Salesforce Marketing Cloud is Salesforce's family of marketing products for planning, personalizing, sending and measuring customer communication across email, SMS, WhatsApp, mobile apps, web and paid media. It includes Marketing Cloud Next, Marketing Cloud Engagement for B2C messaging, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot) for B2B automation, and add-ons for personalization, analytics and loyalty.
The name causes confusion because "Marketing Cloud" now means two things: the brand that covers every Salesforce marketing product, and the older platform many people still picture, with Email Studio and Journey Builder. This guide explains both, compares the products side by side, shows current list prices from Salesforce, and covers how Marketing Cloud connects to Sales Cloud, Data 360 and Agentforce and how to choose and implement the right edition.
What is Salesforce Marketing Cloud, exactly?
Salesforce describes Marketing Cloud on its marketing overview page (read 11 November 2026) as a complete marketing platform for personalizing engagement across the customer lifecycle. In its FAQ, Salesforce defines Marketing Cloud as the overall brand for its marketing products, with Marketing Cloud Next as the flagship product built on the Salesforce Platform, and says that every Marketing Cloud customer is a Marketing Cloud Next customer.
In practice, a company that "buys Marketing Cloud" is buying one or more specific products. Which ones depends on whether it markets to consumers or businesses, how many channels it uses and how much of its customer data already lives in Salesforce.
Which products make up Marketing Cloud?
The table lists the products as Salesforce names them in its Trailhead overview of marketing solutions (read 11 November 2026), including former names you will still see in older documentation and job posts.
| Product | Former name | What it does | Typical buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing Cloud Next (Growth and Advanced editions) | None (editions also referred to as Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced) | Agentic marketing built on the Salesforce Platform and Data 360: journeys in Flow, email, landing pages and forms, with SMS, WhatsApp and RCS as add-ons | Teams that want marketing inside their Salesforce org with AI agents |
| Marketing Cloud Engagement | Marketing Cloud, ExactTarget | High-volume email, SMS, push and cross-channel journeys through Journey Builder | B2C brands with large audiences and many sends |
| Marketing Cloud Account Engagement | Pardot | B2B marketing automation: forms, lead scoring and grading, nurture programs, sales alignment | B2B companies with a sales team working leads in Sales Cloud |
| Salesforce Personalization | None (separate from Marketing Cloud Personalization, formerly Interaction Studio) | Real-time personalization decisions and recommendations for web, app and email | Retail, travel and media brands with heavy digital traffic |
| Marketing Intelligence | None (separate from Marketing Cloud Intelligence, formerly Datorama) | Cross-channel performance data, dashboards and paid media optimization | Teams that manage paid media and need one view of results |
| Loyalty Management | None | Loyalty programs, tiers, rewards and promotions | Brands running points or membership programs |
If your question is really about the two automation platforms, our post on Pardot vs Marketing Cloud compares Account Engagement and Engagement in more detail.
How does Marketing Cloud Next differ from Engagement and Account Engagement?
Salesforce announced Marketing Cloud Next on 11 June 2025, calling it a full-funnel agentic marketing solution built on the Salesforce Platform, according to the Salesforce newsroom. Its Engagement page (read 11 November 2026) says Next is rebuilt natively on the platform with a modernized data model, deeper CRM integration and Agentforce, and frames Engagement as where customers operate today and Next as where Salesforce is taking marketing.
| Question | Marketing Cloud Next | Marketing Cloud Engagement | Account Engagement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where does it run? | Natively on the Salesforce Platform | Its own platform, connected to Salesforce | Built on Salesforce CRM |
| Who are the people records? | Unified individuals, leads and contacts | Subscribers | Prospects, leads, contacts and person accounts |
| How are audiences segmented? | Data 360 segments | Data extensions | Lists |
| Journey and automation tool | Flow Builder | Journey Builder and Automation Studio | Engagement Studio |
| Content tools | Experience Builder editors | Content Builder and CloudPages | Lightning builder and classic builders for emails, forms and landing pages |
| AI | Agentforce agents included (campaign creation, audiences, two-way conversations) | Einstein features; Next capabilities through Engagement+ | Einstein features; Next capabilities through Account Engagement+ |
| Best fit | New marketing programs inside Salesforce, B2B or B2C | Large-volume consumer messaging and complex journeys | B2B lead generation and nurture tied to sales |
The tool names in the table come from the Trailhead overview linked above. Two points matter most for existing customers. First, Salesforce says on its Engagement page that existing Journey Builder journeys can be used within Flow, with no need to rebuild them. Second, according to its Account Engagement page, Account Engagement customers get access to Marketing Cloud features through Account Engagement+ without migrating.
What are the main tools inside Marketing Cloud Engagement?
Most "what is Marketing Cloud" articles describe Marketing Cloud Engagement, because it is the platform with the longest history and the largest installed base. Engagement was formerly known as ExactTarget and is organized into studios (channels and content) and builders (data and automation). The tools below are described in Salesforce's Marketing Cloud Engagement basics and Contact Builder Trailhead modules and on its Engagement page (read 11 November 2026).
| Tool | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Email Studio | Build, test and send email, from one-off campaigns to triggered messages |
| Mobile Studio | SMS, push and chat app messaging |
| Journey Builder | Visual, multi-step journeys that react to customer behavior across channels |
| Automation Studio | Scheduled data imports, queries, file transfers and batch sends |
| Contact Builder | Contact data management: designing, mapping and linking demographic and behavioral data into one view of each contact |
| Content Builder | Reusable templates, content blocks and images shared across channels |
| CloudPages | Landing pages, preference centers and forms |
Marketing Cloud Engagement is powerful but data-heavy. Most of the work in an Engagement project goes into the data model in Contact Builder, the sync with Salesforce CRM and the automations that keep audiences current, not into email design.
How much does Salesforce Marketing Cloud cost?
Salesforce publishes list prices for its current marketing products. The table shows the prices on the Marketing Cloud pricing page as read on 11 November 2026, in US dollars. All of these are billed annually.
| Product or bundle | List price | What Salesforce says it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing Cloud Next Growth Edition | $1,500 per org per month | Campaign Agent for content, multi-channel journeys, forms and landing pages, consent management, campaign attribution reporting |
| Marketing Cloud Next Advanced Edition | $3,250 per org per month | Everything in Growth, plus Campaign Agent for campaigns, conversational email, RCS, SMS and WhatsApp, custom automation events, AI engagement scoring |
| Account Engagement+ | $1,250 per org per month | Marketing Cloud Growth or Advanced, Agentforce campaign creation, lead nurturing and scoring, B2B marketing analytics |
| Engagement+ | $2,000 per org per month | Marketing Cloud Growth or Advanced, Agentforce campaign creation, email and mobile messaging, journey orchestration |
| Salesforce Personalization | $8,000 per org per month | Agentforce Personalization Decisioning, web, app and email personalization, recommendations |
| Marketing Intelligence | $10,000 per org per month | Agentforce Paid Media Optimization, AI campaign summaries, data enrichment and visualizations |
| Loyalty Management | $20,000 per org per month | Agentforce loyalty promotion creation, loyalty analytics, dynamic promotions |
Three things change the real cost. First, messaging channels: according to Trailhead (read 11 November 2026), email is included in the Growth and Advanced licenses, while SMS, WhatsApp and RCS are paid add-ons in both editions. The pricing page lists those channels among Advanced Edition features, so confirm what your quote includes. Second, data and AI usage, which depends on your contract. Third, implementation and ongoing administration, which for most enterprise programs costs more in the first year than people expect. Salesforce directs buyers to an account executive for final packaging and pricing, so treat the list prices as a starting point.
How does Marketing Cloud work with Sales Cloud, Data 360 and Agentforce?
Marketing Cloud is most useful when it shares data with the rest of Salesforce. The main connections are:
- Sales Cloud. Leads, contacts and opportunities feed audiences, and marketing activity flows back to sales. In B2B, this is how a lead scored in Account Engagement reaches a rep at the right moment. See our Sales Cloud implementation page for how we set up that handoff.
- Service Cloud. Open cases and service history can suppress promotional messages to unhappy customers or trigger follow-up journeys after a case closes.
- Data 360 (formerly Data Cloud). Marketing Cloud Next is powered by Data 360, according to Trailhead, which unifies profiles from Salesforce and non-Salesforce sources so segments use one view of each customer. Our guide to Data 360 identity resolution explains how those unified profiles are built.
- Agentforce. In Marketing Cloud Next, Agentforce agents can create a campaign from a brief, including the audience, email and SMS content and the journey, according to Salesforce's June 2025 announcement. The quality of what they produce depends on the data they draw on; see Data 360 for Agentforce grounding.
For integrations with systems outside Salesforce, such as ecommerce platforms, ERPs or a data warehouse, the usual options are prebuilt connectors, APIs and MuleSoft. Our post on Salesforce integration patterns covers when to use each.
What can you do with Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
| Use case | What it looks like | Usual product |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome and onboarding | A series of messages after sign-up or purchase that adapts to what the customer does | Engagement or Next |
| Abandoned cart or browse | Triggered email or SMS when a shopper leaves items behind | Engagement, often with Personalization |
| B2B lead nurture and scoring | Content programs that score engagement and pass sales-ready leads to reps | Account Engagement or Next |
| Renewal and retention | Reminders and offers before a policy, contract or subscription renews | Engagement or Next |
| Transactional messages | Order, shipping, appointment and account notices at high volume | Engagement |
| Two-way conversations | Customers reply by SMS or WhatsApp and an agent or a person answers | Next Advanced with channel add-ons |
| Loyalty programs | Points, tiers and promotions tied to purchase data | Loyalty Management |
| Paid media reporting | One view of spend and results across ad platforms | Marketing Intelligence |
Which Marketing Cloud product should you choose?
Use these questions to narrow the choice before you talk to Salesforce or a partner.
- Do you sell to consumers or to businesses? High-volume consumer messaging points to Engagement or Next. B2B lead generation with a sales team points to Account Engagement or Next.
- Where does your customer data live today? If most of it is already in Salesforce, Next and Account Engagement work with it directly. If it is spread across ecommerce, POS and app data, plan for Data 360 or a strong data model in Engagement.
- Which channels do you need in year one? Email only keeps licensing simple. SMS, WhatsApp and RCS add cost and consent work.
- Are you already a Marketing Cloud customer? If so, look at the Engagement+ or Account Engagement+ bundles before planning a migration.
- Do you plan to use AI agents in marketing? Agentforce capabilities are built into Next. Agents need clean, consented data, so budget for data work first.
- Who will run it after go-live? Marketing Cloud needs ongoing administration: data syncs, deliverability, consent and journey maintenance. Decide whether that is an in-house team or a managed service.
How do you implement Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Most implementations follow the same steps. The order matters more than the speed.
- Discovery. List the journeys, channels, data sources and reports you need, and rank them. Start with a small number of high-value journeys.
- Data model and consent. Decide which data comes from where, how contacts are matched and how consent and preferences are stored. This step decides whether everything after it works.
- Account and domain setup. Configure business units or org settings, sending domains and authentication, users and permissions.
- Integration. Connect Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Data 360 and any outside systems, and test the sync both ways.
- Build the first journeys. Templates, content blocks, segments and journeys for the priority use cases, with test sends and approval steps.
- Test and go live. Test data, rendering, links, consent rules and suppression before the first live send, then ramp up volume.
- Run and improve. Monitor deliverability and results, add journeys and plan for Salesforce's three major releases a year, which Salesforce Help lists as Spring, Summer and Winter.
The most common mistakes are the same as in any Salesforce program: starting with design instead of data, building too many journeys at once and leaving no one in charge after go-live. Our post on common Salesforce implementation mistakes covers how to avoid them.
How does Techila help with Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Techila Global Services is a Salesforce Summit Partner, rated 4.82 from 19 reviews on its AppExchange listing (read 11 November 2026). Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Frisco, Texas, we have more than 350 Salesforce professionals holding more than 500 Salesforce certifications, with offices across the US, India and APAC. We have delivered more than 700 projects, including more than 15 Agentforce programs, and we are SOC 2 compliant.
Our Salesforce Marketing Cloud implementation work is architect-led. We start with the data model and consent design, then connect Marketing Cloud to Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and Data 360 so journeys use the same customer view as your sales and service teams. For customers planning AI in marketing, we align the Marketing Cloud roadmap with their Agentforce program.
Frequently asked questions
What is Salesforce Marketing Cloud used for?
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is used to plan, send and measure marketing across email, SMS, WhatsApp, mobile apps, web and paid media, using customer data from Salesforce and other systems. Teams use it for welcome and onboarding journeys, abandoned cart and renewal reminders, B2B lead nurturing, personalization and campaign reporting.
Is Marketing Cloud the same as Pardot?
No. Marketing Cloud is the brand for all of Salesforce's marketing products. Pardot is now called Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and is the B2B marketing automation product in that family. Marketing Cloud Engagement, formerly ExactTarget, is the B2C messaging and journey product. Marketing Cloud Next is the newer product built on the Salesforce Platform.
How much does Salesforce Marketing Cloud cost?
On its pricing page, read on 11 November 2026, Salesforce lists Marketing Cloud Next Growth Edition at $1,500 per org per month and Advanced Edition at $3,250 per org per month, both billed annually. Add-ons such as Personalization, Marketing Intelligence and Loyalty Management cost more, and Trailhead lists SMS, WhatsApp and RCS as paid add-ons in both editions.
What is Marketing Cloud Next?
Marketing Cloud Next is Salesforce's newest marketing product, announced on 11 June 2025. It is built natively on the Salesforce Platform, is powered by Data 360, uses Flow to build journeys and includes Agentforce AI agents that can draft campaigns, build audiences and hold two-way conversations with customers.
Do I have to migrate from Marketing Cloud Engagement to Marketing Cloud Next?
Not straight away. Salesforce says existing Journey Builder journeys can be used within Flow without being rebuilt, and Engagement and Account Engagement customers can add Marketing Cloud Next capabilities through the Engagement+ and Account Engagement+ bundles. A planned move still needs a data, journey and consent review.
Does Marketing Cloud need Sales Cloud?
Marketing Cloud Engagement can run without Sales Cloud, but most of the value comes from connecting it to CRM data. Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next are built on the Salesforce Platform, so they work directly with leads, contacts, accounts and opportunities in your org.
What should you do next?
If you are choosing a Marketing Cloud product, planning a move to Marketing Cloud Next or fixing an implementation that is not delivering, book a discovery call. We will review your data, channels and journeys and recommend the products and plan that fit, in writing.