Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Companies engage with their users to deliver positive brand experiences, support their business goals, and build long-term relationships. You can coordinate all your engagement campaigns within the Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) Journey Builder. And you can consume Airship’s events in SFMC, adding Airship-gathered engagement data to your CRM system.

Inbound integration

When you integrate Airship into SFMC’s Journey Builder, you can send Airship App, SMS, and Web messages from an SFMC journey. For additional uses, see Use the inbound integration with SFMC journeys below.

• Create a compelling campaign in minutes — Initiate campaigns with easy-to-use tools that don’t require a development team. With Airship, you can add mobile, SMS, and web messaging to any customer journey that will deliver in-the-moment value to your app audience.

• Create automated SFMC journeys triggered by cross-channel events — Send targeted campaigns to onboard, activate, retain and re-engage your customers. Easily zero in on the insights necessary to drive targeted actions in other systems.

• Use multiple Airship projects in SFMC — Most companies have different Airship projects for different purposes. You can add all your projects to SFMC and use them in individual campaigns.

• Add actions and extras to message payloads — Do more with your messages by adding Actions (Deep Links, Landing Pages, Tagging, etc.) and Extras (key/value pairs available to the app upon direct open).

• Re-engage users — Use cross-channel marketing to re-engage users when they uninstall your app or convert on their mobile device or web browser.

Integration requirements

This integration requires Named UsersA customer-provided identifier used for mapping multiple devices and channels to a specific individual.. Named Users map IDs from your CRM or another backend system (like SFMC) to device IDs. The Named User IDs you set must map to a data extension in SFMC. Airship cannot target devices if you do not set Named Users appropriately.

See our Named User documentation to set the Named User ID for a device via the iOS SDK, Android SDK, or the server-side API.

Configuring Airship in SFMC

The steps for configuring Airship in SFMC are provided in the Airship dashboard:

1. Go to Settings.
2. Under Project Configuration, select Manage for Partner Integrations.
3. Select Salesforce Marketing Cloud. If the SFMC tile is not visible, please fill out our interest form .
4. Select Configure for the inbound integration and follow the onscreen instructions to:
   • Create Tag GroupAn array of tags that you can associate with both channels and Named Users. sfmc-integration and an authentication token. All tags set from Salesforce appear in this tag group, and it used to reference Salesforce tags in the API. SFMC uses the token to communicate with your project in Airship.
   • Configure the Airship integration in SFMC.

Adding Airship projects to SFMC

After configuring Airship in SFMC, add your Airship projects to SFMC. You can select the project that you want to send messages from when configuring activities in SFMC journeys.

In SMFC:

1. Hover over AppExchange and select Airship.
2. Select New Project or select the edit icon () to edit the settings for an existing Airship project.

   

3. Configure for the project:

   Field	Description	Steps
   Project	The name of your Airship project	Enter the project name.
   App Key	Your Airship project app key You can find this in your Airship project in Settings.	Enter the app key.
   Auth Token	The auth token you created when configuring Airship in SFMC	Enter the auth token.
   Email Address	The address where SFMC should send notifications about send issues	Enter an email address.
   Contact Attributes	The field in your Data Extension External Key that you want to map to your Airship Named Users	Navigate to the data extension containing the field you want to map. In Named User, select the field. Data extensions are displayed as they are represented in your SFMC Attribute Groups. If you need assistance locating the field, contact your SFMC administrator.

4. Select Add Project.

Adding Airship SMS Sender IDs to SFMC

To support including Airship SMS messages in an SFMC journey, you must add your Airship Sender IDsAn originating phone number or string identifier used to indicate who an SMS message comes from. Members of your audience subscribe (opt in) to each sender ID they want to receive messages from. to SFMC. You add a sender ID to SFMC by entering a name and its Airship long code or short code. Do this after you add your Airship project to SFMC.

If you do not know your long or short codes, you can find them in the Airship dashboard:

1. Select the Messages menu, then SMS Keywords.
2. Select Create new keyword.
3. Select Settings, then the SMS Sender menu. You will see all the long codes and short codes for your project. Each sender in the list is formatted as a 2-character country code followed by the actual long or short code.
4. Note the long and short codes, then leave the page without saving a new keyword.

If you do not have access to the Airship dashboard, contact Airship Support  to request the codes.

Add Airship sender IDs to SFMC:

1. Hover over AppExchange, then select Airship.
2. Select the edit icon () for the project you want to add your sender IDs to.
3. Under SMS Sender, select Add SMS Sender and configure for each sender you want to add:

   Field or setting	Description	Steps
   Name	Required. A descriptive name for the sender that will help you identify it in Salesforce.	Enter a name.
   Number	Required. The long code or short code you want to send messages from.	Enter a long or short code.
   Enable MMS	Optional. Allows sending MMS messages in your SFMC Journey Builder.	Check the box to enable.

4. Select the plus icon ().

Use the inbound integration with SFMC journeys

In addition to sending Airship App, SMS, and Web messages from an SFMC journey, you can:

• Send Custom Events from an SFMC journey to Airship
• Personalize messages and Custom Events with information from your SFMC Contacts model
• Set tags on Named Users that you can use for tracking or to trigger automation

When you install the Airship AppExchange package as part of the integration setup, two activities are automatically added to your Journey Builder:

• Message activity — Airship Notification
• Custom — Airship Events/Tags

You will use these activities in the following steps.

Including an Airship message

Include Airship App, Web, and SMS messages to SFMC journeys. You must set up messages per channel in individual activities, but message types per channel can be combined. For example, you can set up a push notification and an in-app message in a single Mobile App activity.

In SFMC:

1. Go to Journey Builder, then Journey Builder.
2. Select an existing journey or select Create New Journey.
3. In the left sidebar, go to Activities, then Messages, then drag the Airship Notification activity into your journey

   

4. Select the Airship Notification activity in the journey.
5. Select a configuration section from sidebar and configure the message:

   • Project: Select the Airship project you want to send the message from.

   • Channel:Select an engagement channel for the message: Mobile App, Web, SMS, or MMS. For Mobile App, also select a message type: Push Notification, In-App Message, or both. For SMS and MMS, also select a sender.

   • Message Content: Enter the text to display in the message. For Mobile App, when you combine a push notification and in-app message, the in-app message’s alert text is the same as the push notification text by default. To use different messages, under In-App Message, select Write Alternative, then enter message text.

     All other settings are optional:

     Setting	Description	Steps
     Title	For Mobile App push notifications and Web only. A heading that appears above the notification text. For push notifications, it appears in the iOS Notification Center, Apple Watch Looks, and the Android and Fire OS Notification Area/Drawer. For Web, the title entered here overrides the default set in Airship and appears in the iOS Notification Center and Android and Fire OS Notification Area/Drawer.	Enter text.
     Media	For Mobile App, Web, and MMS only. Media to display in your message. See Media guidelines.	Enter an HTTPS URL.
     Notification Buttons	For Mobile App and Web only. Interactive buttons that appear after the message text. You can select from predefined interactive buttons and configure adding or removing tags when the button is selected. Some buttons also require setting an ActionA configurable behavior that occurs when a user interacts with your message, e.g., opening a web page.: Home, Web Page, or Dismiss.	Select and configure buttons. See also Actions.
     Shorten Links	For SMS and MMS only. Enables Link ShorteningConverts HTTP/HTTPS URLs in your SMS messages to unique, shortened URLs for your recipients. The shortened URLs reduce the total number of characters that links consume and produce click tracking metrics, helping you determine how effective your SMS messages are in driving traffic to your links..	Check the box to enable.
     SMS Fallback Text	Recommended, for MMS only. Users who cannot receive your MMS message will receive an SMS message with this text along with the media URL, if any. 160 characters maximum.	Enter text.
     Action	For Mobile App and Web only. The Home, Web Page, Landing Page, Deep Link, or Share ActionA configurable behavior that occurs when a user interacts with your message, e.g., opening a web page.. You can also add or remove TagsMetadata that you can associate with channels or Named Users for audience segmentation. Generally, they are descriptive terms indicating user preferences or other categorizations, e.g., wine_enthusiast or weather_alerts_los_angeles. Tags are case-sensitive. and set key value pairs (Custom KeysAdditional key-value pairs in your push notification payload for use by custom code in your app or website. You can use custom keys to pass additional campaign identifiers for analytics, pass user information to the device, control the look and feel of the app, provide image links, etc. in Airship) for users who interact with the message.	Select and configure an action. Follow the steps in Actions. For tags, enter a tag name, select the plus icon (), then select Add or Remove. For key value pairs, enter the key name and value, then and select the plus icon ().
     Campaigns	Tracks the message in Airship using campaign categories. Campaign categories are labels that group messages of a similar type or messaging strategy for aggregate reporting. Campaigns help you track the efficacy of both your individual messages and a messaging campaign as a whole. Each category has a 64-character maximum. 10 maximum categories.	Enter categories.

6. Select Review to view a summary of the activity and a preview of your message.
7. Select Done to save the activity.

Sending Custom Events to Airship

You can send Custom EventsEvents that indicate that a user performed a predefined action, such as adding an item to a shopping cart, viewing a screen, or clicking an Unsubscribe button. Custom Events can trigger automation, including Sequences and Scenes. You can code them into your app or website, or send them to Airship from an external source using the Custom Event API. Custom Events contain properties that you can use to personalize messages. from an SFMC journey to Airship for triggering, segmentation, and reporting.

When you set up a Custom Event in your journey, you can determine the properties that you want to send with the event. The event name appears in the body.name of the Custom Event that SFMC sends to Airship, and its properties appear in the Custom Event’s body.properties object.

Issue a Custom Event to Airship as a part of a Salesforce journey:

1. Go to Journey Builder, then Journey Builder.
2. Select an existing journey or select Create New Journey.
3. In the left sidebar, go to Activities, then Custom, then drag the Airship Events/Tags activity into your journey.
4. Select the Airship Events/Tags activity in the journey.
5. Select Project in the sidebar and select the Airship project you want to send the Custom Event to.
6. Select Custom Event in the sidebar and enter an event name in snake case. Example: hot_sauce. Event names cannot contain uppercase characters.
7. Select Add Property, then enter a property name in snake case, and enter a value for the property and select its type. You can add up to 10 properties. Select Add Another Property for more properties.
8. Select Done.

Personalizing custom events and messages

To personalize Airship activities, create a merge field representing a value you want to personalize, surrounded by double percent signs, e.g., %%customer_name%%. Airship replaces the merge field (and braces) with the data specified by the merge field at send time — just like mail merge in a word processor or mail client.

Use the fields in your Salesforce Contacts model that are linked by Attribute Group (Attribute Sets).

For example, if you have a field called customer_name, you could use the value from that field in your Custom Event with %%customer_name%%. If you have multiple fields in the model with the same name, reference the data extension name to select the correct field, using the format %%data_extension_name.field_name%%.

Adding or removing tags

You can add tags to, or remove tags from, Named Users as they progress through a Salesforce journey. Setting tags on your audience results in tag_change events in Airship that you can use as message triggers or to track changes to your audience. All tags set from Salesforce appear in the Airship tag group sfmc-integration that is automatically created when configuring Airship in SFMC.

Set tags in Airship as a part of a Salesforce journey:

1. Go to Journey Builder, then Journey Builder.
2. Select an existing journey or select Create New Journey.
3. In the left sidebar, go to Activities, then Custom, then drag the Airship Events/Tags activity into your journey.
4. Select the Airship Events/Tags activity in the journey and configure:
5. Select the Airship project containing the audience you want to set tags on.
6. Select Tag Change.
7. In the Set Tags field, enter the name of the tag that you want to set or remove, select the plus icon (), then select Add or Remove as the action. Repeat this step for each tag.

   

8. Select Done.

Outbound integration

Send events from Airship to SFMC using Real-Time Data StreamingA service that delivers engagement events in real time via the Data Streaming API or an Airship partner integration. to incorporate your audience’s message activities into your CRM environment.

• Track Airship user engagement in Salesforce — Understand and leverage how and when your users are using (or not using) your app in the Marketing Cloud interface.

• Trigger SFMC journeys from Airship engagement events — Take advantage of Airship’s Real-Time Data Streaming events in SFMC to trigger new journeys and keep your audience engaged.

Configuring your SFMC account

You need your SFMC API account credentials, SOAP WSDL URL, and MID when configuring the integration in Airship. If these items are not available to you, contact your SFMC admin.

Complete the following steps in SFMC:

1. Create an API account username and password:

   1. Select your username in the upper right corner, then select Setup.
   2. In the sidebar, select Administration, then Users, then Users.
   3. Select Create and fill in the user information. Make sure to check the box for API User.
   4. Select Save.

2. Set permissions for the API user account:

   These permissions can also be set by a role assigned to the user account.

   1. Select your username in the upper right corner, then select Setup.
   2. In the sidebar, select Administration, then Users, then Users.
   3. Check the box for the API user account and select Manage Roles.
   4. Select Edit Permission and expand the Email section.
   5. Navigate to each section and set each permission to Allow:

      Section path	Permission
      Email » Subscribers » Data Extension	Create
      Email » Subscribers » Data Extension	View
      Email » Subscribers » Data Extension	Update
      Email » Subscribers » Data Extension	Manage Data
      Email » Admin » API Access	Webservice API

   6. Select Save.

3. Verify web services permissions for the Business Unit:

   1. Select your username in the upper right corner, then select Setup.
   2. In the sidebar, select Security, then Security Settings.
   3. Under Username and Logins, verify that Enable Username and Password for Web Services is set to Yes. If not, contact your SFMC admin.

4. Get your SOAP WSDL URL:

   1. Select your username in the upper right corner, then select Setup.
   2. In the sidebar, select Settings, then Company Settings, then Account Settings.
   3. In General Settings, copy the SOAP WSDL URL.

5. Get your Marketing Cloud Member ID (MID):

   Hover over the Business Unit name (it’s to the left of your username) and copy the MID from the modal that appears:

   

Configuring SFMC in Airship

In Airship:

1. Go to Settings.
2. Under Project Configuration, select Manage for Real-Time Data Streaming.
3. Under Real-Time Data Streaming, select Salesforce AppExchange.
4. Follow the onscreen instructions to configure the integration to:
   • Enter your SFMC API account credentials, SOAP WSDL URL, and MID
   • Select the Airship event types you want to send to SFMC

Data extensions and storage location

A short time after completing integration configuration, the folder /airship will be automatically created in your Data Extensions root folder. Do not create this folder manually.

The folder will contain data extensions representing the Airship event types you selected when setting up the integration. Unlike other event types, Airship tag_change events are represented by two data extensions: TAG_CHANGE_EVENTS and TAG_ACTION_EVENTS. The TAG_ACTION_EVENTS data extension lists added and removed tags.

See SFMC Data Extension Schemas for RTDS.