The announcement for the next release for Salesforce Marketing Cloud is out and it is scheduled to be available in February this year. While all the details of the new release features can be accessed on the official Salesforce Marketing Cloud Product Release Notes, here’s a quick overview of some of the cool features coming out in this release that are my favorite picks from all that is coming out next month.

Advertising Studio Enhancements – Ability to include Pinterest advertising in addition to other channels

SFMC Advertising Studio now supports Pinterest, which means that when you create a new Audience in Advertising studio, you will now be able to select Pinterest as the destination. Earlier, the channels available were FB, Twitter, Google AdWords and LinkedIn.

For those who are not familiar with Advertising Studio, it is a capability within Marketing Cloud that allows organizations to engage with their CRM customers as well as find new prospects via campaigns through Social channels. It lets you capture new prospects (aka Lookalikes) as well as capture Leads from Facebook ads in real time.

Content Builder Enhancements

• Create content for MobileConnect and MobilePush in Marketing Cloud Content Builder

Users can now create content for their mobile campaigns (SMS as well as Push Notifications) inside the Marketing Cloud Content Builder. Earlier, users were expected to create and manage this content within Mobile Studio (within MobileConnect and MobilePush), which means that Email and SMS/Push content had to be accessed in two places. With this enhancement, Admins will have the flexibility to view & manage these 2 content categories in a single place i.e. Content Builder

In the Content Builder, when you click “Create”, you will see a new option for “Mobile Message”. When you mouse over on it, you will be able to select “SMS Message” or “MobilePush Message” to create your mobile content

• Create & deliver content based on the audience’s weather condition

This one sounds quite intuitive, so keen to try it out once it live (will share the results in my subsequent posts). Content Builder will have a new content block named “Live Weather Block”, that will allow you to deliver personalized messages to subscribers, based on their local weather conditions!

The content block with come with a set of out of the box weather rules, which will drive the images that will be displayed, when the email is opened, depending on the conditions defined in the rule being met. An example stated here is the ability to display images showing hiking gear to subscribers, when the weather for them is sunny, or the ability to display jackets & fur-coats to subscribers who facing the winters. You can also define your own custom rules. Will share more on this once I have this live in my SFMC org.

Journey Builder Enhancements

Journey Builder has always been a favorite for anyone who works on the Marketing Cloud platform. The latest release adds some more capabilities to make lives easier for Marketing Cloud Admins who rely heavily on the Journey Builder.

• Configure Email Message content inside Journey Builder

You can now create your email messages (that you want to use in your Journey) from within the Journey Builder canvas (something that required you to leave the Journey Canvas and navigate to Content Builder). This enhancement now allows you to build, edit and test your email message content without leaving the Journey Builder canvas (I see it as a time saver!). I promise to share a better visual once I have it live in my org

• New Journey Audience Entry Sources – Google Analytics 360 and Salesforce DMP

With the new SFMC release, users will now be able to add new audiences into their Journeys from Google Analytics 360 and Salesforce DMP. These options will be available as “Entry Events” in the Journey Canvas, allowing users to bring in audiences from these sources into their Journeys, and segment them further using filters, if needed.

Do take note that the pre-requisite to this capability is the integration with Google Analytics 360 or DMP with your Marketing Cloud environment.

Social Studio Enhancements

The new SFMC release enhancements for Social Studio will be focused on Instagram, with several updates being made around interactions and campaigns through Instagram.

• View & Engage with Instagram Customer replies in Social Studio – You will now be able to filter content/replies by your Instagram Account in the Social Studio Engage column, or in the Feed card of the Analyze dashboard.
• View Instagram tagged content in Social Studio – This one is quite cool! You will now be able to view images from Instagram where users have tagged your business account, in Social Studio. This will be available in the Social Studio Engage column, Feed card of the Analyze dashboard and the Social Studio Mobile app (iOS)

• View Instagram Conversation Threads in Social Studio – You will now be able to see the full context of any conversation happening on Instagram related to the content that you have posted. This view will give you a broader view of all the conversations in a specific thread, helping you measure the sentiments of the comments. This will be available in the Social Studio Engage column and the Social Studio Mobile & desktop editions.
• View Instagram Stories in your Social Studio Workspace Calendar – You will now be able to view the Instagram stories that you created, within your Social Studio Workspace calendar. Do take note that only those stories will be available where the Instagram account is a part of your Social Studio Workspace.

Mobile Studio Enhancements

• Ability to create MobileConnect (SMS/MMS) and MobilePush Journey Builder messages from within the Journey Canvas. From the Journey Canvas, you will be able to create a new SMS/MMS, Push messages and Push Inbox messages, without leaving the Journey Canvas. Do take note that you will no longer be able to create Journey Builder mobile message content in MobileConnect or MobilePush anymore but will be able to access the existing content that you had previously created.
• Enhanced MobileConnect Data Views – These new data views will get you a better visibility into your Message sent and Subscription data. Using the Automation Studio, you can create data views, targeting at existing data extension, and creating SQL query that references the _smsmessagetracking or _SMSSubscriptionLog to generate a CSV or FTP file output.
• Adding Personalization to your Mobile Push notification messages – You will now be able to use Subscriber Keys to make your Mobile Push messages more personalized. Include the %%_subscriberkey%% string to the message body, you will be able to pull subscriber data into your push notification to make it personalized.

Well, those were some of my favorite picks from the Marketing Cloud new release features. I will explore them further as soon as they are live in my org and will share my observations and learning with you in my subsequent posts. Till then, keep learning!