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Integrate with Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Integrate with Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Updated this week

This guide is designed to help you seamlessly integrate your Retention.com account with Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

An integration between Retention.com and SalesForce Marketing Cloud does three things:

  1. Automates Contact/Event Transfer: Send contacts/events from Retention.com to a specified data extension in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

  2. Contact Suppression: Automatically suppress existing contacts in Salesforce Marketing Cloud to avoid redundancies.

  3. Custom Filter Synchronization: Set up filters for directing leads from different domains or Email Service Providers (ESPs) to various data extensions.

Prerequisites

Before starting the integration process in your R! dashboard, please ensure you have:

  • R! Scripts installed on your e-commerce platform (Optional but recommended)

  • Set up Credentials and defined scopes for R! in Salesforce Marketing Cloud

  • Created and Set up Data Extensions for Grow, Suppression, and Reclaim

  • Upload your Suppression File in the R! Dashboard

Setting up Credentials and Defining Scopes

To establish a connection with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, our integration requires your Client ID, Client Secret, and REST Base URI.

Click here for instructions to create these credentials

1. Go to Salesforce Marketing Cloud and click your user icon (top right), then select Setup.

2. In the left-hand navigation, click Apps > Installed Packages. Then, click New.

3. Give the package a Name and Description, then click Save.

4. Click Add Component.

5. Choose API Integration, and click Next.

6. Choose Server-to-Server, and click Next.

7. Under Contacts > Audiences and List and Subscribers, select the options for Read and Write under both. Under Data > Data Extensions, select the options for Read and Write. Under Automations, Journeys, and Audiences ensure full permissions are applied. When finished, click Save.

8. This is what the Scope section should look like when complete:
​

Your Client ID, REST Base URI, and Client Secret credentials will be displayed after you save.

Setting up Data Extensions

Depending on the Retention products you’re using, you may need to set up specific Data Extensions in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

ℹ️ When setting up the data extensions, please ensure that the attribute names exactly match those provided. If you need to map your data to different attributes or require additional fields, contact your Implementation Manager for support.

Setting up "Grow" Data Extension

  1. Create a new data extension in SFMC. This data extension will be used to sync your new R! contacts/leads.

  2. Remember the "External Key" you assign this data extension as it will be used in the R! dashboard later on.

  3. Create the following Attributes:

    • Email (Primary Key)

    • timestamp

    • email_domain

    • first_name

    • last_name

    • click_at

    • landing_page_url

    • landing_page_domain

    • referrer

    • page_title

    • created_or_updated_at

    • last_observed

    Please ensure the attributes above are all "text" types aside from email, timestamp, and created_or_updated_at.

Setting up "Suppression" Data Extension

The Suppression data extension ensures that R! receives an up-to-date list of contacts who have organically signed up for your mailing lists. This prevents duplicate collection and ensures we don't send you contacts you already have.

  1. Create a new data extension in SFMC.

  2. Remember the "External Key" you assign this data extension as it will be used in the R! dashboard later on.

  3. Create the following Attributes:

    • SubscriberKey (Primary Key, Text, 254 characters)

    • suppression_email (Text, 254 characters)

    • suppression_filter_date (Date type)

  4. Navigate to Journey Builder -> Automation Studio -> New Automation

  5. Start by dragging and dropping a Schedule into the Starting Source. Configure this schedule to run Daily every 1 day(s) and Never end.

  6. From the list of Activities, drag and drop SQL Query onto the canvas on the right.

  7. Click Choose then Create New Query Activity and enter the following SQL:
    ​

    SELECT 
        LEFT(s.SubscriberKey, 254) AS SubscriberKey,
        LEFT(s.EmailAddress, 254) AS suppression_email,
        s.DateAdded AS suppression_filter_date
    FROM _Subscribers s

  8. In Target Data Extension, select the data extension you created in Step 1 above. Choose Overwrite as the Data Action to replace the data with the latest records each time the query runs.

  9. Click finish to save the Automation and ensure it's activated.

Setting up "Reclaim" Data Extensions

With Reclaim, you'll need to create a separate data extension for each event you’re receiving from Retention.

For example, if you’ve signed up for both the Viewed Product and Add to Cart Reclaim events, you’ll need two separate data extensions—one for each event respectively.

  1. Create a new data extension in SFMC.

  2. Create the following Attributes:

    • Email (EmailAddress type, 254 characters)

    • EventType

    • URL

    • EventSource

    • ImageURL

    • Name

    • CreatedDate (Date type)

    • Price

    • CurrencyPrice

    • ProductID


      Please ensure the attributes above are all "text" types aside from email and CreatedDate.
      ​

  3. Navigate to Journey Builder -> Events -> Click New Event

  4. Select "API Event" as the new entry source

  5. Give the Entry Source a name and save the Event Definition Key as it will be used in the R! Dashboard later on.

  6. Select the Data Extension you created in Step 1 above.

  7. Proceed with completing the configuration of the new Entry Source and save it.

Integrating in Retention.com

1. Go to your Retention dashboard and click on Integrations from the left navigation panel. Then, click Available Integrations at the top and select/search for the Marketing Cloud icon.

2. Paste your Client ID, REST Base URI, and Client Secret. Then, click Connect.

3. We recommend enabling automatic suppression of Marketing Cloud contacts. This keeps Retention’s list up to date with your existing subscribers, preventing them from being counted as net new. It also supports your abandonment flows if you've signed up for Reclaim.
​
Select the Data Extension you created in the Suppression section above.
​

4. Click "Yes" or "No" to automatically sync the contacts collected by Retention into SFMC. From the dropdown, select the Data Extension for Grow you created above. Then, choose whether to enable custom sync options (we recommend keeping the default settings).

If you check the box to enable custom sync options, that will display five options: filter by email domain, full or portion of a landing page URL, landing page domain, state, and referrer URL.
​

Expand for more details on Custom Sync options
​

This feature allows you to filter your Retention.com contacts before you send them to your ESP. For example, you can send all contacts who hit different landing pages to separate lists. Or, send all of your California leads to one ESP and Texas leads to another.

Email domain: This field auto-fills/populates with email domains (ex. Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL, etc.) from your collected contacts.

Full or portion of a landing page URL: If you’ve put the script on several pages or the entire site, this field allows you to pull out contacts who have only hit Landing Page A or Landing Page B. This option does not auto-populate, so you will have to add in the exact URL.

Landing page domain: If you added script to both Retention.com and Robly.com, for example, the landing page domain would be either Retention.com or Robly.com. This field will auto-populate.

State: This filter allows you to pull out only contacts from one or more states.

Referrer URL: This is the URL the contact comes to your site from.
​

5. Note: This step is only relevant for customers using Reclaim. If you're using Grow only, feel free to skip to the next step.
​
​Reminder: In the previous section, where you set up your Reclaim data extensions, we asked you to save the Event Definition Key for each event. This is where you'll enter the corresponding key for each event you created.

6. Enable the SalesForce Marketing Cloud integration now. Once you enable the integration, your suppression and collection sync settings will apply and begin.

7. Once the integration is complete, you will see the integration date, API details, contact suppression, and the option to set/change the list(data extension) it's synced to. You can also Remove the integration from this page at the top.

Integration Settings

From your Integration settings, you can access, change, or update any of the following:

  • Your API key

  • Grow or Reclaim Activation

  • Suppression settings

  • Grow Sync settings, including the list you're syncing contacts to

  • Revenue metric

  • Sync summary

  • Reclaim sync

To access any of these settings, navigate to your R! Dashboard and click Integrations > Three Dots beside your integration > Settings.

You can make changes to the following settings by clicking on the pencil icon:

  • Suppression

  • Contact Sync

  • JSON Mapping

Sync summary

On your integration settings page, under 'Sync Summary', you can monitor your daily sync history. This section will display details such as the date, the number of successful completions, any failures, and the quantity of items currently in the queue.

To access all of your sync history, click View Full History under Sync Summary. If there’s a failure, it will show the email address, what type of failure has occurred under ESP Feedback, and the date and time of the failure.

If you have questions or require additional support setting up, you can contact our support team at support@retention.com.

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