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Ensuring Integrity in Marketing Cloud Engagement Activation
When multiple Marketing Cloud Engagement (MCE) orgs (EIDs) are involved in an Activation, unintended data mixing can occur. This happens when subscriber keys from different EIDs are brought into the same data space and are later activated to a specific EID, which can cause data integrity issues.
Why is data mixing a concern?
- A subscriber key isn’t necessarily unique across different EIDs. This means the same key (for example, SK1) could belong to completely different individuals in separate EIDs.
- Activating subscriber keys from multiple EIDs together risks sending messages to the wrong individuals. For example, consider a company that runs two brands under separate EIDs, Tech Gadgets (EID 1) and Home Essentials (EID 2). If subscriber data from both EIDs is included in an Activation by mistake, a Tech Gadgets customer might receive a Home Essentials promotion, even if they never interacted with that brand. Worse, if they had opted out of Home Essentials, this could lead to compliance violations.
- Organizations must ensure that user consent is honored and data remains separate to maintain compliance. The same individual can give consent for different communication channels across EIDs. For example, they could have given consent for email in EID3 but for WhatsApp in EID4. Keeping data siloed prevents unintended cross-use of consent preferences across different EIDs.
Imagine an organization using three Marketing Cloud connections (EID) and different business units (BU) to manage subscriber data. Each EID has a unique set of subscriber keys (SK).
- EID1 covers BU1, BU2, BU3 (with SK1 to SK15)
- BU1 covers SK1 to SK5
- BU2 covers SK6 to SK10
- BU3 covers SK11 to SK15
- EID2 covers BU4, BU5, BU6 (with SK16 to SK30)
- BU4 covers SK16 to SK20
- BU5 covers SK21 to SK25
- BU6 covers SK26 to SK30
- EID3 covers BU7, BU8, BU9 (with SK31 to SK45)
- BU7 covers SK31 to SK35
- BU8 covers SK36 to SK40
- BU9 covers SK41 to SK45
To keep things organized, subscriber data is grouped into data spaces (DS):
- DS1 contains only data from EID1 (BU1, BU2, BU3).
- DS2 contains only data from EID2 (BU4, BU5, BU6).
- DS3 contains only data from EID3 (BU7, BU8, BU9).
- DS-Global includes all EIDs (BU1–BU9).
- DS5 contains data from EID1 (BU2, BU3) and EID2 (BU4, BU5).
Activation Scenarios
Scenario 1: Activation using DS1
If you create an activation target with DS1, you’re working only with data from EID1 (BU1, BU2, and BU3).
- This means only subscriber keys from SK1 to SK15 are activated in the Marketing Cloud Engagement target (MC1).
- Data mixing is prevented. Since DS1 contains only EID1 data, there’s no chance of mixing data from EID2 or EID3.
Scenario 2: Activation using DS-Global
DS-Global contains data from all EIDs, but if you’re activating only BU1 (which belongs to EID1):
- The system ensures that only SK1 to SK15 (EID1) are activated, even though DS-Global contains data from EID2 and EID3. If Allow Profile Business Unit Mapping Data (BU-aware) is turned on, only the SKs for BU1 are activated.
- Data mixing is prevented because SK16 to SK45 from EID2 and EID3 are automatically blocked from activation.
Scenario 3: Activation using DS5
DS5 is a mix of EID1 (BU2, BU3) and EID2 (BU4, BU5), and you want to activate data for BU4.
- Since BU4 belongs to EID2, only SK16 to SK30 (EID2) are activated in MC2. If Allow Profile Business Unit Mapping Data (BU-aware) is turned on, only SK16 to SK20 are activated.
- Data mixing is prevented because SK1 to SK15 (from EID1) are blocked, ensuring data integrity.
