The Salesforce Architect exams each come with a resource guide, which includes helpful links for each section of the exam. I have found those incredibly useful in my study. Resource guides don’t currently exist for the standard exams, so I have compiled content into a series of resource guides. This is the Marketing Cloud Email Specialist resource guide.
The Marketing Cloud Email Specialist certification focuses on a foundational knowledge of the Email Studio platform, it’s capabilities and limitations, as well as best practices around email marketing. There are 3 Marketing Cloud certifications, and they require hands-on experience with the tools.
Understanding the Tests
As I mentioned in a previous post, understanding the intention and structure of the exams is key to passing. Salesforce provides a study guide for every certification test. In those guides, they provide a breakdown of the different sections and their relative weight. Take note of those while studying.
Breakdown
| Topic | Weighting | # of Questions |
| Subscriber & Data Management | 29% | 17 |
| Marketing Automation | 19% | 11 |
| Content Creation & Delivery | 18% | 11 |
| Email Marketing Best Practices | 15% | 9 |
| Email Message Design | 13% | 8 |
| Tracking & Reporting | 6% | 4 |
Under each topic in the study guide, there are bullet points that describe the information you need to know. For example, the ‘Marketing Automation’ section, the bullet points are:
- Given a customer scenario, recommend the appropriate marketing automation solution.
- Given a scenario to manage customer data, configure the appropriate marketing automation tools.
Make sure you understand the intention behind each bullet point. For example, in the above point #1, you need to know which tools are available, as well as their intended use case and potential limitations.
Resources
SUBSCRIBER AND DATA MANAGEMENT – 29%
- Given the desired output requirements, setup Subscriber Lists and Data Extensions in the Marketing Cloud.
- Given a customer’s business requirements, determine how to import data into Marketing Cloud as per best practices.
- Given a customer’s business requirements, configure segmentation tools to accurately model subscribers and data.
- Given a customer scenario, recommend the marketing unsubscribe subscription management solution that meets the requirement based on customer frequency, permission, and preferences
MARKETING AUTOMATION – 19%
- Given a customer scenario, recommend the appropriate marketing automation solution.
- Given a scenario to manage customer data, configure the appropriate marketing automation tools.
CONTENT CREATION AND DELIVERY – 18%
- Given a scenario, create and customize an email message to meet a customer’s need.
- Given a scenario, send and deploy an email campaign to meet the customer requirement.
- Given a scenario, know how to manage content needed to deploy a customer’s email campaign.
- Describe various send capabilities in the Email application.
- Send an Email (tools & definitions)
EMAIL MARKETING BEST PRACTICES – 15%
- Given a customer scenario, evaluate elements and techniques of email marketing to design an effective email campaign.
- Given a customer scenario, recognize situations where legal compliance may be an issue during an email campaign.
- Given a customer scenario, differentiate elements of an email that can impact message deliverability.
- Given a customer scenario, demonstrate appropriate and effective subscriber acquisition methodologies.
- Given a customer scenario, apply best practices of communicating with a population.
EMAIL MESSAGE DESIGN – 13%
- Given a customer scenario, recommend email design best practices to implement.
- Given the desired output functionality, recommend methods for creating responsive emails.
- Given the desired output requirements, recommend strategies to A/B test email elements.
- Given a desired sending process, recommend Marketing Cloud tools to use when preparing an email for send.
- Given an email message design, determine the correct use of Approvals.
TRACKING AND REPORTING – 6%
- Given a customer scenario, explain the different metrics available for email campaigns and what each one means.
- Tracking in Email Studio (Overview)
- Given an email campaign, describe the steps involved to analyze the performance results.
- Given a need to run reports, configure and run Marketing Cloud adhoc and automated reports.
- Reports (Overview)
Ready for the Exam?
Book your exam now, even before you start studying. There’s no better way to drive you to study than booking your exam.
For the Marketing Cloud Email Specialist exam, I highly recommend hands-on time working inside of Email Studio. There are lots of questions that you likely won’t know without some actual time in the system. When reading the linked articles, watch for the bolded call-outs. Those are directed at consultants and end users to notify them of a specific limitation or consideration. Those often show up on the exam.
If you have questions during your exam preparation, please feel free to reach out. I’ll do my best to respond with some help and guidance.
Chris, how is it possible to get hands-on experience with Marketing Studio when Salesforce does not make it available for demo? Is Trailhead enough to pass this exam?
Unfortunately Trailhead is not enough to pass this exam. You will need some real hands-on experience in Marketing Cloud in order to gain this certification. I hope that Salesforce opens up the Marketing Cloud platform through dev orgs someday, but that isn’t likely to happen soon.
Hi Chris,
I was wondering how valuable is this certification as it seems to focus on a very specific aspect of the platform (Email) unless you go for the Marketing Cloud certification (which I understand from you is very hard to pass).
I wonder why they didnt do a similar arrangement like Pardot Specialist (as a user Specialist) and next level as a consultant.
Was wondering about your thoughts.
Thanks
This certification is most valuable for someone who will be administering a Marketing Cloud environment. It covers the most common day-to-day responsibilities of a user. For consultants, this one carries some weight, but not nearly as much as the Marketing Cloud Consultant certification.
I think they have been reassessing how Marketing Cloud fits within the certification ecosystem. They dropped Social Specialist and added Marketing Cloud Developer. It will be interesting to see if/how they make changes going forward.
Thank you Chris. Do you think Salesforce in the future will continue to offer 2 different Marketing Solutions that are not compatible with each other? (Pardot & Marketing Cloud)
Do you see them merging both platforms into one?
I don’t see them merging those two tools. The architecture of both is too different to actually merge them. I could see Pardot eventually being brought into Salesforce as a ‘Lite’ marketing automation option, and Marketing Cloud being the bigger option.
Interestingly, Pardot was acquired by ExactTarget, so when Salesforce bought ExactTarget (which became Marketing Cloud), they also inherited that tool. I think that multiple acquisition route has dictated some of that confusion and overlap.