Datastream supports replicating data from Salesforce Marketing Cloud (formerly known as ExactTarget). Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a digital marketing platform that includes tools for email marketing, social media marketing, and cross-channel campaign management.
This page contains information about:
- The key terms that you need to understand when replicating from Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
- The behavior of how Datastream handles data that's being pulled from a Salesforce Marketing Cloud source.
- The Salesforce Marketing Cloud versions that Datastream supports.
- The objects that Datastream replicates.
- Known limitations for using Salesforce Marketing Cloud as a source.
Key terms
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is an entirely separate product from the standard Salesforce platform, featuring distinct concepts and APIs. To better understand how Datastream replicates data from Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and the objects it supports, familiarize yourself with the following terms:
- Asset: a piece of content, such as an image, a document, a text file, or a code snippet stored in Content Builder.
- Content Builder: a Salesforce tool that consolidates images, documents, and content in a single location for use in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
- Campaign: a collection of marketing activities and communications.
- Data extension: a table within the application database that contains your data. Data extensions are used to store custom objects and data.
- Journey: a multi-step marketing campaign that guides customers through a series of interactions.
- Polling interval: the interval between consecutive polls for objects that support incremental synchronization.
Behavior
Datastream uses the Salesforce Marketing Cloud REST APIs to replicate data.
When replicating data from a Salesforce Marketing Cloud source, the following behavior is observed:
- Initial load (backfill): Datastream retrieves all existing records for the selected objects. For large datasets, Datastream uses standard REST API queries with automatic pagination.
- Incremental synchronization (incremental sync): Datastream identifies new and updated records by polling the Salesforce Marketing Cloud API at regular intervals.
- Full periodic synchronization: a separate interval for objects that don't support incremental sync, such as data extensions. These objects are replicated using a periodic full refresh.
- Datastream replicates changes such as inserts and updates for the specified objects.
Versions
Datastream supports Salesforce Marketing Cloud formerly known as ExactTarget.
Supported objects
The following table lists the objects that Datastream supports and their replication types:
| Object | Replication type |
|---|---|
| Assets Includes text, files, emails, and messages |
Backfill, incremental sync |
| Email definitions | Backfill, incremental sync |
| Push definitions | Backfill, incremental sync |
| OTT definitions | Backfill, incremental sync |
| SMS definitions | Backfill, incremental sync |
| Campaigns | Backfill, incremental sync |
| Data extensions Also known as custom objects |
Backfill, periodic full refresh |
| Journeys | Backfill, incremental sync |
| Security events | Backfill, incremental sync |
| Audit events | Backfill, incremental sync |
| Contacts | Backfill, incremental sync |
Known limitations
Known limitations for using Salesforce Marketing Cloud as a source include:
- Datastream doesn't support integration with Marketing Cloud Account Engagement.
- Datastream doesn't support integration with Agentforce Marketing.
- Datastream doesn't support replicating delete events.
- Datastream doesn't support replicating SOAP-only objects, such as lists, subscriptions, and links.
What's next
- Learn how to configure a Salesforce Marketing Cloud source for use with Datastream.