Customizing the Marketing Semantic Data Model

The SDM that’s included with Marketing Cloud Next is called the Marketing Intelligence Semantic Data Model. The SDM is a reporting layer built on top of many different Data 360 objects. It’s helpful to use the Marketing Intelligence Semantic Data Model to create reports related to high-level engagement and deliverability KPIs.

Important Don’t modify the Marketing Intelligence Semantic Data Model directly. Instead, create a semantic data model based on it. See Create a Semantic Model Based on an Existing Model. This step creates a copy of the default SDM, while the original remains unchanged. Modify the copied version so that you can revert to the default version if necessary.

There are two main ways to expand and modify the SDM: joins and unions.

Joins

A join is a direct relationship between two tables that adds columns to existing rows of data.

For example, assume that you have a report that lists 100 individuals you sent messages to and indicates whether they opened the message. You want to add more columns to report on, such as each individual’s loyalty tier, postal code, lifetime value, registration data, and last purchase date.

The result of using a join is a table that contains the same number of rows, but contains more columns.

Unions

A union combines multiple tables into a single table based on a shared structure.

For example, assume that you want to create a report that lists all individuals who engaged with your brand in any way. You have a report that lists 100 individuals you sent messages to and indicates whether they opened the message. Now, you want to add more records for individuals who have made purchases on your website, engaged with your brand on social media, or logged in to your app.

The result of using a join is a table that contains more rows of data compared to the original dataset, but with the same number of columns.