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What You'll Learn
What is Salesforce Data Cloud?
What is Salesforce Data Cloud? How can it benefit your business? Should you purchase it? This blog post will answer all these questions.
When your business teams have access to trusted, connected, and actionable customer data, they can power more personalized customer experiences. But how do you ensure your team has this unified customer data view? Enter Salesforce Data Cloud! The product is not a result of any acquisition by Salesforce. It’s built by Salesforce. Learn how it works, its core capabilities, what makes it different from a traditional CDP (customer data platform), and key use cases.
If you are an organization evaluating enterprise CDPs, you must read this.
Salesforce Data Cloud: The Next-Generation Customer Data Platform
Salesforce Data Cloud, formerly known as Salesforce Customer Data Platform, provides enterprises with unified, real-time, and governed foundation for customer data and analytics. Unlike legacy customer data platforms, Salesforce Data Cloud operates natively within the Salesforce ecosystem. Organizations can leverage it to power AI, automation, and insight-driven action at scale.
The platform enables you to consolidate both structured and unstructured data from across your enterprise’s technology stack. Here’s how it works. Salesforce Data Cloud will organize data into standard models and identities, facilitating dynamic segmentation, analytics, and real-time activation across Salesforce products and beyond.
Salesforce defines Data Cloud as “a central hub for data ecosystems within Salesforce, enabling the ingestion and unification of data from multiple sources. It allows enterprise-level data modelers and architects to establish a single source of truth (SSOT) for all business units across one or more Salesforce orgs.”
Types of data sources that the platform connects for you:
- Salesforce CRM – Sales, Service, Marketing
- External data lakes & warehouses – Snowflake, Amazon S3, BigQuery
- Third-party applications – ERP systems
- Live streaming feeds – IoT, Web Events
A lot can be done with Salesforce Data Cloud: Core Capabilities
1. Real-time data ingestion & processing
Salesforce Data Cloud supports streaming and batch ingestion from a wide range of sources. Also, the platform supports zero-copy data access. Meaning? You can connect external cloud data without physically moving it. This results in reduced latency and costs.
2. Identity resolution & unification
Now this is one of the most powerful features of Salesforce Data Cloud – the ability to reconcile disparate customer records. It uses configurable match rules and AI-enhanced fuzzy logic to intelligently merge customer profiles from different systems and forms a reliable ‘golden record’ of each customer or organization.
When teams work with complex hierarchies such as parent-subsidiary relationships or multiple contact points, there are chances that they might experience issues like duplicate and disconnected data. Salesforce Data Cloud is the go-to solution for such environments.
3. Harmonized data models
With Salesforce Data Cloud, raw data is mapped into Salesforce’s 360 Data Model – a standard schema that makes it easier to create segments, run analytics, and ensure data integrity across departments. Business users or data teams do not need to reconcile formats or structures manually.
4. Real-time customer segmentation
Marketers, sales leaders, and service teams can leverage Salesforce Data Cloud to define customer segments. This is done by using real-time, behavioral, transactional, and demographic data offered by Data Cloud. The platform can further enrich these segments with calculated insights using declarative tools.
5. Native activation across channels
Salesforce Data Cloud natively integrates with Salesforce applications and external platforms, and this allows for real-time activation. Send personalized emails in Marketing Cloud. Update support workflows in Service Cloud. Trigger alerts in Sales Cloud when accounts show buying signals. And much more.
Interesting Statistics & Facts to Note About Salesforce Data Cloud
- Companies that use Data Cloud have reported gaining 50% faster time-to-insights for campaign optimization.
- 85% of organizations agree that unified customer profiles enhance customer experience and engagement. Data Cloud helps you achieve the same.
- Salesforce is a leader in IDC MarketScapes for Worldwide Customer Data Platforms focused on B2B & B2C Users for 2024-2025.
- Salesforce Data Cloud is also a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Customer Data Platforms.
Salesforce Data Cloud vs Traditional CDP (Customer Data Platform)
Key Use Cases
- AI-powered service experiences
With Salesforce Data Cloud, enterprises enable unified customer profiles. With unified customer profiles, agents and AI bots get full context about recent customer issues, communication preferences, and more. Result? Faster responses and higher customer satisfaction.
- Privacy-first data governance
Data Cloud provides users with built-in capabilities for consent management, field-level encryption, and audit trails. The platform also supports compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and industry-specific regulations to reduce enterprise risks.
- Intelligent account targeting
Salesforce Data Cloud provides your team with dynamic audiences based on past interactions, product usage, and other critical factors. These can be automatically synced to sales and campaign tools. No more static CRM lists!
- Unified analytics
Salesforce Data Cloud is integrated with Tableau and CRM analytics. There is deeper cross-functional analysis. Be it engagement, revenue, or retention metrics – everything becomes clearer when tied to unified customer profiles.
Salesforce Data Cloud Pricing
Salesforce Data Cloud uses a consumption-based or credit-based pricing model. Every activity, whether it is ingesting data, resolving identities, activating audiences, will consume a specific number of credits. There is a free-tier available that’s typically bundled with Salesforce Enterprise and Unlimited Editions. Large-scale use cases would require purchasing credits in bulk. You will be charged separately for storage and other premium add-ons. You can purchase consumption credits in bundles of 100,000.
Should you get Salesforce Data Cloud for your organization?
If you are looking to unleash trapped customer data and facilitate AI and automation for your business teams, Salesforce Data Cloud is a good, valuable addition. Your purchase would depend on your business needs and existing Salesforce setup. Please note that if you are already using Salesforce, integrating Data Cloud into your business will be more seamless.
Wrapping Up
Salesforce Data Cloud is going to become more powerful as Salesforce deepens its strategic alignment with Informatica – the leading AI-powered cloud data management platform . Informatica will bring its industry-leading capabilities in data quality and metadata management. It will complement Salesforce’s capabilities in engagement and AI. Read more about the Salesforce – Informatica deal here.
At LumenData, we have hands-on expertise in both ecosystems. Access details about LumenData’s Salesforce connector for Informatica MDM here.
About LumenData
LumenData is a leading provider of Enterprise Data Management, Cloud and Analytics solutions and helps businesses handle data silos, discover their potential, and prepare for end-to-end digital transformation. Founded in 2008, the company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with locations in India.
With 150+ Technical and Functional Consultants, LumenData forms strong client partnerships to drive high-quality outcomes. Their work across multiple industries and with prestigious clients like Versant Health, Boston Consulting Group, FDA, Department of Labor, Kroger, Nissan, Autodesk, Bayer, Bausch & Lomb, Citibank, Credit Suisse, Cummins, Gilead, HP, Nintendo, PC Connection, Starbucks, University of Colorado, Weight Watchers, KAO, HealthEdge, Amylyx, Brinks, Clara Analytics, and Royal Caribbean Group, speaks to their capabilities.
For media inquiries, please contact: marketing@lumendata.com.
- Reference links
- https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=data.c360_a_data_cloud.htm&type=5
- https://www.salesforce.com/in/data/use-cases/?
- https://www.salesforce.com/in/data/
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