The May 2016 Release is now live in the Marketing Cloud! We are coming off of the amazing momentum from Connections with some great new features in this release. We highlighted many of these new features at Connections. Let’s continue to build on this excitement.

With this release, Marketing Cloud Connect is now branded Marketing Cloud Lightning.  Email Studio goes live with the new Content Builder tools enabled.  Advertising is in full effect with Journey Builder Ads, Facebook Lead Ads and Google Customer Match.  Our new Mobile App is live, and so much more!

Below are the highlights of this release:

Marketing Cloud Lightning: Marketing Cloud Lightning is Salesforce's vision to bring the power of Lightning to digital marketers so they can create more intelligent and personalized customer experiences. Features available today include: the ability to synchronize data between Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud and Service Cloud; Sales Cloud and Service Cloud entry events in Journey Builder and the ability to create Sales Cloud and Service Cloud activities in Journey Builder. Learn more!

Email Studio and Content Builder Open Beta:  The open beta will be available to customers starting today. Customers will need to fill in this form in order for their accounts to get activated with the new tools. This opt-in process will be located in the top right corner of their account in the Email Overview page. These products are available for all customers, however, since they are still in beta, there are a few limitations. Please verify that Content Builder is the right fit for you at http://sfdc.co/gettingaccess. 

Journey Builder Ads:  Customers can now create advertising campaigns on Facebook as part of a journey within Journey Builder. Customers just select an audience, budget, and creative then launch, and the campaign is live! This feature will be made available to a limited set of customers for this release who have access to both Journey Builder and Advertising Studio with additional customers added by request and approval. Learn More!

Lead Automation: Lead Capture for Facebook Lead Ads:  Lead Capture allows customers running Facebook Leads Ads to automatically have lead form information go from Facebook into Salesforce. This information will appear directly as new data within Marketing Cloud so that you can quickly respond to customers in any channel like email. Available at no additional cost to all Marketing Cloud customers with Data Extensions. Learn more!

Power 1-to-1 Advertising on Google: Advertising Studio customers (existing Active Audiences customers) can now power advertising across Google Search, YouTube and Gmail with all their data in Marketing Cloud. Brands can now coordinate their digital advertising across Google with the rest of their digital advertising like Facebook. Learn more!

Marketing Command Center: The Marketing Command Center is now expanded to include email campaign results, customer service metrics and, in June, customer journey performance. The Command Center gives customers the ability to deliver real-time customer feedback and digital insight to all employees.  Learn more!

Marketing Cloud Mobile App: Marketing Cloud Mobile App is now available in the Apple App Store! This app gives customers the ability to run their marketing programs from their iPhone or iPad. Customers will be able to track email, journey, and automation performance and see key metrics like email opens, clicks and unsubscribes, or journey activities and which paths have the most engagement. Learn more about the additional ways to leverage the Mobile App!

New MobilePush Message Device Preview: Push Message Creation has a brand new device previewer! Now MobilePush users will be able to easily validate their messages across devices like iOS and Android all in one convenient screen. Learn more! 

Journey Builder User Experience Design Enhancements: Journey visualization is now even easier for customers. We are also moving one step closer to the Lightning design and color. More changes coming soon. Learn more!

New Journey Builder Email Reports in Analytics Builder: This feature allows customers to track performance and engagement metrics for emails at a Journey level. Learn more!

We have our second New Feature Overview for customers on Wednesday, June 1st at 12 pm EST! This webinar will cover the features from the May 2016 Release. Please register via this link.