Tips for passing Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification

Motivation behind this

Yesterday (1st of August, 2020), I have successfully passed Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification. This is my debut exam on Marketing Cloud Space which I have started exploring lately. This certification is pre-requisite for other Marketing Cloud related certifications so tried to finish it.

Salesforce is providing guidance on certification preparations through Partner Portal which helps me to prepare and pass this exam.

Hope it might help others to get a quick guidance.

Exam Outline

Refer Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Exam Guide

• Prerequisite: None required; Email Essentials (EEB101) course attendance is highly recommended (Content Builder is covered in this course).
• Exam Format: 60 multiple-choice/multiple-select questions
• Time allotted to complete the exam: 90 minutes
• Passing score: 65% (approx 39 questions to be corrected)
• Registration fee: 200 USD
• Delivery options: Online proctored or onsite proctored delivery. 
• Results: Provided immediately after exam submission as on-screen text and by email.

I have given myself 35 hours time-frame only for certification through the trailmix materials and sessions shared by Salesforce for partners and happy to see me passed.

Preparation

• Trailmix - Prepare for your Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Credential
• Trailmix for Partners - Marketing Cloud Email Specialist for Partners (This trailmix has been well prepared with proper navigation of salesforce documentation which helped me for quick study).

• Webinar Series - Marketing Cloud Basics Webinar Series

• Partner Program - Attended Salesforce Certification Days - Marketing Cloud Email Specialist on 23rd July. This is exceptionally good and also provides $100 discounted voucher which can be applied for 3 certifications though it has certain expiry dates.

I have mentioned this in my previous blog post: Consolidated list of Learning Programs to win Free or Discounted Salesforce Certification Vouchers

• Attended and gone through Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Practice Test which is un-proctored and help to judge preparation just before actual exam.
• Guided path (good to learning): Marketing Cloud Learning Path

• Finally join  Official: Marketing Cloud Partners group for updates, announcements and collaborations.

There are many questions are available on googling but Salesforce has changed those, so only on the knowledge on the subject will help to pass this exam.

Topics to Consider for Exam

• Email Marketing Best Practices
• Powerful Email Strategies with personalization, optimizing for mobiles
• CAN-SPAM requirements (2 questions), transnational vs commercial, unsubscribing from Master and Global list, include physical address
• Different ways of unsubscribing, mechanisms for opt-out
• Different ways for improving deliverabilities where purging old emails, authenticating emails etc.
• Different ways of subscriber acquisitions like opt-in in-store, website signup, mobile opt-in etc
• Email Message Design
• Mobile-aware design
• Responsive design
• Showing images on mobile
• Clear call-to-action
• A/B testing (2 questions) scenario based
• Content Detective for spam filtering
• Validations for unsubscribing and physical mailing address
• Dynamic Content (3-4 questions)
• Send Preview and Test Preview
• Approval processes
• Read Email Design Toolkit  
• Read Email Design Best Practices (2-3 questions)
• Content Creation and Delivery
• Content Builder and its usage in different scenarios
• Asset sharing
• Use of different types of content blocks
• Individualize contents with AMPScripts, Dynamic Contents ; Personalized Strings 
• User-initiated flow vs. A/B testing
• Scenarios on send classification with Sender and Delivery profile
• Subscriber and Data Management
• Data Extension and List (3-4 questions), when to use what
• Use of Subscriber key and Primary Key
• Import Data with Import Wizard and Import Activity
• Filters and Queries
• Query Activity (3 questions)
• Marketing Automation
• Read Automation Studio Activities  (Data Extract, Filter Activity, SQL Query Activity etc.)
• Triggered Email scenario
• Automation File Drop scenario
• File Transfer
• Journey Builder scenario (with version, goal)
• Tracking and Reporting
• Performance monitoring
• Hard bounce etc.
• Read Tracking at Email Studio

Hope it will help you to prepare and pass this exam.