The Deployment Manager extension product can be used to speed up the migration of data extensions and Journey Builder configurations between each environment. The Deployment Manager allows users to create packages of Marketing Cloud assets and deploy them across different business units or accounts. The Deployment Manager supports data extensions and journeys as well as other assets such as emails, templates, automations, and content blocks. References: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.
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To select an audience of subscribers who have made purchases in the last 6 months, but are yet to be loyalty members, Northern Trail Outfitters should use Contact Builder Attribute Groups. Attribute Groups are collections of data extensions and data sources that are linked by common fields or attributes. Attribute Groups allow marketers to create segments and filters based on data from multiple sources, such as purchase data and loyalty data. References: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.mc_cab_attribute_groups.
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Three questions that are relevant to determining a solution for automating a process of importing data from a data warehouse into Marketing Cloud are:
* Is the data file a delta or a historical file? This question will help determine how to handle existing records and avoid duplication or overwrite. A delta file contains only new or updated records, while a historical file contains all records regardless of changes.
* Will the data file be placed on the SFTP at the same time daily? This question will help determine how to schedule an automation or trigger an event based on file drop. If the data file is placed on the SFTP at different times, then a File Drop Automation may be more suitable than a Scheduled Automation.
* Does someone need to be notified if an error happens on import? This question will help determine how to handle errors and exceptions during import. If someone needs to be notified, then an email notification activity or a verification activity may be added to the automation.
Whether the data extension has a data relationship or not is not relevant to determining a solution for importing data, as it is only used for creating relationships between data extensions in Email Studio. Whether the file has more than 5,000 rows or not is not relevant to determining a solution for importing data, as it does not affect how data is imported or processed. References: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.
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Two best practices that should be utilized for configuring customer data for long-term cleanliness and maintainability are:
* When using an external database of record, utilize that system's identifier as the contact key. This will ensure that contacts can be identified and tracked across different channels and platforms using a consistent and persistent value.
* Define the subscriber key as a unique value that does not relate to a specific channel. This will allow contacts to change their email or mobile device without affecting their subscriber key or losing their tracking history.
Configuring Contact Builder to automatically generate a unique subscriber key is not recommended, as it may create duplicate or inconsistent records if contacts already have an identifier in another system. Regularly merging duplicate contacts is not a best practice, but rather a remedial action that should be avoided by using proper data hygiene techniques. References: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.
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To import new contacts gathered from an external web form at high frequency into Marketing Cloud, Northern Trail Outfitters should perform a daily bulk export to SFTP for import via automation. This will allow them to batch the contacts into one file per day and import them into Marketing Cloud using an automation that runs at a scheduled time. References: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.
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