Narrow target groups, long decision-making processes, and complex channels: B2B marketing faces a variety of challenges. Against this backdrop, more and more companies are turning to cloud solutions that offer users one thing above all: a platform that integrates well into existing IT infrastructures, is intuitive to use, leverages modern automation functions, and enables smooth lead handovers through close alignment of marketing and sales. Many companies rely on Salesforce marketing automation solutions for this.
B2B Marketing Under Pressure – Many Channels, Little Time, Even Less Clarity
With the CRM platform Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, Salesforce addresses typical challenges in B2B marketing teams that have caused headaches in the past: a growing number of touchpoints, decentralized data that complicates lead handover, and untapped automation potential.
Many Touchpoints, Little Overview
In B2B marketing, there are numerous touchpoints where existing and potential customers interact with a company or its brand. These touchpoints can be categorized along the customer journey – from initial awareness to after-sales service. These include websites, trade articles, whitepapers, online events, trade journals, trade shows, and conferences. The vast array of contact points makes it difficult to maintain an overview.
Data Exists – But It's Not Connected
Marketers use an average of eight different marketing tools and technologies, according to a recent Salesforce study. In practice, however, many customer data sets are not centrally stored in a CRM, but scattered across various marketing and tracking tools. The consequence: marketing and sales often work with different data, which causes delays and complicates lead handovers. Customer communication suffers as well: customers may receive the wrong information or be overwhelmed with redundant messages.
Automation Opportunities Often Go Unused
From lead generation and qualification to content marketing automation and account-based marketing, automation offers many advantages in B2B marketing. Yet surveys show that companies are not fully utilizing this potential. The reasons vary: sometimes it's a lack of know-how, perceived high costs or technological hurdles, or doubts about the ROI. Especially in terms of cross-channel personalization, much automation potential remains untapped. This is where Marketing Cloud Account Engagement comes in – as a powerful Salesforce solution for automated B2B marketing.
What Is Marketing Cloud Account Engagement?
Analogous to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which enjoys great popularity in the B2C sector, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement offers similar functions tailored to B2B marketing teams. It focuses on simplified lead generation and nurturing, relationship management, creation of cross-channel journeys, and account-based engagement.
A Platform for Automated B2B Marketing
Automated B2B marketing on a single platform offers users several advantages: automation reduces the manual workload for repetitive tasks like email campaigns, lead nurturing, and social media posts. This allows teams to focus on more strategic initiatives.
Automated workflows allow leads to be guided through the entire buying process in a targeted and personalized way – with content tailored to each stage of the customer journey. The result: highly personalized, data-driven campaigns lead to better engagement with potential customers and ultimately more conversions.
Focus on Lead Generation, Communication, and Predictive Insights
Automation tools deliver detailed analytics and KPIs that help measure, optimize, and strategically develop campaign performance. At the same time, customer experience becomes more consistent and relevant through targeted tracking and personalization – a critical factor for customer retention in B2B. Automated lead scoring models ensure that leads are passed to sales at the right time – along with all relevant behavioral data. This provides a solid foundation for targeted sales activities.
Salesforce Marketing Automation: Key Features at a Glance
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement provides B2B marketers with a range of useful features that greatly simplify audience segmentation and significantly enhance customer communication across channels through various personalization options.
Audience Segmentation and Journey Automation
Effective audience segmentation is a fundamental task in B2B marketing. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement supports this by allowing marketing and sales teams to create segments using intuitive filtering tools. Advanced versions of the software even support campaign design using natural language prompts. AI service agents such as Agentforce assist in generating briefings, content, segments, and customer journeys for every stage of the customer lifecycle.
Simple and Effective Email Communication
To offer customers a personalized experience, the software tracks how potential customers interact with a company’s marketing channels such as websites, emails, and forms. This enables email content to be easily customized based on CRM data. With flexible templates and customizable content blocks, marketers can personalize recommendations for each subscriber while maintaining high delivery volumes.
Streamlined Content Creation and Management
To ensure ease of use, Salesforce relies on simple drag-and-drop menus for content creation and personalization. Once created, content can be reused across multiple channels with just a few clicks.
Real-Time Analytics and Reporting
The software provides B2B marketers and sales teams with detailed click and open rates per recipient and campaign. Intelligent reports and dashboards consolidate this data across campaigns, significantly boosting ROI.
Marketing and sales can track which topics a lead or customer is interested in, including which whitepapers or case studies were downloaded. This helps create a detailed interest profile. In terms of reporting, the software can also determine the ideal timing for contacting the lead or customer – including recommendations on the best day and time to send emails.
Marketing Cloud for Sales: Enabling Better Collaboration in B2B Sales
Seamless collaboration between marketing and sales teams is essential for companies. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement also supports this need.
Transparency Across All Marketing Activities – Directly in the CRM
Through the "Reports" tab, users have access to all reports provided by Account Engagement. These include campaign performance, conversion rates, connected apps, lifecycle funnels, and the effectiveness of marketing assets. Shared visibility allows sales to see what marketing has already communicated – and vice versa. No media disruption, and lead handovers are automated.
Shared Dashboards and Feedback Processes
The Marketing Cloud Account Engagement dashboard serves as the control center for both marketing and sales staff. It offers a macro view of account alerts and active prospect records.
The navigation bar includes eight main menu items by default: Prospects, Campaigns, Automations, Email, Content, Account Engagement Reports, and access to the administration interface via Account Engagement Settings. With a unified view of pipeline contributions, campaign success, and lead sources, sales and marketing work more closely together – with measurable impact.
Conclusion – Marketing Cloud Account Engagement as a Growth Driver in B2B
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement is a popular CRM platform in B2B marketing, delivering structure, automation, and measurable impact. Its automation features are thoughtfully integrated, delivering real value. Thanks to its scalability and extensibility, the solution is particularly suited for growth-oriented B2B companies – and forms the foundation for a strong partnership between marketing and sales.
As a certified Salesforce partner in Germany, we’re happy to support you with consulting, strategy, and implementation of your Salesforce setup.
Do you have questions about marketing automation or Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement? Feel free to get in touch with us!
