Back to Cairo Dreamin’: Riding Ducatis, Watching the Eagles, and Exploring Salesforce’s New Marketing Cloud
Returning to Cairo Dreamin’ 2025 was nothing short of extraordinary. As a marketer and technologist, it’s an incredible honor to be invited back to Egypt’s premiere Salesforce community event, and this year, it was personal. Not only did I get to speak on the evolving world of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, but I also had the privilege of exploring Cairo in a way I never had before—riding with the Ducati Official Club of Egypt through the city’s winding streets. And in true diehard fashion, I found myself watching the Philadelphia Eagles clinch the Super Bowl at 5 a.m. from a restaurant in Zamalek, surrounded by fans and falafel. It was unforgettable.
But let’s talk marketing.
Making Sense of Salesforce’s New “Marketing Cloud”: Growth, Advanced, and the AI Era
Salesforce has spent over a decade and $5B+ on marketing technology acquisitions—Pardot, ExactTarget, Datorama, Evergage, and many more. These platforms, repackaged as Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Engagement, were powerful but fragmented, often requiring complex integrations, connectors, and middleware to make them work inside Salesforce CRM.
At Cairo Dreamin’, I presented how Salesforce is finally bringing marketing natively onto core CRM with two brand-new products:
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Marketing Cloud Growth
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Marketing Cloud Advanced
Both are built on the Einstein 1 Platform, powered by Data Cloud, and connected via Salesforce Flow—ushering in a new, AI-first era for marketing.
Legacy Limitations: Engagement vs Account Engagement
If you’ve ever had to reconcile Pardot Prospects vs CRM Leads, or juggled SFMC subscriber keys vs Contact IDs, you know the pain of siloed systems.
Account Engagement (formerly Pardot) was built for B2B lead gen. Engagement (formerly ExactTarget) was built for B2C mass marketing. And neither really talked natively to your CRM—relying on syncs, delays, and connectors. Personalization was limited to the data each tool owned. AI? Even more limited.
Enter: Marketing Cloud on Core
With the new Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced, Salesforce finally delivers a homegrown marketing platform that uses existing CRM objects—Leads, Contacts, Campaigns, Opportunities—alongside native tools like Flow, CMS, and Data Cloud.
Instead of relying on external MAPs or ESPs, marketers now build and launch campaigns using:
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CMS-powered email and landing page builders
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Core CRM segmentation
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Real-time activation from Data Cloud
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AI-driven automation via Flow and Einstein
This is Marketing Cloud on Core, and it changes everything.
Key Features of Marketing Cloud Growth
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Campaign Building with Einstein Co-Create: Use natural language prompts to build campaigns, content, and even segments—no SQL required.
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Flow Automation: Think Journey Builder, but native. No more sync delays or middleware.
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CMS-based Email & LP Builders: Familiar Lightning Builders, integrated with CRM and Data Cloud.
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AI-Powered Optimization: Einstein handles send-time optimization, subject lines, content tone, and segmentation.
And yes, there’s native SMS, real-time analytics, and a growing library of non-admin flows designed just for marketers.
What’s New in Marketing Cloud Advanced?
For enterprise orgs, Marketing Cloud Advanced builds on Growth with:
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Path Experiment: True A/B testing of flow paths and campaign variations
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Unified SMS Conversations: 2-way messaging with AI-powered chat and Service Cloud handoff
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Einstein Engagement Frequency: Know when you’re over-saturating a contact
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Rules-Based Dynamic Content: Personalize content directly in the builder using any Data Cloud data point
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Predictive Engagement Scoring: Anticipate who’s likely to engage—or drop off—before it happens
Powered by Data Cloud and Flow
If you take one thing away from this post: Salesforce marketing in 2025 is powered by Data Cloud and Flow.
Data Cloud unlocks the Unified Customer Profile (UCP), allowing segmentation and personalization across Sales, Service, Commerce, and Marketing data. Flow is how we automate across all of it.
Why It Matters
This isn’t just a rebrand—it’s a fundamental shift. Salesforce is not retiring Account Engagement or Engagement, but the future is on Core. To do true AI-powered, real-time, personalized marketing, you need:
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Unified data
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Native automation
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Cross-cloud visibility
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Generative content tools
And that’s exactly what Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced deliver.
Get Started (Free?)
Thanks to Salesforce Foundations, some of these features may already be available to your org—at no cost if you’re using Enterprise or Unlimited editions of Sales Cloud or Service Cloud.
You can even trial Marketing Cloud Growth for free if you’re an Account Engagement customer.
👉 Learn more about Salesforce Foundations
👉 Get hands-on with Data Cloud
👉 Explore Flow and AI on Trailhead
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