Why Are Salesforce Changing Marketing Cloud Limits?

Currently, there is a heated topic that’s being talked about by many professionals – pricing. Marketing Cloud is one Salesforce product that’s always been based on credits in some respect (e.g. Super Messages). 

Limits have existed for 8 years (at least) but were not imposed. Now, they will be imposed, which has left some people questioning why. Consider what’s possible in Marketing Cloud now, versus what was possible a decade ago. I had the chance to discuss this with Bobby Jaina, CMO of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. While next to no one likes parting with their marketing budget, we need to understand what’s happening behind the scenes. 

Why the Move to Usage-Based Pricing?

As mentioned before, we have to consider what’s possible in Marketing Cloud now, versus what was possible a decade ago. It’s important to be cognizant of the computing power running behind the scenes – especially with Data Cloud on the scene.  

Consider the idea that not all organizations are equal. If you’ve worked in multiple orgs using Marketing Cloud, you will know that marketing maturity varies – by ‘maturity’ we’re referring to the complexity of the campaigns and data handling that’s run through a Marketing Cloud account. The more sophisticated an organization’s use cases are, the more credits they will consume. 

However, Salesforce (Bobby) points out that the more sophisticated experience will garner the greatest ROI, which follows their ‘magical customer experiences’ message – in fact, exponentially more return versus their spend based on several factors. 

What Salesforce doesn’t want to happen is for customers with lower usage to subsidize customers with more complex usage cases or higher consumption. Marketing Cloud Engagement is an extensible platform where some organizations are using the platform for what it was never designed to do (for example, extreme record storage in data extensions or filter activities). Limits, therefore, exist for a good reason in a multi-tenant environment like Marketing Cloud. These are fair comments and a mindset that democratizes Marketing Cloud usage. 

While more transparency on the topic is needed (and an online calculator, perhaps?), the sentiment makes sense. 

Limits in Marketing Cloud Engagement

Salesforce places limits to determine how much organizations can consume their services. These differ based on your edition and are grouped into the following areas:

• API calls (hard and soft limits)
• Data retention
• Email
• Database queries
• SMS messaging (i.e. Super Messages*)
• Multiple types in reference to Marketing Cloud Personalization

*Note: Super Messages work on a multiplier basis, which takes into account your edition, subscription start date, destination country, and message type.

Email engagement data is available in your account for 180 days. You have the option to fetch data older than this through the API, going right back to when your account was first created. When you consider the storage required to retain all that email engagement data, it does not make sense to retain it indefinitely on the platform. 

In the wider picture, with the introduction of Hyperforce, Salesforce is moving Marketing Cloud Engagement away from their own data centres, to public clouds (especially AWS). There are clear reasons why Salesforce are doing this but using another vendor’s infrastructure means that it’s incurring an additional cost to Salesforce. 

However, viewing your organization’s consumption of limits in Marketing Cloud isn’t straightforward.  

Other Salesforce Marketing Products

What we’re witnessing in Marketing Cloud Engagement aligns with the direction that Salesforce is taking. Let’s call upon two other examples to demonstrate this – Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud Growth Edition. 

Credits in Data Cloud

Data Cloud can handle large volumes of data to produce unified profiles of individuals using the data streaming in from disparate data sources.

There are multiple ways your organization will gain credits for Data Cloud. As it requires so much computing power, Salesforce have based their pricing and limits for Data Cloud on a credit basis. 

Limits in Marketing Cloud Growth Edition

When pricing up Marketing Cloud products (including Marketing Cloud Growth Edition that came to the market earlier this year), Salesforce will first ‘annualize’ credits – calculating typical organization usage, to deliver their ‘flat’ fees. Taking Marketing Cloud Growth Edition as an example, an organization can add on additional messaging credits when required.

Summary

Salesforce is changing its Marketing Cloud limits to better align with the current capabilities and usage demands of the platform. Historically, limits on credits like Super Messages were lenient, but now they will be enforced to reflect the advanced computing power and extensive data handling Marketing Cloud offers today. 

This shift aims to ensure fairness, preventing organizations with lower usage from subsidizing those with higher, more complex consumption. The move to usage-based pricing acknowledges the varying marketing maturity levels across organizations and is designed to democratize access while optimizing return on investment. Transparency on these limits and their implications is crucial.