THIS IS MY 100th BLOG POST!
My Video Course on Email Specialist Certification
Practice Tests
Use the above URLs to get a special discount. Coupon Code INNERCIRCLE is added to them.
Last week, I passed Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification!! It is my 5th Salesforce certification, officially 4th now because Salesforce has removed the original Developer certification (401) so that is no longer counted towards Certification count.
3 months earlier, I had no Marketing cloud experience, I moved to an official Salesforce Marketing Cloud partner company, so this certification was on cards since then.
Even before I joined, I started my learning process. It took me 2 months to prepare for this certification as a complete newbie to Marketing Cloud. The exam wasn’t easy for me (though many say it is the easiest exam) as I didn’t have full-time hands-on experience of working on Marketing Cloud project while attempting this certification.
Breakdown of Score
Before I talk about how I prepared for this certification here’s a breakdown of how much I scored on the exam.
Since we know the topics from the certification guide (column #1) and the % of weight for each topic (column #2), I calculated the expected number of questions for each topic (column #3) out of 60 questions. Salesforce sent my topic wise scoring via email that I secured after the exam (Column #4), so I calculated how many questions I got them right (column #5).
| Topic | % of Weightage (from the guide) | Expected No. of Questions | My Exam Result in % | No. of Correct Answers |
| Content Creation and Email Delivery | 18% | 11 | 90.90% | 10 |
| Tracking and Reporting | 6% | 4 | 75.00% | 3 |
| Marketing Automation | 19% | 11 | 81.81% | 9 |
| Email Marketing Best Practices | 15% | 9 | 88.88% | 8 |
| Email Message Design | 13% | 8 | 37.50% | 3 |
| Subscriber Data and Management | 29% | 17 | 76.47% | 13 |
| 60 | 46 |
In total, I got 46 answers correct out of 60 – that is 76.67%. Not bad. Pass!!
[Note to self: Badly need to brush up my Email Message Design skills!! ]
Note that the passing % has been increased from 60% to 65% for this certification
Preparation
As a newbie, this is what I did for preparation. Note the material I used is freely available to anyone and you don’t have to spend your $. Below is the order in which I did my preparation:
- Understanding Topics & Weightage
- Trailhead Modules
- Official Youtube Playlist
- Help Document
- Free Training Courses
- Free Certification Preparation Webinars
- Mock Tests (FYR, I added Sample Questions from my exam)
- My own Marketing Cloud Tutorial Series
- Topics & Weightage: First thing is to get acquainted with the topics from the Salesforce certification guide and have an understanding of how many questions you’d get from each topic. As mentioned in the above table, there are 6 Topics.
- Reporting & Tracking is the lowest – Just 6%. So around 4 questions.
- Subscriber Data Management is the highest – 29% – 17 questions.
- The remaining 4 topics are between 13% to 19% – around 10 questions per each topic
- Content Creation and Email Delivery (18%)
- Marketing Automation (19%)
- Email Marketing Best Practices (15%)
- Email Message Design (13%)
- Trailhead: Obviously I started the preparation with Trailhead. There are only 3 modules for Marketing Cloud (MC). Reading and understanding these 3 modules from Trailhead covers 15-18% of your certification.
- Marketing Cloud Basics: This gives the right intro to what this is all about. This doesn’t cover any certification topics but just gives a general idea of the cloud.
- Marketing Cloud Studios & Builders: This gives an intro to the tools of MC. Focus on the Email Studio part. Do not go deep into the Journey builder but this is a must-read. There are a couple of introductory questions on why or when Journey builder is used in the certification.
- Email Marketing Strategies: The 3rd and the most important module This is very useful and covers the Email Marketing Best Practices topic of the certification (9-10 questions from this).
- Update Feb 2018: 3 More Trailhead modules released for Marketing Cloud which helps in this certification
- Official Salesforce Marketing Cloud Basics Youtube Playlist: Salesforce has an official Youtube channel specifically for Marketing Cloud, called “Marketing Cloud Official”. They have a special playlist named “Marketing Cloud Basics” where they talk about all the basics of Email Studio. This is very useful as the videos show the marketing cloud user interface while explaining the all the features of marketing cloud in detail. These are just 2-3 mins videos, 13 of them (to this day). So you should be able to complete them in an hour – This is fast-paced learning!
- Read the Help Document: You can skip this step as this would not really help in certification directly at this stage. I preferred to do this as I wanted a deep knowledge and understanding of everything as eventually I know I’d work on MC. So, I chose the hard path. Salesforce provides the help documentation for marketing cloud. Go to the “Getting Started with Email Studio” topic from the left menu in the help documentation. For the next 10 days, I read through all of this, yes the entire of Email Studio documentation. Though not everything makes sense the first time, this will give you an idea of what’s in MC. I made notes for each topic, the things I feel are important to me. It didn’t help for the exam but from a learning perspective, it did.
- Free Official Salesforce Online Training Courses: Salesforce provides free online training material. To get these, login to your any Developer Account (Not marketing cloud, your Sales cloud Developer account). If you don’t have a Developer account, you can sign-up here! This account is free for life. After logging in, go to Help (from upper right corner menu). Click on Training & Certification. And apply the filter ‘Marketing Cloud’. There are 9 courses available for free to study. These are some amazing content. (You can skip the Social Studio ones for this certification preparation.)
- If you have Marketing Cloud account, you can log in to your Marketing Cloud Account and go through Help (from top right corner menu, after logging in) and get to the Training courses.
- If you have Marketing Cloud account, you can log in to your Marketing Cloud Account and go through Help (from top right corner menu, after logging in) and get to the Training courses.
- Free APAC Certification Preparation Webinars: Salesforce University (okay now it is merged with Trailhead, so need to refer to it as Trailhead also) has started conducting free certification preparation webinars for everyone. This is an initiative from the Asia Pacific (APAC) team of
Salesforce UniversityTrailhead, so these webinar timings are more suited to the Asia time zone. These preparation webinars are not just for Marketing Cloud, they do for all other Salesforce cloud certifications including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud. These are 5-hour sessions and is quite interactive. The instructor takes you through the certification topics, explains each topic, with a live demo, giving you tips to clear the certification. This webinar is purely for certification purposes. You can register for the upcoming webinars using this link. I keep updating this link as soon Salesforce releases the dates for next webinars. I cannot share this material with you as this is Private & Confidential.- It is important to make notes during the webinar as you won’t have access to it later.
- After the webinar, do a review of what topics you need to study more. Refer to the Help document and go through those topics.
- By this stage, you would cover the entire certification topics and should be almost ready for the exam in the next 2 weeks. The next 2 weeks you need to check mock exams and understand the question formats.
- Sample questions from my exam: Are you ready for the exam? Let me check. I will list down the topics from which my questions were based on. If you think you can answer, you are ready. If not, don’t worry, just check the Help document to understand more on these topics (or write a comment on this post for any clarification).
-
Given a scenario, which one to use – Suppression List or Exclusion list?
-
Given a scenario, which one to use – Is testable / Is sendable?
-
Why consider Data Extension (DE) over lists
-
Best practices for switching from Classic Content to Content Builder.
-
What are the contents of a “content” in MC?
-
How to maintain Consistent email branding in mobile?
-
How not to include clicks of internal users in statistics?
-
Lots of questions on Unsubscribes / Business Unit Unsubscribes / Profile Centre
-
Hard bounce, Soft Bounce
-
When to use Query vs Data Extract vs Filter in Automation Studio?
-
What is Send relationship?
- When to use Send throttle?
-
- Mock Tests: You can check for mock test available on the internet. Don’t completely rely on them, as the question formats are not completely in line with what you get in your exam and most of the answers in the mock tests are wrong. So, I’m not giving any links here for mock tests.
- Tutorial Series: I have created a tutorial series specifically for this certification explaining all the concepts of Marketing Cloud.
My Video Course on Email Specialist Certification
Practice Tests
Use the above URLs to get a special discount. Coupon Code INNERCIRCLE is added to them.
Feel free to comment if any clarification required on any topic or any question from the mock tests, I will provide the right answer.
Maintenance of Certification Credential
To maintain your Marketing Cloud Certification, you no longer need to pay 100$ and take that online yearly maintenance exam. It has been shifted to Trailhead, yes! Learn how to maintain your credential
Hi there!
Can u help me with below questions?
1)
NTO uses HTML emails that have headers and footers coded into the email. What tool can the marketer use to control default headers and footers on email sends?
A. Dynamic Content
B. Sender Profile
C. Delivery Profile (Correct Answer as per website)
D. AMPScript Lookups (My Answer)
>>Please advise where is header and footer configured?
2)
A marketer created dynamic content for an upcoming campaign that renders unique content based on subscriber attributes. The marketer would like to preview how each
email will render for a given list of subscribers. How should the marketer proceed?
A. Select the “Preview” tab within the Classic Content tool
B. Using the Subscriber Preview tool, cycle through the list of subscribers (Correct Answer as per website)
C. Create a user-initiated email to send to the list of subscribers
D. Use the Test Send tool to trigger copies of the email
3)
NTO will be using AMPScript to create highly personalized emails. As part of the quality assurance (QA) process, NTO needs to do the following:
Ensure the system can process the AMPScript
View the dynamic content variations based on data in the data extension
Which two Content Builder tools should be used in the QA process to meet these requirements? Choose 2 answers
A. Send Preview (Correct Answer as per website)
B. Desktop View
C. Validation (My Answer)
D. Subscriber Preview (Correct Answer)
>>Shouldn’t it be C and D?
4)
NTO would like to use File Drop Automation in Automation Studio to send shipping tracking emails when orders are dispatched. A delimited text file containing all the
data for the send will be uploaded to a designated directory on the Enhanced FTP account, and the email should be sent to customers when the file transfer has
completed. What is the correct sequence for Activities for this File Drop Automation?
A. Import File Activity > Send Email (My Answer)
B. File Transfer Activity > Import File Activity > Send Email (Correct Answer as per website)
C. Import File Activity > File Transfer Activity > Send Email
D. File Transfer Activity > Send Email
>>Why do we need File transfer activity?
5)
NTO wants to send promotional holiday emails to subscribers who have identified their favorite store locations. Which two actions should NTO take in order to utilize
their subscribers’ location preferences? Choose 2 answers
A. A dynamic From Name that pulls in the store location (Answer)
B. A new delivery profile that pulls in store location in the footer
C. A From Name for each store location
D. A new send classification for holiday promotions (Answer)
6)
A marketer would like to improve open rates for weekly email campaigns. On which area of email design should the marketer focus?
A. Email Body
B. Link Content (My Answer)
C. Envelope Content (Correct Answer as per website)
D. Footer
7)
The marketing manager of NTO is interested in A/B testing emails in order to increase subscriber engagement. Which two practices should the marketing manager employ?
Choose 2 answers
A. Offer a special discount for opening the email
B. Use a large sample size (Correct Answer as per website)
C. Wait at least 24 hours before declaring a winner ( Answer)
D. Test multiple variations concurrently
8)
NTO is looking at using Journey Builder rather than Automation Studio to send emails. What are the three benefits of using Journey Builder? Choose 3 answers
A. The ability to extract data from an Audience data extension for analysis
B. The ability to setup A/B/N tests as part of the workflow to conduct timing and creative tests
C. The ability to set goals and have the system listen to see if users met the goal
D. The ability to update or create Salesforce CRM objects or records
E. The ability to set criteria to segment contacts based on behavior using SQL
>> I think answer is B,C,D
9)
A marketing team has a series of emails that will be sent to prospective customers. The audience will be built from data stored in two data extensions. they would
like to test engagement across multiple versions of the creative to determine which is most effective. Which tools will accomplish this?
A. Email Studio and Audience Builder (My Answer)
B. Automation Studio and Journey Builder
C. Journey Builder and Email Studio (Correct Answer as per website)
D. Automation Studio and Content builder
>> Shouldn’t it be A?
10)
The marketing team at a bank needs to receive a file of all subscribers who were sent payment reminder emails and opened them each week. The file needs to be
encrypted and placed on the bank’s external SFTP. How should the scheduled automation be configured to achieve this?
A. Filter Activity > File Transfer Activity > Data Extract Activity (My Answer)
B. Filter Activity > Query Activity > File Transfer Activity
C. Data Extract Activity > Query Activity > File Transfer Activity
D. Query Activity > Data Extract Activity > File Transfer Activity (Correct Answer as per website)
>>What is difference between Filte transfer and Data extract?
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Answer for The Question 1:
Delivery Profile has Default Header and footer Setting https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_es_create_delivery_profile.htm&type=5
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Answer for question 4
https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_as_ftp_and_triggered_automation_scenario.htm&type=5
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Question 5 keyword is improve email open rate when design the email. The answer is envelope content as envelope content consists of the sender name, the subject line, and the preheader text. This make clear to the target audience the email content and encourage the email open rates.
https://www.salesforce.com/products/marketing-cloud/resources/email-design-toolkit/
At the meantime, one of the link content function is helping marketer to track the email open rate
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The answer for question 8 is BCD
https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_jb_get_started_with_journey_builder.htm&type=5
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NTO wants to send promotional holiday emails to subscribers who have identified their favorite store locations. Which two actions should NTO take in order to utilize
their subscribers’ location preferences? Choose 2 answers
A. A dynamic From Name that pulls in the store location
B. A new delivery profile that pulls in store location in the footer
C. A From Name for each store location
D. A new send classification for holiday promotions
please help with this question.
i think it is A and B
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NTO is looking at using Journey Builder rather than Automation Studio to send emails. What are the three benefits of using Journey Builder? Choose 3 answers
A. The ability to extract data from an Audience data extension for analysis
B. The ability to setup A/B/N tests as part of the workflow to conduct timing and creative tests
C. The ability to set goals and have the system listen to see if users met the goal
D. The ability to update or create Salesforce CRM objects or records
E. The ability to set criteria to segment contacts based on behavior using SQL
i think of A,D,C
Please correct me
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It is B,C,D. Journey Builder does NOT have an extract activity (A) and NO ability to use SQL to create segment (E).
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Can Some one help me with the above question.
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NTO wants to send promotional holiday emails to subscribers who have identified their favorite store locations. Which two actions should NTO take in order to utilize
their subscribers’ location preferences? Choose 2 answers
A. A dynamic From Name that pulls in the store location
B. A new delivery profile that pulls in store location in the footer
C. A From Name for each store location
D. A new send classification for holiday promotions
please help with this question.
i think it is A and B
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I think A and B
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Can someone please help with number 3 above. I think it should be c and d.
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A marketer would like to automate a weekly email campaign using Automation Studio. The marketer
needs to preconfigure the email so a colleague can set up the automation at a later date.
How should the customer prepare this email for sending?
A. Send Email
B. Guided Send
C. Send Preview
D. Test Send
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Is it B – Guided Send ?
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think it is Send Email
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The email marketing manager at Northern Trail Outfitters would like to build a new audience that will combine unique subscribers who are in their Tent Purchasers data extension and their Tent Browsers data extension.
How should this new audience be created?
A. Create a Filter Activity in Automation Studio to combine the two data extensions.
B. Build a Group based on a Data Filter to combine the two data extensions.
C. Export both data extensions and import into a new data extension.
D. Populate a data extension using an SQL Query Activity in Automation Studio.
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I think answer is D
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NTO completed a data review process and discovered their data extension folders contain hundreds of
filtered data extensions which are never used. What tool could NTO use to alleviate the number of
filtered audiences that are created for sending?
A. Filter Activity
B. Data Filter
C. SQL Query
D. Filtered Group
What is the correct answe?
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Hi @sfdcfanboy! please suggest
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I have a Developer account, but do not see a Training & Certification section in the help menu… has that been moved (I only see links to Salesforce). Where can I access that content?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Check this link.
https://help.salesforce.com/htsctrainingcatalog#f:@sflanguage=%5Ben_US%5D&f:@sfproducts=%5BMarketing%20Cloud%5D
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I have a Developer account, but do not see a Training & Certification section in the help menu… has that been moved (I only see links to Salesforce). Where can I access that content?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Check this link. Use the filters on the Left menu
https://help.salesforce.com/htsctrainingcatalog#f:@sflanguage=%5Ben_US%5D&f:@sfproducts=%5BMarketing%20Cloud%5D
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Hi,
Few ideas where to look for some of your sample questions from your exam, I saw that other people had similar questions, any help here?
1.How not to include clicks of internal users in statistics?
2.When to use Send throttle?
3.What are the contents of a “content” in MC?
4. What is the difference between Suppression List and Exclusion list? ( Given a scenario, which one to use – Suppression List or Exclusion list?)
Thank you!
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sfdcFanBoy – any update on this?
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Hi I have a question about this problem:
Which feature can segment on behavioral data?
A. Tracking
B. Data Extension
C. Import Activity
D. Data Filter
I think the answer is D, since it is the only segment tool in the options. But my friend think it should be A. Could you help? Thanks!
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You can use Measures to create filters based on behavioral data e.g. clicks, opens.
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Hi Friends, How often do the Question models change for Email Specialist Certification? Every Quarter or every month?
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Mostly every quarter since there’s a new features release.
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Just passed the exam with 86%. And wanted to share my joy. Had to do a lot of exam Q research and fail twice too. Two of questions I remembered were;
NTO has hired an email marketer who needs to be trained in AMPscript. Which statement best describes how AMPscript can best be use to customize email messages?
A. Inserts responsive content based on the user’s device
B. Automates the flow of creating email messages
C. Provides advanced content personalization
D. Automates the template creation process
Ans C. Use AMPscript to process information and include information from your data extensions in the body of your messages and landing pages to provide advanced personalization for the subscribers.
Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) would like to use a landing page that displays subscriber information passed to it from email links on the page. The page contains a Smart Capture form. NTO would like to require email, reply date and response for the subscribers completing the form.
How should NTO set up the Data Extension?
A. Set up a data extension with email address as the primary key and reply date and response fields as nullable
B. Set up a data extension with email address, reply date and response fields as non-nullable √
C. Set up a data extension with email address, reply date and response fields as nullable
D. Set up a data extension with email address as non-nullable. Reply date and response fields as nullable
Choose B. All 3 should be non nullable
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Hi! My name is Pavel. And in a few days I will take the marketing cloud email certification too. And it will be great to connect with you in email to ask you some questions. How can I contact with you?
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Hi Pavel, if it is exam related questions you can post here in comments section so everyone can learn. I can anyways be reached via email sfdcfanboy@gmail.com
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Customer want to send email from sales cloud on behalf of the record owner in which two ways should consultant meet the requirements
1) use organization wide email address
2) use send from record owner
3) use custom send classification
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2 and 3.
You cannot use Org wide email address as a Sender.
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I am looking for Salesforce marketing cloud consultant.. can anyone help me out with few questions
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A question re using Marketing Cloud for multiple clients
Is it possible to run an number of marketing campaigns for different clients using only one licence?
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You need to have separate Business Units for each one of them. And have additional purchases for SAP, branding, email domains, IP address etc. Possible, but is it recommended? not really unless the clients are related like parent-child etc.
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Great thanks. Don’t know what you mean re SAP? SAP software is something completely different? But, at least I know, if we’re going to run campaigns for different businesses, we need a licence accordingly.
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Oh SAP is Sender Authentication Package in marketing cloud.
https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_es_sender_authentication_package.htm&type=5
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Great thanks. Will check this out.
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Here is a tough question. Can you advise pls?
NTO branding guidelines require heavy use of imagery on its website, app, emails, ads, etc. What two ways that NTO can optimize its email design to honour branding guidelines and ensure subscribers are getting the best experience possible? **
Choose 2 answers
A. Add background colours that match branding
B. Use custom corporate font to match the NTO brand
C. Make the email completely imaged based
D. Style alt text for when images do not display automatically
I choose A/b bcos not actually sure if A is possible?
LikeLiked by 1 person
The actual recommendation is “to use a web-safe font”. I’m surprised it is not in the options. So, B is not an option (unless we know that the corporate font is web-safe). C, of course, is wrong (email needs to have text and images). D is right. And then no option but to choose A. I’d go with A and D here.
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Yes. I agree with this and passed the exam thanks
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What tool is recommended to render personalization strings, AMPscript and dynamic content in an email before sending it to a subscriber?
A. Preview and Test
B. Send Flow
C. List detective
D. Test Send
Choose A. Preview and Test is correct. And, then to view the email with AMPscript and personalization strings rendered select a list, group, data extension, or audience then select a subscriber. List Detective is to check against predetermined rules. Send Flow is only a process. Test Send is not relevant. In the Test Phase of the flow, it’s actually called ‘Send Test’.
Am I correct?
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That’s right
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Great thanks
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An interestin exam Q that I remember;
A Marketer is using list-based sending and wants to segment subscribers who have the value of EMEA Region attribute.
What tool will provide the audience?
A. SQL Query activity
B. Guided send
C. Filters
D. Audience Builder
Choose C. Not A because SQL Query is for data extensions and not list. B – Not a segmenting tool but rather a method of email send. D – Used for segmenting groups.Here we only want to filter by one attribute.
Am I correct?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Correct !
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Great thanks. Passed the exam now.
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A marketer wants to use personalization strings to create individualized content for an upcoming send. Which three items should the marketer know when using personalization strings? **
Choose 3 Answers
A. Personalization strings can appear in the subject line or body of an email
B. Personalization strings are enclosed by double percent symbols
C. When using subscriber data, the attribute or field should have a default value
D. Personalization strings are limited to profile attributes
E. Personalization strings are case sensitive
I choose B/C/E. Option A is also correct but it misses out the ‘Sub-header’ location too. Please give me your thoughts and logic?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Answer is A,B,C.
A is right because there is nothing wrong in that statement. It doesn’t talk about Sub-header, doesn’t mean A is wrong.
E is wrong. All personalization strings are case-insensitive. Reference: https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_es_personalization_strings.htm&type=5
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A real tough Q. But, I’ll go with ABC thanks
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NTO is using a SMART Capture form on a Cloud page to capture registrations in a data extension. Corporate has requested a nightly file with all registrants in this data extension be sent daily from from Marketing Cloud to an external FTP.
Which automation configuration should be used?
A. Schedule Automation –> Data Extract Activity –> File Transfer Activity
B. File Drop Automation –> SQL Query Activity –> File Transfer Activity
C. File Drop Automation –> Data Extract Activity –> File Transfer Activity
D. Scheduled Automation –> SQL Query Activity –> File Transfer Activity
I think A. Because, ideally I would create an Automation (Schedule Automation) which will execute on daily basics on a Specific Time (Late Night in your case) i.e. Schedule Automation >> Verification Activity (Which will Email you the Exact Count of Subscribers before the File gets transferred) >> Data Extract Activity >> File Transfer Activity. But Verification is not an option in the Q so, I assume they don’t ask for that detail.
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Spot on!
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Many thanks
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Here is a Q from my last exam under ‘Content creation and email dely’;
A marketer is preparing an email for sending and completing quality checks.
Which existing feature checks against Spam filters to verify words, phrases and patterns that are likely to cause triggers allowing the marketer to make changes to improve deliverability?
A. Spam Check
B. Validate
C. Content Detective
D. Subscriber preview
I choose D
Content Detective is an Email Studio tool that helps you identify spam triggers in your email content. This feature mirrors the logic used by spam-filtering software to identify words, phrases, and patterns that are likely to trigger filters and then recommends a resolution to each identified problem.
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C. Content Detective
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Thanks I agree
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Great thanks
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Anyone to help veryfy please? This is a Q from my failed exam under ‘Content Creation & Email Delivery”
57. A Marketer developed an email with personalized content based on 5 geographical regions;
Northwest – Static Image
Southwest – Image carousel
Central – No content
Northeast – Static image
Southwest – Coupon
How many dynamic content rules need to be created to accomplish this?
A. 3
B. 6
C. 4
D. 5
Using Delivery Profiles(Classic Content) is replace by Content Builder. Header & footer content go straight into email template via blocks. Blocks can be called on for multiple emails. Each piece of personalized dynamic should have it’s own rule. Even if there is no content, a rule should be made for that situation.
I think therefore it’s 5
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Two are same “Southwest”. So shouldn’t it be 4?
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Thanks. I will go with this.
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Hi all, please help? Email Specialist failed exam Q under ‘Subscriber & Data Mngt’ section;
NTO completed a data review process and discovered their data extension folders contain hundreds of filtered data extensions which are never used. What tool could NTO use to alleviate the number of filtered audiences that are created for sending? **
A. Data Filter
B. Filter Activity
C. Filtered Group
D. SQL Query
I think;
C. (Is possible to create this in Mkt studio)
I don’t think;
A. Nonsense
B. (This is the process of filtering only)
D. This is only a query and does not provide the total solution
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What is the answer for this ?
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Hi Boris,
It should be B. The process of filtering built in Automation studio allows NTO to stop creating hundreds of filtered data extensions for automations and journeys, and instead run filtering activities where required, using the filters they need, to active data extensions.
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Please advise? Marketing EMail Specialist failed exam Q under ‘Subscriber & Data Mngt’;
11. NTO has a list of Platinum members containing 50,000 subscribers and Lifetime Member list containing 20,000 subscribers; 7,000 subscribers in the Lifetime Member list also exist in the Platinum Member list. An email was deployed to the Platinum members, but the marketing team would now like to send the same email to the Lifetime Member list. Which feature should be used when sending the second email to ensure that the 7,000 subscribers that exist on both lists don’t receive the same email twice? **
A. Exclusion List
B. Domain Exclusion List
C. Suppression List
D. Exclude SScript
I think
C. (It’s list where you can supress/restrict who gwta the email)
I don’t think;
A. Exclusion is status of active, bounced, held, or unsubscribed and who may want to continue receiving messages.
B. Nonsense
D. Nonsense
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Ans is A.
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If you think it’s A. Please explain why. Ideally send a link to SFDC documentation please?
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Its A. Exclusion list.
Exclusion list is not related to active/bounce, its the list used to exclude the members to receive email.
https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_es_exclusion_list.htm&type=5
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Exclusion list it is then. Very well explained too thanks.
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Please give me your thoughts? Email Specialist failed exam Q under Subscriber and Data Mngt;
NTO wants to ensure a good user experience when subscribers read their emails. What best practice should NTO deploy?
A. Rely on image-only emails to engage subscribers
B. Keep total weight with images at 800KB or lower
C. Use one file type for all images in the email
D. Increase DPI and file size for image display
E. Verified via Salesforce recommendations on Email Size guidelines
I think;
B. (Under sfdc guidelines, also known as loaded weight. Keep under this limit)
A,C,D are nonsense
E. No need to verify each time you load an image
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Answer is B. It’s an established Best Practice in SFDC
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Please give me your thoughts? Email Specialist failed exam Q under Subscriber and Data Mngt;
13. An email marketing team is setting up a campaign to message customers who register for an event. The registration data is being gathered in another system and will be passed to Marketing Cloud daily, and updates made to the customer registration information will be reflected in the same file. How should the import of event registration data be configured?
A. Use the Import Activity to add new records into the data extension
B. Use the Import Activity to overwrite the records in the data extension
C. Use the Import Wizard to add new records into the data extension
D. Use the Import Wizard to overwrite the records in the data extension
I think;
B. (Import data then overwrite because Q mentions ‘update’)
Import Activity is one of 3 ways to import data from a data extension automatically using Automation Studio. And the Q is to configure an automatic activity.
I don’t think;
A. (This is to add records only)
C and D. (Import Wizard is to bring records in manually)
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That’s right!
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Boris do you have more exam questions? Could you post some more here for us to discuss? Taking my exam again next week and I need all the examples and discussions I can get!
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Hi all, please help very this? Email Specialist exam Q under ‘Subscriber & Data Mngt’ section;
NTO plans to launch an email campaign. They have two data extensions. The Mountain Manor Campaign Data Extension will contain the sending audience for this campaign and includes fields for Email Address, Full Name, Loyalty Member ID, and Loyalty Member Status. NTO will be using AMPScript to reference data in a second, non-sendable data extension named Loyalty Members. Which field on the he Mountain Manor Campaign Data Extension should be created as the Primary Key to create a unique relationship with the Loyalty Member Profile Data Extension? **
A. Full Name
B. Loyalty Member Status
C. Loyalty Member ID
D. Email Address
I choose;
C. (The only identifyer across both extensions)
I don’t think;
A. (This is not protocol in sfdc)
B. (This field value can change)
D. Cannot use as a primary key
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What is the correct answer here?
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C. Loyalty Member ID
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Exam Q from EMail Specialist exam under ‘Subscriber & Data Mngt’;
NTO wants to display different content areas based on the subscriber data. Which two features can accomplish this? **
Choose 2 answers
A. Dynamic Content
B. AMPScript
C. Personalization Strings
D. Profile Mapping
I think;
A (A dynamic way to create individualized content)
B (AMPscript is a scripting language that you can embed within HTML emails, text emails, landing pages, SMS messages etc
AMPscript can also interact with your data extensions. Use AMPscript to include information from your data extensions in your messages and to update data extensions with information from your landing pages.
Use AMPscript to process information and include information from your data extensions in the body of your messages and landing pages to provide advanced personalization for the subscribers.)
I don’t think;
C (This is a line of HTML used to insert custom data for example ‘Name’, and not to populare content areas)
D (Not relevant)
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A and c . this is a proprops question
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If it is, it’s not necessarily the right answer. Why do you think it’s C and not B?
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Ans is A/B
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Email specialist exam Q under; ‘Subscriber and Data Mngt’ .
NTO wants to maintain enterprise-wide opt-outs for two segments of its subscribers stored in data extensions: Education Events and Sales. What feature should the company use to manage its opt-out strategy? **
A. Shared Emails
B. Shared Portfolio Items
C. Shared Data Extensions
D. Shared Publication Lists
I think D because I don’t recognise the rest.
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i guess option c because publication list is created for individual items
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Yes D is correct
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Choose D because A publication list helps you manage how subscribers receive several different categories of emails or SMS messages. For example, you can send newsletters, advertisements, and alerts. Each is a different category, so you would create a separate publication list for each category. When you send a newsletter, you associate the send with the newsletter publication list to identify to the system what kind of content is inside the publication.
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Q 1 of 5 in ‘Subscription and Data Mngt Topic;
A customer wants to grow the number of subscribers in the account. Which two methods should the customer employ to acquire new subscribers?
Choose 2 answers
A. Add a “Sign Me Up” form to the homepage
B. Create an SMS campaign allowing customer to sign up for email
C. Use a list of email addresses purchased from online vendors
D. Re-import unsubscribed customers
I think it’s;
A (This is allowed under and CAM SPAM guidelines)
C. Also allowed and common in the industry
I don’t think;
B. (Not allowed)
D. No point in doing this
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c is strictly not followed so according to me A and B
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Why not D?
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Yes it’s A/B
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Answer is A and B. Though C is common in the industry, it is not a right practice.
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Thanks. I agree. A/B
This Q is about best practice and these are the only 2 options
Thanks for your help
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Hi All. Me and some of my Salesforce trainees are trying to pass our exam for Email Specialist so, we will post a series of questions which we all collectively recall but
we’re not sure if the answers are correct. I will post the ones first based on the most popular topics in the exam and will post 5 questions at a time.
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Hi and thanks for your blog. A great help. I have failed 2x now and really need to understand the different terms and processed better.
But, the good news is, that from my list of online prep Q’s, I remember most of what came up but I need help verifying which answers are correct.
Can you help? Fredericklanesquash@gmail.com
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Hi Frederick, sure. Just post each question as a new comment, we can discuss around it and provide you the right answer.
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I have posted questions but not getting many replies?
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I have 5 exam Q’s I’m not 100% sure on. Can you advise after I suggest the answers and my reasoning? I re-sit the exam for my 3rd attempt Friday
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Hi, I have a few questions based on you list of sample questions that I have struggled to get more information on:
1) Do you know where I can find information on best practice on switching from classic content or content builder?
2) How is it possible to not to include clicks of internal users in statistics?
3) What is a send relationship? I can’t find anything on this.
4) Did you have many questions on subscriber key, primary key, contact id etc?
Thanks for any help!
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1. I don’t know
2. Keep the internal users in a separate list (Exclusion list)
3. Send Relationship has a picklist when you are creating a Data Extension and you choose ‘Sendable Data Extension’. One option in the picklist could for example be ‘Subscriber ID’
4. Subscriber Key is to allow an individual email address to receive more than 1 of the same message.
If manually importing Sales or Service Cloud data files into Marketing Cloud, create a custom formula field for Contact and Lead records to generate an 18-digit ID, based on the Contact ID or Lead ID. Use a text field and input “CASESAFEID(Id)” as the formula, with the Contact or Lead ID in parentheses. When exporting data out of Sales or Service Cloud to import into Marketing Cloud, include this value to use as the subscriber key.
Primary key is the unique Idendifier which you set in ftp files, list and extensions when importing into your marketing cloud. You choose which e.g Order ID, Case Nr etc. This is the common element between all the lists. Also, email cannot be the primary key.
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Hi Everyone,
I have to give sales force email specialist certification examination . I have heard that exam questions are tricky this time. Does anyone have any questions from their exam plz send me on my email id. It would be very helpful.
Email :- mamtagu03@gmail.com
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Hi could someone share dumps on my id for SFMC email specialist exam.
id- manisha96g@gmail.com
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Hi guys,
Thank you for all de information on this page, really helpful
I plan to pass the exam this month.
If somebody has salesforce marketing cloud email specialist certification dumps kindly pls sent id to me at ilie_catalin@yahoo.com
Thanks in advance & Best Regards
Catalin
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I attempted the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Exam on 14th May 2018. Sadly I was not able to clear by some 2-3 marks. There were some random 5 unscored questions also which may be the correct ones got picked up. The questions were very tricky. Please can you clear some of my doubts.
1. A new employee is using Salesforce Marketing cloud and wants to send emails without any mistakes. he has no prior knowledge of SQL. Which tool he would use:
1. Scheduled Send Emails
2. Predictive Email
3. Journey Builder
4. Automation Studio
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What is the Answer?
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Automation Studio –>Create Activity –> Send Email
So I think the correct answer is Automation Studio
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Thanks Catalin.
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12) A marketer at Northern Trail Outfitters sends a promotional offer every week to a data extension that contains all new subscribers from the previous week. What would the marketer create to automate the send and save time?
a) A Transactional Send Classification
b) A Simple Send Email
c) A recurring Send Schedule via Guided Send
d) A User initiated Email
What is the correct answer? C or D?
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D
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Thanks Manish.
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Hello Manish, what is the correct answer?
Which segmentation activity can be used to refresh data on a recurring schedule via an Automation? (Choose 2)
a. Data Extract activity
b. SQL Query activity
c. Filter activity
d. Segment activity
I am confused with a, b & c but we have to choose 2.
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It is B and C. Data extract is not for data segmentation.
Data extract activity creates one or more zipped files for your use outside the Marketing Cloud application. It can also be used to convert an XML file into a comma-delimited, tab-delimited, or pipe-delimited file for import into your account.
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Yes B/C they are both segmentation tools
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Isn’t it be C?
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Could you elaborate on this one – why is it not ‘C’?
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Yes D because it is automated and initiated by the sender(user)
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journey Builder
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Yes. Automation Studio allows your to set up your email flow which includes quality checking via validation and test sends etc. And it’s meant for non-technical users
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Hi Manish
I had a question like if NTO want to send different emails to 4 different regions . How many dynamic content blocks are required to send the emails.
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Hi Hermann. You’d create 1 dynamic content block and 4 content blocks with the content in 4 different languages. In the dynamic content block, you need to add conditions, say if locale=’en’, then show content block 1, if locale=’ph’ show content block 2. Similarly other conditions. So, your email would contain just 1 dynamic content block.
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I agree
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Hi All I came across a question. i wonder what could be the correct option. Please help.
A retail brand is running a campaign for new customers that open a loyalty account.
The first email is sent straight after the account is set up.
The second email is sent 1 day after the account has been set up to prompt the user to make a purchase.
The third email is sent 10 days after account was opened, or 8 days if the customer hasn’t made a purchase related to the account yet.
Data kept in two separate data extensions
The brand’s marketing team want to send campaign from the data extension.
1. Create a filter and a data extension key, an interaction and a user-initiated send.
2. Create a measure and a data filter, a filter activity then use a triggered send. *
3. Create a filter and a data extension key, an interaction and a triggered send.
4. Create a measure and a data filter, a filter activity then use a guided send.
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Create a measure and a data filter, a filter activity then use a guided send.
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Answer is B. Guided sends have been replaced by send Flow in Content Builder. A “Guided Send” guides a user through the needed steps to send an email in marketing cloud. A “Send Flow” replaces Guided Send for Content Builder emails and guides you through the necessary steps to send your email. Content Builder is the new tool that comes with Marketing Cloud.
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I appeared for the exam and i found the questions were really tricky.. i couldn’t get through and i am planning to retake in another month. Please post topics or questions dumps that will help us prepapre
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Hi Gayathri, failure is the experiences that teach us to become more strong…did you go through any already available online dumps? ware they useful or not?
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Hi Krishna, I agree with you we can learn a lot even when we fail.. existing dumps are not of much help.. looks like the questions where updated after november and new set of questions are more twisted.. both question and also the choices given… we can depend on existing dumps for about 5% or lesser than that
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While I make content for each topic, trailhead has released 3 new modules on Marketing Cloud which are very useful for this certification.
Check out
https://trailhead.salesforce.com/users/00550000006yDdKAAU/trailmixes/jackal-new-content
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oh-oh! Sorry to hear that. Sure I will add more posts on email specialist topics. But have you got a good understanding of the questions/topics I mentioned in section #7 above? Those will be really useful. Anyway, I will be adding more soon.
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Yes It was really very much helpful but what i felt questions where more tricky. more of scenerio based questions. Discussions in Forums like this will be good we can have detailed understanding of any concept. Questions about Send throttle Data Query Data extract was asked in the exam
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Definitely, I will post on each topic with scenario based questions as well. Yes, the exam was tricky for me too!
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also answers for some questions were wrong , not sure of correct answers.Krishna is it possible to review on your part if i will send some questions as i have doubt
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You can email/send me here, I will review and provide the correct answers with explanation!
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Hello Gayathri, Did you find question dump, if yes can you please forward it to saibros@yahoo.com. I will be writing my exam this week.
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Hi Manish ,
I am planning to give exam next month…I am new to SFMC someone told me that it’s is very difficult complete the exam. recently (this month) they SF changed every thing the dumps are not working is that true?
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Hello Krishna. This isn’t the hardest of certifications from Salesforce. But if you are new to SFMC, you need a good amount of time to prepare. I was new to SFMC too when I appeared for this test, make sure to follow the preparation guide I posted. SF won’t change an entire exam in 1 release!! Very few new questions will be added. Don’t entirely rely on dumps as answers are also wrong on the web. All the best
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Hi,
Is anyone having salesforce marketing cloud email specialist certification dumps.
If anyone is having, kindly infrom me muheed1921@gmail.com
Thanks & Regards
Muheed
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Hi Manish, thank you for such great article.you mentioned certification free preparation webinar link in your post, i checked that and did not find webinars for marketing cloud email specialist for 2018, could you send any link if you have for any future date?
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Hi Ranjan, thank you!! The dates for the email specialist webinar are not released yet. I will update when it is released, in the same link.
https://sfdcfanboy.com/2017/11/07/free-certification-preparation-webinars-by-salesforce-nov-2017/
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Qus: I understand that, Subscriber Key is unique identifier and we can also use same email address multiple times but with different Subscriber key. So in that case, when one unsubscribes, what happens to other subscribers which share same email id but have different Sub. key when email is sent?
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When a user unsubscribes, the system unsubscribes the user based on subscriber key, not the email address. Even if they share the same email address, for the system it is still different subscribers because the subscriber keys are different for each. (The subscriber key is not email address in your scenario)
Sub1 – email@test.com – Unsubscribed
Sub2 – email@test.com – Active
Sub3 – email@test.com – Active
The subscribers sub2 and sub3 continue to receive emails. Hope that clears.
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Thank you! I tried it, worked as mentioned.
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Lovely !!
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Hi Manish,
First of all, thank you for this great article! I am planning to do the exam, and am studying right now. However, I get confused by subscriber key and primary key? What is the difference?
Thanks!
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Hi Lupe, you’re welcome. Glad to know you liked it. Well about your question:
Primary Key is a unique identifier in your Data Extension. The uniqueness is within the boundaries data extension itself. (Similar to Primary key in SQL table). Ex: Employee Id in Employee data extension.
Subscriber Key is also unique key but this is unique throughout the system for your email subscriber records.
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Hi Manish
Thanks for sharing the valuable information. I have some list of questions with me ,Plz provide U r mail id i will drop a note to you or else plz give the reply to my mail id .
chanikya969@gmail.com
Thanks
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Good to know you find the post helpful. Feel free to post the questions here so everyone can learn. Thanks
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Hi
Could you please share the questions on my ID.
Thanks!
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Also is there a concise summary on When to use Query vs Data Extract vs Filter in Automation Studio?
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In general – Data Extract Activity is used to transform the file in ftp to import into sfmc. (transform from XML to comma delimited, tab delimited etc). Remember Data Extract is for transformation/extraction.
Filter and Query are used for filtering data. Query is used for advanced filtering like querying for multiple data views. Filter is for straightforward filters (on profile attributes).
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How not to include clicks of internal users in statistics? I do not know?
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Did you have alot of Journey Builder Questions on the Exam?
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No, just 2 questions!
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Thanks for the details.. Btw tomorrow I have my exam and now i am not able to understand (& differentiate) between “is Sendable” & “Is testable” check-boxes in DE?
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Is Sendable : Indicates whether you intend this data extension to have messages sent to it. This checkbox determines whether the data extension is available to use as part of sends.
Is Testable : This field indicates whether you intend this data extension to have test messages sent to it. To mark the DE as “Is Testable”, it should be first “sendable”!
Hope this clarifies. All the best for your exam.
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Hi Manish ,
I am planning to give exam by next month and you have explained the stages of certification prearation so well.
Excellent research and way you have articulated.
Thanks for sharing
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Thank you Harsh for the comment. Very glad to know this is helpful.
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All the best for your exam!
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