Sitecore, Salesforce, Confused

Admit it, it's confusing! Since Sitecore announced their partnership with Salesforce Marketing Cloud last year there has been a lot of banter in this space. So what is what and where does FuseIT fit into the picture? Let's look at the key players!

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Originally called ExactTarget, Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) is an enterprise marketing automation and analytics service. In 2013, it was acquired by Salesforce for $2.5 billion and renamed to what it is today.

SFMC is not a CRM per se. Rather, it's primary use is to automate the dispatch of messages (usually emails) to large recipient groups, then track and process the responses according to configurable automation plans.

Communicating with SFMC from external systems, like Salesforce or Sitecore, is achieved via the Marketing Cloud API 

Salesforce

Salesforce is the leading customer relationship management software (CRM). Salesforce provides advanced tools to process sales and support pipelines including task and case management.

Salesforce has limited abilities to mass email large numbers of recipients and automate their responses. To achieve this, Salesforce has integrations with specialist software like Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Pardot.

Communicating with Salesforce from external systems, like SFMC or Sitecore, is achieved via one of the Salesforce APIs.

Sitecore

Sitecore is a global leader in digital experience solutions. A feature of Sitecore based websites is the ability to track the behavior of each visitor, then dynamically render relevant content to each individual as they navigate the site.

In 2017, Sitecore released Sitecore Connect™, a generic "Data Exchange Framework" that syncs data between two configurable endpoints. One end is usually Sitecore and the other is a third-party API via a plugin.

Last year, when Sitecore partnered with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, they created the Sitecore Connect™ for Salesforce Marketing Cloud which is a plugin for Sitecore Connect™. The current mappings link Sitecore web content, like images, with SFMC so you can include these assets in emails.

At a similar time, Sitecore released Sitecore Connect™ for Salesforce CRM. Similarly, this plugin for Sitecore Connect™ syncs data between Sitecore and the Salesforce REST API.  

Completely separate to any software mentioned so far, is Sitecore's own email automation software called Email Experience Manager (EXM).

FuseIT

In 2009, Sitecore asked FuseIT to develop S4S, an enterprise integration with Salesforce CRM. Today, S4S is used globally including many Fortune 500 companies like American Express and United Health Group. Unlike Sitecore Connect™ for Salesforce CRM, S4S has many out-of-the-box features that can be brought to life after a one-hour installation session. S4S focuses on real-time interactions and includes support for web forms - a full comparison is detailed here. 

In mid-2017, FuseIT released S4MC, a Sitecore to Salesforce Marketing Cloud integration. S4MC is an advanced wizard that maps Sitecore forms (custom forms, Sitecore WFFM, and Sitecore Experience Forms) to SFMC Subscribers, Data Extensions, and Subscriber Lists.

Just let us know if you need more info on any of these systems.