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With customers sending more data signals across more devices and touch points each day, it’s no wonder we all have one question top of mind – just how do we bring it all together?

That’s the context for gathering thousands of leaders in marketing, commerce, and service all under one roof at the inaugural Salesforce Connections event this week in Chicago. Because customers, whether B2B or B2C, now look beyond product to reward businesses that can deliver a more convenient, personalized experience.

In fact, 70% of customers now say connected processes – such as seamless handoffs and contextualized engagement based on their earlier interactions – are very important to winning their business.  (Source: State of the Connected Customer)

Up until now, that's certainly been easier said than done. In the Connections keynote, Bret Taylor, Salesforce Chief Product Officer, announced several new product innovations to “enable teams with a platform and a set of skills” to achieve a 360-degree view of their customer. 

 

 

Google Analytics 360 and Marketing Cloud
As part of a strategic partnership with Google, Salesforce product marketing EVP Stephanie Buscemi announced a new, first-of-its-kind integration between Marketing Cloud and Google Analytics 360 to give marketers a full view of what's working and what isn't.

By authenticating your Google 360 account in Marketing Cloud, you get direct access to Google data to see how customers engage with ads, sites, apps, emails and more, while you build customer journeys. The team at Ticketmaster is able to orchestrate, optimize, and easily track the journey for their fans and customers.

The integration gives marketers a new level of insight and efficiency, according to Google's Babak Pahlavan, as they no longer have to stitch together data from disparate systems or look at data in the rearview mirror.

To get the full details on how Ticketmaster is using Google and Salesforce, simply text “ticketmaster” to 38767 to access a content compilation called a Trailmix.

Intelligent Commerce Journeys – Connecting B2B and B2C
With the announcement of Commerce Journeys and B2B Commerce, marketers and merchandisers can better manage the seamless handoffs between B2B and B2C, and marketing and service teams.

B2B Commerce delivers consumer-like shopping experiences to business buyers, but with the specific functionality they need, such as custom catalogs, authenticated logins, one-click reordering for large orders, multiple shipping locations and payment types, and the ability to place orders with hundreds or thousands of SKUs.

adidas uses Commerce Cloud to power B2C and B2B commerce, and Commerce Journeys enable the adidas team to trigger transactional and behavioral journeys based on customer actions, such as abandoning a shopping cart, confirming an account or making a purchase.

To learn all about how adidas is using Commerce Cloud, text “adidas” to 38767.

The Future of CRM: Integrated Cross-Cloud Experiences
“Integration Cloud is one of the coolest things we've added to the Salesforce platform, and it's going to change the way you think about your CRM platform,” said Bret Taylor, Chief Product Officer.

US Bank uses Integration Cloud, a result of the recent Mulesoft acquisition, to unlock data from a number of disparate systems and surface the data in customer and employee-facing applications. This single, powerful view of customer data is helping financial advisors build lasting relationships with its customers.

Learn more about the US Bank partnership by accessing the Trailmix at sforce.co/usbank.

Trailblazer Recognition
It wouldn't be a Salesforce event without recognition of community Trailblazers leaving a path for others to follow. The event's golden hoodie recipient was Kristin Bond, the founder of Women of Email and the director of email operations at Girl Scouts of America.

 

 

Bond founded Women of Email after attending an email conference and realizing she was one of only a handful of female speakers, despite the number of women attending the event. After writing an article about it, she became connected with three other women ready to do something about it. Women in Email was born, and it grew from 300 members in about a month to over 2,000 members and a certified non-profit in just two years. To help Kristin get more women in the email community up on the stage, visit https://womenofemail.org/.


Want to stay connected with the latest at Connections? Follow the hashtag #CNX18 and watch the keynote here on Salesforce Live!