19 Aug Custom Reporting in Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement: Unlocking Advanced Insights
The Opportunity
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement (SFMCE) is a powerhouse for multi-channel marketing (email, SMS, and beyond). With every message sent, the platform automatically captures essential engagement data like opens, clicks, and unsubscribes.
But what if you need to go further?
If your organization already uses an external analytics or reporting platform, there are built-in ways to extract engagement data from SFMC. You can use tracking extracts (zipped CSVs), access the SOAP API, or write SQL queries within SFMC to export raw data for external use.
All of that works well, if your reporting lives outside of SFMC.
But for many of our clients, the goal is to have powerful, flexible, and custom reporting directly inside Marketing Cloud Engagement. That’s where things get interesting.
The Challenge
While SFMC does include native reporting and dashboards, most of what’s available out-of-the-box isn’t customizable. That’s a problem when your business needs go beyond standard metrics.
This is where custom reporting comes into play.
The Solution: Intelligence Reports for Engagement – Advanced
SFMC accounts come with access to Intelligence Reports for Engagement. Depending on your contract, you may also have access to the Advanced version that is available for Pro and Enterprise editions as an add-on.
And that Advanced version? It opens the door to real customization.
Here’s how:
1. Join Your Own Data to Engagement Metrics
With the Advanced Intelligence Reports, you can connect up to 30 custom Data Extensions directly within SFMC. This allows you to JOIN your own data to the native engagement metrics (opens, clicks, bounces, etc).
Some practical use cases we’ve implemented:
– Geo-based reporting: Add subscriber ZIP codes to analyze engagement by region
– Campaign metadata: Track and report on campaign-specific attributes that SFMC doesn’t natively support
– Audience cohorts: Group engagement data by your subscribers lifecycle stage, acquisition source, or other custom criteria
2. Build Custom Queries (Visually or with SQL)
Advanced Intelligence Reports also unlocks Queries, a flexible feature that lets you build custom datasets (reports) leveraging your own data and the standard engagement metrics. Leverage custom calculated measurements and dimensions in these queries as well.
What makes this even more powerful?
– Schedule and automate your queries
– Export the results as CSVs
– Deliver them to SFTP, S3, Azure Blob, Google Cloud Storage, or via email
You’re not just building reports, you’re building automated reporting workflows tailored to your business.
At Offprem Technology, we’ve helped organizations of all sizes design and deploy custom reporting solutions within SFMC using these capabilities. Whether it’s executive dashboards, performance tracking, or marketing analytics tied to business KPIs, we’ve built it.
Want to Learn More?
Here are a couple of great places to dig deeper:
Salesforce Trailhead: Intelligence Reports for Engagement Advanced
Salesforce Trailhead: Intelligence Reports Advanced Queries
Final Thoughts
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement is a robust platform. But when you layer in custom reporting capabilities it becomes a strategic engine for marketing insights.
If you’re using SFMCE but not getting the insights you need natively, let’s talk. The Offprem team is here to help you build reporting that actually supports your business goals.