Building the Customer 360: Integrating email engagements into CRM with Data Cloud
Success in retail today depends on having a clear, end-to-end understanding of the customer journey, with email engagement being one of the most common and valuable touchpoints. With Salesforce Data Cloud, we can integrate Marketing Cloud activity into CRM to build the Customer 360 view that enables smarter service and personalized marketing.
Our goal: bring every Marketing Cloud email interaction directly into CRM, tied to the right customer record. To achieve this, we follow three essential steps:
1- Enable data streams
The first step in any Data Cloud implementation is to connect the necessary data sources. In this case, we’re connecting both Marketing Cloud and Salesforce Core (CRM). Both platforms provide out-of-the-box connectors with scheduled synchronization capabilities.
Once the connectors are configured, we enable the following data streams, which ingest source data into Data Cloud and generate Data Lake Objects (DLOs):
For profile data:
Person account (from Core)
Subscriber (from Marketing cloud)
Engagement data (marketing cloud)
Send
Open
Bounce
Click
These data streams populate DLOs with the raw data in its source format.
2- Harmonize data into a common model
The next step is to map the source data into Data Model Objects (DMOs) using Data Cloud’s standard schema. This ensures consistency and allows for scalable enrichment and analytics.
For Profile data mapping:
Person account and subscribers are mapped to the Individual DMO. Assuming that the subscriber is using the contact Id as the subscriberKey, we don’t need to run identity resolution.
For engagement data mapping:
We are mapping our specified data views into the Email engagement DMO. The relevant fields to be used for our DMO will be:
EngagementDateTime
EmailAddress
SentDateTime
Individual
Name
SendClassification
This harmonization step ensures that engagement data is consistently tied to the right Individual across both platforms.
3- Expose engagement data in core
Once your DMOs are ready, the final step is to activate and display this data in Salesforce Core CRM. We use Related List Enrichments to surface the engagement data directly on the Contact record.
Here’s how:
Navigate to the Contact Object Setup Page.
Enable a related list for the Email Engagement DMO, using the Individual lookup field.
Add the related list to the Lightning Page using the App Builder or by editing the Contact Page Layout.
With this setup, your CRM users will instantly see all Marketing Cloud email interactions associated with a contact—no need to toggle between systems.
By connecting, harmonizing, and surfacing engagement data, retailers take the first practical step toward a true 360-degree customer view. This not only improves marketing and service effectiveness but also lays the foundation for deeper personalization and better customer relationships.
Ready to turn disconnected data into actionable insights? Let’s talk about how we can help your team integrate Salesforce Data Cloud for a real 360° customer view. Book a call today and start building smarter, more connected retail experiences.
