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Building Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) email campaigns, journeys, and automation — Journey Builder welcome/nurture flows, Automation Studio batch pipelines, Content Builder, AMPscript personalization, data extensions and SQL Data Views, Triggered/Single/User-Initiated sends, deliverability (SPF/DKIM/DMARC, IP warming, bounce handling), Marketing Cloud Connect to CRM, and inbox analytics.
Passed 21 of 23 test cases with the skill, and 15 of 23 without it.
and 3 more in the full report
6 fixed15 passed either way2 still failing0 broke
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
One of 6 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
We are setting up a recurring membership renewal reminder journey in Journey Builder that runs annually. Members should be able to receive the reminder sequence every year upon qualification. Which re-entry mode should be chosen?
| Checked | Without skill | With skill |
|---|---|---|
| Selects Re-entry Only After Exiting as the re-entry setting. | Passed | Passed |
| Recommends setting exit criteria to evaluate when a member completes their renewal. | Missed | Passed |
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
The Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Email Specialist (exam code MC-202) validates
proven knowledge, skills, and hands-on experience in email marketing best practices within the
Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) platform. The six exam domains are: Email Marketing Best
Practices, Email Message Design, Content Creation & Delivery, Marketing Automation, Subscriber &
Data Management, and Tracking & Reporting (see domain weights in
references/study-resources.md) [volatile — verify live].
This is the primary entry-level certification in the Marketing Cloud track. It is a prerequisite for advanced credentials such as Marketing Cloud Consultant, Marketing Cloud Developer, and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Specialist. Salesforce recommends 6–12 months of hands-on Marketing Cloud experience before attempting.
When to reach for Marketing Cloud: SFMC is the platform for marketing sends — campaigns, program updates, recruitment, lifecycle messaging — with engagement tracking, unsubscribe management, and journey automation. Transactional 1:1 mail (submit confirmations, password resets, magic-link delivery) is often better served by a cheaper transactional email service (e.g. Amazon SES) unless a Triggered Send is already justified by the broader MC adoption. The rules below let an agent make the transactional-vs-marketing call, design a compliant journey, and avoid the deliverability and data-model traps that bite teams integrating MC with a CRM.
This file is an operational playbook, not an exam outline. Each section states the actual rules an agent must apply, the concrete limits, the decision criteria for picking a tool, and the anti-patterns to catch in review.
Load this skill when… designing or reviewing Salesforce Marketing Cloud email campaigns, Journey Builder flows, or Automation Studio pipelines; configuring deliverability (SPF/DKIM/DMARC, IP warming, bounce handling); working with data extensions, AMPscript personalization, or Marketing Cloud Connect; or diagnosing send failures, subscriber status issues, or inbox analytics. Not this skill: this is SFMC (Studio/Builder stack) — not core CRM email alerts or Pardot/Account Engagement; for CRM email activity tied to Sales or Service Cloud objects, see
salesforce-sales-cloud-consultantorsalesforce-service-cloud-consultant.
Deeper context: Study resources (official Salesforce + community) live in references/study-resources.md (loaded on demand). For org-specific applications of these rules, keep a per-org appendix in your own project, referenced from a CLAUDE.md. For NPSP/nonprofit-specific guidance, see salesforce-nonprofit-cloud-consultant.
Verify steps assume nothing about your tooling — use your project's Salesforce MCP connection, the Salesforce CLI (
sf), or the Salesforce setup UI, in that order of preference.
Credential logistics and study path: see references/study-resources.md.
test cases passed, vs 15 / 23 without
More skills from the same source and nearby in the registry, with their headline benchmark lift.