Hey Smart Marketers!
I missed you!
I’ve been thinking a lot the past months about AI and Marketing… or to be more accurate about how marketing was left aside when it comes to AI agents…
I’m sorry but Agentforce Campaigns is not a “Marketing Agent”.
Because an AI agent is here to transform, automate and streamline business workflows.
But when it comes to Marketing, there’s a hidden barrier that goes beyond “bad data”. The real issue is missing data. Agentforce is a powerful tool, but without access to digitized marketing processes, its potential for marketing applications is severely limited.
The Problem: Execution Is Digitized; Processes Are Not
For decades, marketing automation has evolved in leaps and bounds.
Long before the cloud revolution, solutions were built with an eye toward automating repetitive tasks, streamlining workflows, and enhancing campaign efficiency.
When cloud-based platforms emerged, they redefined the landscape, prioritizing scalability and agility. However, they also inherited a critical blind spot: the digitization of marketing processes.
Most cloud marketing platforms were built with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) mindset. They began with a single channel—typically email—and iterated to include others like SMS, social media, and web personalization.
This focus made sense at the time. Email offered the lowest complexity and highest impact for early adoption. Over the years, functional scopes expanded for successful solutions like Salesforce Marketing Cloud to include advanced features like predictive analytics, journey orchestration, and real-time decisioning.
But what didn’t expand?
The actual digitization of marketing processes. Instead of addressing the operational backbone of how marketing teams run campaigns, cloud platforms focused on execution and delivery.
As a result, marketing departments have fallen back on manual workarounds. Spreadsheets, email threads, and whiteboards are the de facto tools for planning, collaboration, and tracking. In short: while the output of marketing has been digitized, the process remains in analog chaos.
These manual processes are invisible to Agentforce because they are not part of the digital ecosystem.
Without access to this operational data, an AI agent built with Agentforce can’t:
- Predict campaign delays based on approval bottlenecks.
- Suggest optimizations for budget allocations.
- Automate workflows tied to campaign objectives.
Agentforce needs more than customer data—it needs a window into the decision-making and workflows that drive marketing efforts.
Agentforce’s Potential in Marketing: What Could Be
Agentforce could transform marketing operations:
- Campaign Planning: AI agents could create campaign schedules, allocate resources, and flag potential risks based on historical data.
- Budget Optimization: AI could recommend reallocations in real-time, ensuring every dollar is spent effectively.
- Workflow Automation: From creative approvals to compliance checks, AI could take over manual steps, speeding up time-to-market.
- Performance Insights: AI could connect operational data with campaign outcomes, helping teams understand what works and why.
These capabilities could elevate marketing to a new level of efficiency and effectiveness. But they depend on one thing: digitized processes.
Why Missing Data Is a Bigger Problem Than You Think
Agentforce can’t generate insights or take actions without data to analyze. In marketing, customer data is abundant—Salesforce Data Cloud can unify profiles, behaviors, and interactions. But operational data is fragmented or entirely absent.
Here’s why that matters:
- Incomplete Context: Without digitized workflows, AI agents can’t understand the “why” behind decisions. For example, why was Campaign A delayed? Was it a creative review? A budget holdup?
- Limited Automation: AI thrives on structure. If workflows are manual and inconsistent, there’s no clear process for the AI to replicate or improve.
- Missed Optimization Opportunities: Operational inefficiencies—like approval delays or misaligned resources—remain hidden, reducing ROI on campaigns.
What we need to make it work
Leveraging AI for marketing implies marketing processes digitization. Here’s what we would need:
- Centralize Campaign Workflows: we need everything from ideation to execution. And we need it structured.
- Standardize Operational Data: we have to define consistent formats for capturing workflows, approvals, budgets, and timelines. Structured data makes it easier for Agentforce to understand and interact with these processes.
- Integrate Operational Data into Salesforce
Once it’s done we can start by building AI agents that handle low-complexity tasks, such as routing creative approvals or flagging campaigns at risk of overspending. Larger applications can be built after some iterations.
Closing Words
Agentforce is an opportunity to transform marketing… but again, the current challenge isn’t bad data; it’s missing data.
We must bridge the gap between planning and execution.
If we do, it’ll be a game-changer.
PS: I’m currently building on this topic, reach out if you’re interested.
See you soon!
Other ways I can help you: