Salesforce Commerce Cloud integrates with Instagram, adds other enhancements

At the NRF (National Retail Federation) Show in New York City, Salesforce is today announcing several new features for its Commerce Cloud e-commerce platform.

Instagram is now, for the first time, integrated with Commerce Cloud. This lets retailers create shoppable posts directly in Commerce Cloud — where they are already managing their commerce sites — and it also allows Instagram content to automatically update when catalog items are replaced.

Salesforce is also extending its Einstein AI layer to Instagram through its Marketing Cloud. Einstein Vision can now automatically tag posts in the brand’s feed or on public Instagram feeds, where a logo or specific products appear.

Previously, VP of Product Marketing Gordon Evans told me, a retailer had to manually update Instagram to enter new catalog items, tag content or create shoppable posts in that social network.

There’s also a new connector between Commerce Cloud and the company’s Marketing Cloud for triggered emails.

The use cases cover three specific triggering behaviors on a store’s site: abandoning an online shopping cart before completing a purchase, abandoning a browsing session while in an online store or abandoning an email before taking a call to action, like clicking a link.

Evans said that, while retailers could previously have set up triggered messages in Marketing Cloud, the new connector makes it easier to implement.

Salesforce LiveMessage, which had been available through the company’s Service Cloud, is now available in Commerce Cloud. It employs preferred messaging apps like SMS or Facebook Messenger and, using Einstein-powered bots, can automatically route requests like order tracking or resetting a lost password.

An Einstein-powered mobile bot

And prebuilt, personalized customer journeys can now be deployed through Commerce Cloud to local stores and resellers.

A company’s central marketing department, for instance, might create a journey in Marketing Cloud’s Journey Builder, and the retailer can access those Journeys from Commerce Cloud in order to personalize the messaging.

Salesforce offers a use case where a national sporting goods chain’s corporate marketing team builds a customer journey for a winter sports campaign, and then local stores can customize it for winter activities popular in their area.

This was possible to do before inside Marketing Cloud, but now Salesforce says it’s easier for a retailer to do because it’s accessible in Commerce Cloud.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.

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