Achieving Operational Excellence: Ways to Monitor Salesforce Marketing Cloud- Part 1

Monitoring any system, including Salesforce Marketing Cloud, plays a vital role in minimizing the impact on business operations and maximizing Return on Investment (ROI). This article focuses on strategies for monitoring SFMC to ensure system availability, detect errors or issues, and optimize performance. Please note that this post does not cover topics related to email deliverability or security. This is the first in the series of three posts.

Monitoring Salesforce Marketing Cloud can be categorized into three primary areas:

1. Organization (Org) Availability: This involves staying informed about maintenance windows, service disruptions, or performance degradation of your marketing cloud org at the Salesforce platform level. Being aware of these factors helps you plan and mitigate any potential impacts on your marketing operations.
2. Proactive Monitoring: To proactively address risks and potential issues in your architecture, it is crucial to continuously monitor your org. This includes monitoring the database and business processes you have set up, such as Automation and Journeys, to identify and resolve any issues that may arise. By actively monitoring these, you can ensure their smooth functioning and minimize disruptions.
3. Error Monitoring: Regularly monitoring your org for incidents or errors is essential. It enables you to promptly identify any issues or errors that may occur and notify the relevant developers or teams for immediate resolution. Swift action in response to errors helps maintain the integrity and effectiveness of your marketing activities.

Now, let's explore the different methods and approaches available for monitoring your Salesforce Marketing Cloud org.

Organization (Org) Availability:

For users who are having Administrator or Marketing Cloud Administrator profile, salesforce notifies them via email on:

1. Major Release Reminders
2. ​Off-Cycle Releases (outside of the 24-hour standard release window)
3. Product Behavior Change
4. Service Maintenances
5. Feature Retirement Notifications
6. Infrastructure Upgrades & Changes

In addition to email notifications, Salesforce provides the Trust website, which offers valuable information and resources related to system performance and availability:

1. Trust Status: This section provides real-time information about the current and historical performance and availability of Salesforce services. It includes details about any ongoing incidents or scheduled maintenance activities that may impact the services.
2. Trust Notifications: Here, users can subscribe to receive email notifications about service incidents, scheduled maintenance, and other important updates related to the Salesforce platform. Users can subscribe just to the org/orgs they want to receive notifications for.

In the next post, we will delve into various proactive monitoring methods you can employ for your SFMC org.