Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder

Attentive’s integration with the Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) Journey Builder feature allows you to orchestrate your SMS and email marketing. This integration is available on the Salesforce App Exchange. Once it's installed, you can compose SMS messages directly within Journey Builder and add them to new or existing journeys.

• Compose and schedule SMS messages directly within Salesforce Journey Builder.
• Orchestrate communications across SMS and email. Trigger specific messages in a Salesforce journey based on previous interactions with emails or text messages.
• Create highly personalized SMS/MMS messages using Salesforce data, such as customer attributes and dynamic images and links.
• Set up in minutes with an easy-to-install integration available on the Salesforce App Exchange.

Enable the SFMC Journey Builder + Attentive integration

Complete the following procedure to install and connect the Attentive app from Salesforce AppExchange:

Step 1. Install the Attentive app

1. Log in to your admin Salesforce account.
2. Install the Attentive SMS for Marketing Cloud app from the Salesforce AppExchange.
   
   
   Note: We recommend using Firefox when installing the Attentive app due to an issue found in Salesforce.
3. Select the Access tab on the Attentive - AppExchange Prod package page, and then click License All Users in the top-right corner.

Step 2. Connect SFMC to Attentive

1. Go back to the main Marketing Cloud home page. Click Journey Builder > Journey Builder.
2. Click Create a New Journey.
3. Select a Multi-Step Journey.
4. Select any Data Source.
5. Select the Attentive SMS Messages node and drag that into the journey. You’re prompted to log in to Attentive.
   
   
   Note: If you’re already logged in, you’re prompted to authorize.
6. Authorize the integration. You can now see the Attentive Message Composer in Journey Builder.

Using the SFMC Journey Builder + Attentive integration

Create a Salesforce journey

After you confirm you’ve completed the prerequisites, follow these steps to add Attentive messaging activity in Salesforce Journey Builder:

1. Go to Journey Builder in your Salesforce Marketing Cloud account.
2. Click Create New Journey in the top-right corner.
3. Click Build in the Multi-Step Journey section.
4. Click and drag an entry source (1) onto the Journey Builder canvas (2), as shown in the following image.
   
5. Click the Data Extension widget. The widget appears in edit mode in the left-side configuration pane.
6. Select an event from your list of API Events and click Done. In the following example, the user selected a Sample Customer data source.
   
7. Click the Schedule widget. The widget appears in edit mode in the left-side configuration pane, as shown in the following image. You can select Run Once or Recurring, and then click Done.
   
8. Scroll to the Activities section in the left-side configuration pane.
9. Click and drag the Attentive SMS (Beta) widget (1) onto the Journey Builder canvas (2).
   
   
   
   Note: The integration currently supports a list of 300,000 contacts per batch. If you have an SFMC list of around 300,000 contacts, you can process the list in a single batch. If you have more than 300,000 contacts in a list, we recommend sending in batches of 300,000 with a wait step of 25 minutes.
10. Click the Attentive SMS (Beta) widget on the canvas (1). The widget appears in edit mode in the left-side configuration pane (2), as shown in the following image.
    
11. Create your message:
    • Name
    • Message body: customize by using the following tools:
      • Media: supports image, video, and contact cards. Media assets pull from your Attentive account, or you can upload them from your computer.
        
      • Emojis
      • Personalization macros (based on SFMC data source): choose an attribute from the data source to be added into the message body.
        
      • URL
        
        
      • Media URL Field: add dynamic images to your messages by adding asset URLs to a column in the data source.
        
        
12. Click Done.
    

Now that you’ve added an Attentive messaging activity, you can choose and create different paths for your customer journey. You can add flow controls (such as a Decision Split) and trigger different messaging activities (such as Email) for your journey (see Journey Builder Activities for details).

Use an Attentive custom activity in Journey Builder

You can use the data returned from Attentive’s custom activity to trigger additional behavior in Salesforce Journey Builder. The steps below explain how to use a Decision Split that uses the success status of an SMS message to determine the next step of the journey.

1. Click and drag the Decision Split widget onto the Journey Builder canvas.
   
2. Click the Decision Split widget on the canvas. The widget appears in edit mode in the left-side configuration pane.
3. Click Edit to customize the decision split in the path.
   
4. Select Journey Data in the Attributes section.
   
5. Select Custom Activity: Attentive SMS.
   
6. Click and drag one of the following attributes onto the Filter Criteria section:
   

   Attribute	Description	Criteria example
   email	User's email address	When email is null
   phone	User's phone number	When phone is not null
   status	Indicates whether the message was sent successfully (true) or not successfully (false)	When status is true

7. Click the edit icon to configure the criteria of the attribute (as shown in the Criteria example column above). In the following example, the user is a custom trigger for the status attribute.
   
8. Click Done and go back to your Journey Builder canvas.

You can add more Flow Controls (such as a Wait By Duration) and trigger different messaging activities (such as Email) for your journey (see Journey Builder Activities for details).

The following image shows an example of a journey with the Decision Split (1) that uses the success status to determine whether a second SMS message is sent (2) or the communication ends (3).

Use an Attentive Link-click event in Journey Builder

You can use link-click activity from an early Journey Builder text to create a Decision Split that targets customers who didn’t interact with a text to then send another text or email.

1. Click and drag the Decision Split widget onto the Journey Builder canvas, as shown in the following image.
   
2. Click the Decision Split widget on the canvas. The widget appears in edit mode in the left-side configuration pane.
3. Click Edit to customize the decision split in the path.
   
4. Select Journey Data in the Attributes section.
   
5. Select Custom Activity: Attentive SMS.
   
6. Click and drag the Message ID attribute onto the Filter Criteria section.
   
7. Click the edit icon to configure the criteria of the attribute.
   
8. Click Add an attribute to compare.
   
9. Click the Home icon in the attributes column.
   
10. Select Contact Data.
    
11. Select the file that includes the Attentive data sync.
    
12. Select AttentiveAPIEvent.
    
13. Select the link-click event data sync.
    
14. Drag the messageId.
    
15. Click Done.
    
16. Click Summary.

Use the legacy version (Message ID method)

You may have the existing version of the SFMC Journey Builder enabled. If so, you can switch back to the legacy version by clicking Use legacy. You then have an option to add your Message ID:

Before you can use the Message ID version, you must complete the following:

1. Create a message on the Campaigns tab of the Attentive platform and leave it in draft mode.
   
   
   Note: The campaign message must include the message copy, shortlink, image (optional), and emojis (optional).
2. Contact our White Glove team (whiteglove@attentivemobile.com) and provide them with the name of your draft campaign. They'll retrieve the Attentive ID (also known as the Message ID) for you. After you add the Attentive ID in Salesforce , it automatically pulls in the message copy set up in Attentive.

Questions?

We’re here to help! Contact our White Glove team (whiteglove@attentivemobile.com) to ask about the Attentive + Salesforce Marketing Cloud integration.