Salesforce Campaigns serve as a vital tool for marketers within Salesforce, acting as the central hub for managing recipients, tracking engagement, managing budgets, and calculating ROI. While Campaigns may appear straightforward at first glance, they are deeply interconnected with many parts of your Salesforce org. When utilized effectively, they offer immense value, but many users don’t leverage them to their full potential.
Here’s a comprehensive guide based on insights gathered during my time as a Salesforce/Pardot (now called Account Engagement) Consultant, particularly after the introduction of Connected Campaigns. This update made Salesforce Campaigns the central point of truth and allowed for enhanced multi-touch attribution across Salesforce and Account Engagement.
1. Standard Object with Diverse Use Cases
Salesforce Campaigns, a standard object available to all Sales Cloud customers, are primarily used by marketing teams, though sales development representatives (BDRs/SDRs) can also benefit. Campaigns are ideal for tracking return on investment (ROI), especially for initiatives with associated budgets. Use cases include:
- Conferences/Trade Shows
- Email Campaigns
- Webinars
- Direct Mail
- Advertising and Banner Ads
- Telemarketing Campaigns
- Partner/Affiliate Marketing
- Referral Programs
2. The “Active” Checkbox
The “Active” checkbox may seem redundant next to the Campaign’s status (Planned, In Progress, Completed, etc.), but it plays a crucial role. It ensures that only active campaigns are counted towards Opportunity revenue attribution and appears in filtered search results when users manually add Leads/Contacts to Campaigns.
3. Custom Fields for Campaigns
While Salesforce Campaigns come with numerous standard fields, you can add custom fields to capture additional data. However, avoid cluttering your page layouts unnecessarily. Consider using fields like “Target Industry” or “Campaign Level” to organize and filter Campaigns more effectively.
4. Campaign Hierarchies: Parent vs. Child Campaigns
Campaign Hierarchies allow you to organize marketing initiatives into smaller tactics. By connecting these smaller child campaigns to a parent campaign, you can summarize their performance under one umbrella, rolling up metrics to the parent.
5. “In Hierarchy” Fields
Standard “In Hierarchy” fields summarize metrics across all child campaigns in a hierarchy. For example, if three child campaigns have 10, 40, and 20 responses, the parent campaign’s “Responses in Hierarchy” field will display a total of 70.
6. Customizing the Campaign Hierarchy View
You can modify which fields are visible in the campaign hierarchy view and collapse sections to navigate more complex hierarchies. This helps streamline navigation when working with large-scale campaigns.
7. Connected Campaigns for Account Engagement
If you use Account Engagement (formerly Pardot), Connected Campaigns allow you to associate marketing assets (like emails and forms) directly with Salesforce Campaigns. This simplifies management by creating campaigns in Salesforce only, enabling better multi-touch attribution tracking.
8. Campaign Engagement Metrics
Connected Campaigns also sync engagement data from marketing assets, which appear on Campaign records via a Lightning Component. This allows you to track metrics like email click-through rates and form submission rates.
9. Related Objects and Lists
Campaigns can be related to various objects, including Campaign Members, Landing Pages, Forms, and List Emails. You can view these relationships via related lists on the Campaign record, and add custom objects if necessary.
10. Campaign Members
Campaign Members link Leads, Contacts, and Accounts to a Salesforce Campaign. They allow you to track individuals at different stages of the buying cycle within one campaign, simplifying reporting and enabling more accurate insights.
11. Campaign Member Status
Each Campaign Member has a “Member Status” that indicates their level of engagement. The default statuses are “Sent” and “Responded,” but you can customize these to better reflect engagement. Be sure to plan your statuses carefully to avoid complications later.
12. Adding Campaign Members
You can add Campaign Members in multiple ways, whether uploading lists, using automation, or adding individuals manually. Account Engagement also offers more methods for populating Campaign Members, like completion actions and automation rules.
13. Campaign Influence (Primary Campaign Source)
The “Primary Campaign Source” field on Opportunities connects revenue to a specific Campaign. This is the first step in measuring Campaign ROI and provides a basic attribution model where 100% of revenue is credited to one campaign.
14. Campaign Influence Attribution Models
Beyond the Primary Campaign Source, Salesforce supports more advanced attribution models, particularly for Account Engagement users. These models allow you to distribute credit across multiple campaigns based on different criteria, providing a more nuanced view of Campaign Influence.
These 20+ points cover essential features and best practices for using Salesforce Campaigns effectively, whether you’re tracking ROI, managing engagement, or improving your reporting capabilities.
Campaign Report Types (Standard)
Salesforce is renowned for its robust and intuitive reporting features, particularly when you understand objects and relationships within the platform. For the Campaign object, Salesforce provides the following standard report types:
- Campaigns
- Campaigns with Campaign Members
- Campaigns with Leads
- Campaigns with Leads and Converted Lead Information
- Campaigns with Contacts
- Opportunities with Campaign History
- Campaigns with Influenced Opportunities (Customizable Campaign Influence)
Campaign Report Types (Custom)
Custom report types in Salesforce allow you to create tailored reports that go beyond the default options. Think of a Salesforce report type as a lens that lets you focus on specific data in your Salesforce environment.
A scenario where standard reports might fall short is when you need to report on campaigns linked to a custom object that is heavily used in your organization.
If you are using Account Engagement (Pardot), you have access to additional marketing objects and, as a result, more report type possibilities. Features like Engagement History and marketing asset sync (see point #9) enable you to integrate Account Engagement assets and activities into Salesforce reports. To leverage this data, you need to create custom Engagement History report types. There are step-by-step guides available to help you through this process.
Using a Campaign Calendar
Salesforce includes several underappreciated features, and one of them is the ability to transform any object into a calendar view. If you’re constantly cross-referencing a spreadsheet with Salesforce campaigns, this feature is for you.
In the Calendar tab, you can create a calendar using any object, such as Campaigns. Simply select the date fields (e.g., ‘start date’ and ‘end date’) and filter by any list view (e.g., My Active Campaigns or All Manufacturing Campaigns). This makes setting up and viewing campaigns quick and easy. Note that this feature is available to users on the Professional Edition or higher.
Using Chatter for Collaboration
Chatter is Salesforce’s built-in collaboration tool, often described as a hybrid of LinkedIn and Twitter. While Salesforce now owns Slack, there’s no official word yet on whether Slack will replace Chatter.
Chatter requires minimal configuration compared to the Salesforce to Slack connector. It allows you to create internal project groups, comment directly on Salesforce records, and see activity threads from other users.
For campaign organization, Chatter moves conversations out of email and into Salesforce, providing visibility for your entire team and creating a clear “paper trail.” To enable Chatter for campaigns, follow these steps:
- Enable Feed Tracking for Campaigns.
- Add the Chatter component to your Lightning Record Pages.
Once activated, your team can comment, tag other team members, search the comment feed, or even create polls to gather feedback.
Campaign Approval Processes
Approval processes for campaigns are popular because campaigns often require substantial budgets or include content that needs multiple checks. Building a Campaign Approval Process in Salesforce ensures that campaigns get the necessary oversight before progressing to the next stage.
Approval processes can be configured according to your team’s specific needs, making them a valuable tool for managing campaigns that need higher levels of scrutiny.
Campaign Record Types
Record types in Salesforce are used to group similar records within an object, allowing you to display different fields, required fields, picklist values, and page layouts. For example, you might have a record type for Tradeshow campaigns and another for SDR calling campaigns, with different fields and statuses for each.
Record types gained attention with the release of Connected Campaigns. When enabling Connected Campaigns, you are prompted to select which campaign record types should sync with Account Engagement, helping keep your Pardot environment organized and the sync process efficient.
Keep in mind that record types are an advanced feature. If you’re not a Salesforce admin, consult with one before setting up record types.
Importing Campaigns into Salesforce
When importing records in bulk into Salesforce, you have two main options: the Data Import Wizard or Data Loader. However, for campaign imports, only the Data Loader can be used, as the Data Import Wizard does not support campaign records.
Importing Campaign Members works differently. You can use either the Data Import Wizard or the Data Loader, but each campaign member must have their own row in the import file (e.g., CSV or Excel).
Campaign “Deep Clone”
While the Clone button on the Campaign object creates a duplicate of the original campaign, it does not copy any related records. For campaigns that require re-engaging the same leads or contacts, replicating member statuses, or reusing landing pages, Salesforce offers the Clone with Related action. Also known as “deep clone,” this action duplicates the campaign and its related records, allowing for the quick launch of repeat campaigns.
Summary
While Salesforce Campaigns might seem simple at first glance, they are deeply interconnected with many aspects of the Salesforce platform. When used effectively, they become a powerful tool for tracking and reporting. Hopefully, this guide has provided insights and best practices to help you make the most of Salesforce Campaigns and enhance your overall marketing and sales strategy.
