Looking to become certified in the magical world of Salesforce’s marketing products? Look no further! Whether you’re looking to gain your first certification or have one or two up your sleeve, you may be looking for some guidance as where to go next.
Salesforce offers a number of certifications across its two marketing platforms, Marketing Cloud and Pardot. Let’s start with Marketing Cloud and we’ll cover Pardot in another blog.
Marketing Cloud, Salesforce’s B2C platform, enables marketers to personalise and automate communications for each customer across email, web, mobile, social and digital advertising. Whether you use the platform in conjunction with Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud, or use it as a standalone platform, it ensures that each message sent to your customer is targeted, engaging and promotes your vision.
The first certification achieved by many is the Marketing Cloud Email Specialist. This certification covers the basics of the Marketing Cloud platform including data management, content development and digital marketing best practices and primarily focuses on Email Studio, Automation Studio, Content Builder and Journey Builder. To read more, get the Exam Guide here. To study for this exam, we recommend you attend the MKT101 (Build and Analyze Customer Journeys using Marketing Cloud), an instructor-led training course taught over five days. With no prior knowledge of the platform needed, it’s a great place to start or continue your exploration of the platform. Alternatively, or in addition to the course, you can follow the Prepare for your Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification Trailmix on Trailhead.
The Email Specialist exam covers a lot of the basics across the platform. Not quite for you? The alternative start to gaining Marketing Cloud certifications is the Marketing Cloud Administrator Certification. You can view the Exam Guide here and also sign up to a 1-day preparation course using this link. The exam is designed to test best practices regarding your platform’s configuration including subscriber and data management and ensure that you can troubleshoot administration issues when necessary. As with the Email Specialist Certification, you can follow a Trail to assist your study – Study for the Marketing Cloud Administrator Exam.
For the more seasoned Marketing Cloud user, the Marketing Cloud Consultant Certification tests the ins and outs of making proactive decisions regarding a customer’s Marketing Cloud platform. The only thing to be aware of when wanting to sit this certification is that you must have taken the Marketing Cloud Administrator Certification prior. You may have seen this with certifications on other Salesforce products – sometimes you need to have built up knowledge on the platform before sitting a certification. The Consultant exam is recommended for those who work in the world of Marketing Cloud consulting, but those who know the platform and want to study to gain this certification can follow the Prepare for Your Salesforce Marketing Cloud Consultant Credential Trailmix. Accompanying instructor-led training is slightly different for this certification, as it is designed to be experience-led, but you can attend the two courses mentioned above, or the MCC201 – Link Your Salesforce Data using Marketing Cloud Connect. You can find the exam guide here. This is the trickiest exam of the set, so make sure you set aside some prep time!
Last, but by no means least, is the one of the newest additions – the Marketing Cloud Developer Certification. The only prerequisite cert for this addition is the Email Specialist Cert, so no need to take the Admin or Consultant exams if they don’t fit in with your journey. The exam guide explains that to take this cert you need to have experience configuring Marketing Cloud, and have an understanding of the scripting languages used across the platform. Although there are no recommended learning paths for this cert, taking any of the above courses will kick-start your expedition to gaining this cert. Additionally, the Develop for Marketing Cloud Trail will introduce you to the concepts tested.
Feel truly Marketing Cloud-ed out? Luckily, we’re now going to turn to Salesforce’s B2B Marketing platform, Pardot in our next blog.
If you want help implementing Marketing Cloud or want to book a training course, contact us!