To get real-time updates on transactional email metrics, such as Sent and Not Sent, Northern Trail Outfitters should use Event Notification Service. Event Notification Service is a feature that allows marketers to receive real-time notifications of email tracking events via webhooks or APIs. Event Notification Service can help marketers monitor and troubleshoot transactional email sends and ensure compliance with legal obligations. Reference: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.mc_es_event_notification_service.htm&type=5

A query activity is an automation studio activity that allows querying data from data extensions or data views using SQL statements. A data extension entry source is a journey builder entry source that allows injecting contacts into a journey based on a data extension. Journey activities are actions that occur within a journey, such as sending an email or updating a contact attribute. By using a query activity to filter contacts who have not made a purchase in the last six months from their order data extension, NTO can create a sendable data extension with those contacts and use it as a data extension entry source for their journey. Then, by using journey activities, they can communicate the same message across all channels to those contacts. Reference: https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=sf.mc_as_sql_query_activity.htm&type=5 https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=sf.mc_jb_data_extension_entry_source.htm&type=5 https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=sf.mc_jb_journey_activities.htm&type=5

Data views are system-generated tables that store information about subscriber actions, such as sends, opens, clicks, bounces, etc. Data views can be queried using SQL statements in automation studio or query studio to retrieve email metrics for analysis and reporting purposes. Data views store data for up to six months (or longer for some tables), and can be queried as frequently as needed, such as hourly or daily. Reference: https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=sf.mc_as_data_views.htm&type=5

To simplify the sending process using Marketing Cloud with as little additional setup as possible, the customer should create a journey and use Salesforce Data and the Reports object as the entry source. This will allow them to use their existing complex reports in Sales Cloud as criteria for injecting contacts into the journey and sending them emails. Reference: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.mc_jb_salesforce_data_event.htm&type=5