How I Prepared for and Passed the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification Exam

Jun 3

The Journey of My First Exam

I was very new to the Salesforce ecosystem when I first started studying for this exam, with no real clue on how to study for it or what tools were available to me. I did know Salesforce had great self-teaching resources available via Trailhead, and with some direction from my friend who is an SF veteran, I was on my way to earning my certification. My goal was the pass the exam as cheaply as possible without paying for a bunch of learning materials or classes. After a couple of months of studying free resources on the weekends and gaining some confidence, I passed the exam on the first try. Now, I want to log my experience and hopefully provide some direction for you in your journey to learning.

Trailhead – The Salesforce Self-Paced Learning Resource

Trailhead (https://trailhead.salesforce.com/) is a one-stop shop for learning all things Salesforce, and it’s entirely free. The site follows the theme of a hiker or mountain climber, as you can tell by the name. Start off by creating a profile and notice the fun gamification they have, again following the theme. As a newbie, you are ranked as a Scout. As you earn points by completing lessons and quizzes, you rank up to Hiker, Explorer, etc. all the way up through Ranger. You can see the Rank Badges here along with how many points required to reach each rank.

The lessons here, called Trails, typically follow the format of intro/what you’ll learn, the body with relevant information, and then a short, 2-4 question quiz at the end to earn points towards your rank. There are some other formats that include videos, flash cards, drop and drop activities and some that even try to simulate the actual process of working in SF, all usually ending with a short quiz.

There are also Trailmixes that are sets of Trails that either users or Salesforce have grouped together in a way that they found relevant. This was my primary way of studying for the exam. Go through and complete as many relevant Trails you can find, and when you can’t find anymore, search for more either in the Trailhead search bar or through a search engine, by following the information below.

My Studying Strategy

I Googled everything (obviously), but more specifically, I searched “marketing cloud email specialist [insert different terms here]”. For example, search “marketing cloud email specialist trailmix, and click through the first several results. One of the top results will tell you all about the exam, what to expect, how many questions, how much time, which sections are weighted more than others, etc. I will outline these in a later section, but you can also visit the page and see all the same information (link here). I will also lay out all the links I used in the Resources section at the end to save you some searching, but I would recommend doing these searches anyway in case there is newer information, or sites you find more helpful than the ones I’ve found.

Another search term I used after completing everything I could find on Trailhead was “marketing cloud email specialist exam questions”. You can try “quiz” or “sample question” or any other derivative. You will come across several other website with questions that other people have made up to simulate the exam. Keep in mind, these are not official exam questions, but questions people thought would be a good way to refresh the material you learned through the Trailhead. Many of these are also completely free, even without signing up for anything or providing your email address. I found probably 4 or 5 really good sites that offered at least a few questions or more.

The next term I searched was “marketing cloud email specialist flashcards”. Again, go through the top several results and just memorize everything. If you failed some practice exams before go back and try those again after studying the flashcards.

Exam Structure

This information is available in the About the Exam Trailhead page linked in the previous section and below in the Resources section, but I’ve highlighted a few key points (information as of the date of this article).

Directly from the Trailhead page:

· Content: 60 multiple-choice questions, up to 5 unscored questions*

· Time allotted to complete the exam: 90 minutes

· Passing score: 67%

· Registration fee: USD 200, plus applicable taxes as required per local law

· Retake fee: USD 100, plus applicable taxes as required per local law

Note that 60 questions are scored; they count towards your exam total. Up to 5 questions (you won’t know which ones) are actually sprinkled in just to test the questions themselves, so they won’t count for or against you. You have roughly 1 minute and 23 seconds to finish each question. You have to get 40 questions right to pass, or you can miss 20. Registration costs $200 to take the test the first time. You have to pay $100 each time to retake the test.

Exam Weight Summary

The exam consists of questions that fit into the following five Sections. You can also see how much weight is given to each Section.

Email Marketing Best Practices - 10%
Given a customer scenario, evaluate elements and techniques of email marketing to design effective emails and email programs.
Given a customer scenario, differentiate elements of an email that can impact message deliverability.
Given a customer scenario, demonstrate appropriate and effective subscriber acquisition and retention methodologies.
Content Creation and Delivery - 24%
Given a desired sending process, recommend Marketing Cloud tools to use when preparing an email for send.
Given a customer scenario, create and customize an email message to meet customers’ needs.
Given a customer scenario, configure send settings to meet the customer requirements.
Given a customer scenario, organize and manage email campaign content.
Marketing Automation - 26%
Given a customer scenario, recommend the appropriate marketing automation solution.
Given a customer scenario, build the appropriate Automation Studio solution.
Given a customer scenario, build the appropriate Journey Builder solution.
Subscriber and Data Management - 26%
Given desired output requirements, setup Data Extensions in Marketing Cloud.
Given a customer's business requirements, determine how to import data into Marketing Cloud.
Given a customer's business requirements, configure segmentation tools to model subscribers and data.
Given a customer scenario, identify and troubleshoot send discrepancy based on subscriber preference management.
Insights and Analytics - 14%
Given a customer scenario, explain the different metrics available for email campaigns and what each one means.
Given an email campaign, describe the steps involved to analyze the performance results.
Given a customer scenario, configure and run Marketing Cloud ad hoc and automated reports.
Given a customer scenario, recommend an Einstein product that will analyze campaign effectiveness.

The exam weights tell you about how many questions to expect from each section above, but I didn’t really worry about that. I just set out to memorize everything I could.

Registering for the Exam

The exam is actually administered by a third party company. Clicking through the Schedule Now button will take you to the domain name webassessor. You’ll see Kryterion Global Testing Solutions at the top of the page. Don’t worry, this is the right place. I was very confused the first time I arrived here. You’ll have to create a Webassessor login, make sure you find the right exam to sign up for, and pick a date and time that works for you. Double check to make sure you sign up for the right exam, some names are very long and can look similar to other exams.

Exam Day

I was actually a bit nervous even though I generally take tests well. I think because the format was so foreign to me. I chose to take it remotely, so on my own computer, using my webcam/microphone. You are required to download some software that essentially “locks” you into only the exam page to prevent you from alt + tabbing to other screens to look up answers or get distracted. It also turns on your camera because the exam is proctored by someone. They will make sure you are keeping your eyes on the screen and not looking around at written notes or anything of that nature. I have also heard not to read the questions allowed, probably again for security reasons. If at any point there is an issue, the proctor has the ability to pause your exam and send messages to you.

A nice feature during the exam is the ability to mark questions unsure and quickly go back to them at the end. I mostly trusted my initial selection, but I did choose to go back and review some questions and ended changing my mind on a couple of answers. After I completed the test, I got my results almost immediately. You will see Pass or Fail, and in your email you will see a breakdown of how well you did in each of the sections listed in the Exam Weight Table.

I hope my experience with taking this exam is helpful for you. Good luck with your certifications.

Resources

SFMCEmail Specialist ExamCertification

Lionel Park