Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Email Specialist

If you're thinking about taking the Marketing Cloud Email Specialist certification exam,there are a ton of resources online to help you study. What follows are the resources and tips I found the most helpful.If you’re working in the system on a regular basis, you will be starting on solid ground already but if you are not even then below resources could be of great help!

First, the Exam Guide is a must: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/help?article=Salesforce-Certified-Marketing-Cloud-Email-Specialist-Exam-Guide

(The best practices and message design sections cover concepts that are universal for email programs, so you can definitely cover those quickly with what you already know. Great for those of us who know CAN-SPAM guidelines very well!). I found below resources very useful.

• SFDCfanboy.com has a good series of overview posts that tracked with the content I saw in my exam in May 2019: https://sfdcfanboy.com/2017/11/08/how-i-cleared-marketing-cloud-email-specialist-certification/
• And of course help documentation is your best resource for basic and detailed concepts and capabilities: https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_es_get_started_checklist_for_email_studio.htm&type=5

These Trailmix set up for the email certification training are great: 

1. https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/users/00550000006yDdKAAU/trailmixes/prepare-for-your-marketing-cloud-email-specialist-credential

2. https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/users/gajendra/trailmixes/marketing-cloud-email-specialist-for-partners

and i liked this playlist from SFMCTrailblazers a lot.

Pay careful attention to the terminology used. The exam had a lot of questions where several answers were almost right or I wasn’t 100% sure I was picking the one with exactly the right wording.There are a number of practice exams and flashcard sets floating around -- some are more correct than others, so be careful with the info you find there.

• https://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=marketing-cloud-email-specialist-practice-exam

Few important areas could be, like process flows (the proper sequence to building and implementing a query filter, perhaps?), dependencies (a simple send cannot use a Data Extension), and certain activities in Automation Studio( File transfer is needed when encrypting/decrypting a file from/to Safehouse), few Journey Builder concepts.

When you answer a question, there’s a checkbox selector to indicate whether you want to flag it for later review. When you go to the review all section before submitting, the exam tells you how many are flagged. (They’re also marked with an asterisk in the overview.) 

SFMC Email Specialist is an entry level certification for Salesforce Marketing Cloud and is a prerequisite for other marketing cloud certifications like consultant, admin or developer.

Exam Details:

• No of questions: 60 - MCQ with 1 or more correct answers
• Time allowed : 90 minuets
• Passing score: 65%

Exam Guide: trailhead.salesforce.com

This exam test one's knowledge around Email studio and how to optimise it to get best possible performance with least amount of effort.

As per studies email is still the most relevant form of commercial and transactional communication with your users hence knowing SFMC email capabilities is a must for anyone aspiring a career in the field of marketing automation. 

This exam covers following topics:

• Data storage - Lists vs Data Extensions
• Concept of subscribers, profile center and subscription centers
• Content builder including migration from classic ui.
• Email design optimization including CAN-SPAM guidelines.
• Send Classifications - Send & Delivery profile.
• Automation studio
• Journey builder
• Contact builder
• Audience builder

By initial looks these topics might look overwhelming but they are quite simple and straightforward. Any person who receives and sends mail can easily understand these basic principle. 

I was fortunate to attend a 5 day instructor led training on the above topics which allowed me access to a sandbox where I can go in and do handson. This helped me a lot in understanding the implementing these concepts. However that was way back in March second week and due to work I couldnt attempt the certification. By the time I planned my certification the training details were not enough as I forgot most of the stuff without practice.

Basically I started from 0 when I started the preparation for the exam and used Trailhead and help.salesforce.com to read through all these concepts. You can use the following trailmixes for the preparation. They cover almost everything you need to attempt this exam:

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/users/gajendra/trailmixes/marketing-cloud-email-specialist-for-partners

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/content-builder-basics

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/trails/advance-your-marketing-strategy

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/trails/learn-marketing-best-practices

trailhead.salesforce.com

help.salesforce.com

Additionally you can look through the videos hosted on Youtube by Marketing Cloud Mojo : youtube.com and few more.

These should be good enough for you to clear the exam. Please look for some mock tests online and attempt them to get more confidence. 

PS: Try to get access to marketing cloud account(If your a partner or client) or sandbox(Partners might get) as its very important to get familiar with the screens and flows to understand the concept easily. Trailhead do have simulators which can help you but doing handson is always helpful. 

As always, please reach out to me via mail for any further details or discussions.