Studio import activity or the import wizard to populate your data extension. https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/marketing-cloud-data-management/move-your-data


When using Automation Studio,  If your files are encrypted or zipped, a file transfer activity is needed before you use Import Activity to import the file into Marketing Cloud. A file transfer activity is a two-step process in Automation Studio that 1) transfers the file to the safehouse (more on that in a minute) and 2) decrypts or unzips the file to prep for import. The safehouse is where Marketing Cloud stores decrypted or unzipped files for a short period of time. 

Profile Center

A webpage hosted by Marketing CLoud where Subscribers can enter and maintain the personal information that you keep about them. When you import a list, you can import attribute values for your subscribers that appear when a subscriber visits the profile center.

Subscription Center

A webpage hosted by Marketing Cloud that allows subscribers to subscribe or unsubscribe from different communications. When a list is created, it must be marked as public in order to be visible in the subscription center.

All Subscribers

The All Subscribers list is the master list of records for your Marketing Cloud Email Studio account. Every subscriber in your account appears in the All Subscribers list. Subscribers added to a subscriber list join the All Subscribers list at the same time. Subscribers stored on data extensions join the All Subscribers list when you send your first message to that subscriber.

Contact Builder

Contact Builder provides a single view of a customer that displays all interactions with your brand. You can leverage all collected information to personalize customer conversations at any size in any channel.

Contact Builder provides several tools used to manage contact data for use in building 1:1 relationships:

  • Contacts Configuration – Determine how Contact Builder processes imported contact information
  • Data Designer – Define information about your contacts and relate that data directly to the contact record by linking data extensions
  • Data Extensions – Create and manage the data extensions that hold contact information
  • Imports – Create the processes that move contact information into your data extensions
  • Data Sources – Visualize where your contact data originates and assign attributes to those sources
Subscriber Key Best practices

Linking Data Extensions

Data Extensions are linked to each other AND the Contact in the Contact Builder

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/contact-builder-implementation-basics

Attribute Groups: Attribute groups enable you to organize your data in Contact Builder. Each attribute group includes a data model consisting of data extensions linked to either the contact record or other data extensions. You can create attribute groups including all relevant data extensions at the same time to ensure that all necessary data resides in the correct group.

Journey Data vs Contact Data:

Contact Deletion

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/contact-deletion-in-marketing-cloud

https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_cab_contact_deletion.htm&type=5

Delete contacts to remove contact information from your Marketing Cloud Contact Builder account. Delete contact information to meet data compliance regulations. This feature applies only to contacts in Email Studio – All subscribers, MobileConnect, MobilePush, and Contact Builder.

  • Enable Contact Delete for your account in the Contact Configuration section of Contact Builder. For Enterprise 2.0 accounts, enablement occurs at the parent account level for the entire organization.
  • Deletion process initiated
  • Suppression period – contact information remains in your account, but you cannot view or access it
  • Final deletion – Marketing Cloud removes deleted contact information from your account

Enable Contact Deletion: Audience Builder-> Contact Builder -> Contacts Configuration -> Contact Delete = On

Enable Contact Delete: Audience Builder-> Contact Builder -> Contacts Configuration -> Contact Delete = On

Click on Manage Settings and Set the Suppression period. Default is 14 days

To delete the contacts, go to : Contact Builder -> All Contacts -> Delete icon -> Select as appropriate

Additional Resources:

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/marketing-cloud-admin-certification-prep-setup-and-data/review-subscriber-data-management

Links to other topics:

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