Salesforce is adding another certification to its growing credential portfolio: Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Next Consultant. The new certification is designed for professionals who work hands-on with Marketing Cloud Next in consulting and implementation roles. It validates the skills needed to implement, configure, and optimize Marketing Cloud Next solutions.
The certification has already been announced, but the exam is not available yet. Salesforce will launch the Marketing Cloud Next Consultant certification on August 21, 2026, with registration opening on the same day.
In this post, let's take a look at who this certification is for, what the exam covers, and how you can prepare for it.
What Is the Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Next Consultant Certification?
Marketing Cloud Next brings marketing capabilities together with the Salesforce platform, Data 360, Agentforce, and Flow. Instead of focusing only on individual marketing channels, Marketing Cloud Next enables organizations to connect customer data, build audiences, orchestrate cross-channel campaigns, and use AI agents as part of their marketing processes.
The Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Next Consultant certification focuses on the skills required to implement these capabilities for customers.
According to Salesforce, a Marketing Cloud Next Consultant should be able to work with areas such as platform setup and governance, consent management, data modeling and identity resolution, segmentation, campaign orchestration, content personalization, Agentforce, and analytics.
Who Should Take the Marketing Cloud Next Consultant Exam?
This certification is primarily intended for professionals who implement or administer Marketing Cloud Next in a consulting or customer-facing role.
Salesforce recommends that candidates have 6 to 12 months of hands-on experience with Marketing Cloud Next.
Therefore, although there are no certification prerequisites, this isn't necessarily an entry-level exam. Candidates should already be comfortable working with Marketing Cloud Next concepts and implementing solutions in real-world scenarios.
The expected skill set includes areas such as:
- Configuring Marketing Cloud Next environments
- Designing governance and Business Unit strategies
- Working with Data 360
- Building segmentation and identity resolution strategies
- Managing customer consent
- Designing marketing campaigns and flows
- Personalizing marketing content
- Implementing Agentforce marketing use cases
- Working with reporting and analytics
The focus is clearly on platform-native Marketing Cloud Next implementation skills, rather than traditional Marketing Cloud Engagement development skills such as extensive AMPscript or SQL development.
Exam Format
The Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Next Consultant exam includes:
- 60 scored multiple-choice questions
- Up to 5 additional unscored questions
- 105 minutes to complete the exam
- 72% passing score
- No prerequisite certifications
Marketing Cloud Next Consultant Exam Topics
The exam is divided into six sections:
Campaign Design, Flow Orchestration & Content - 30%
This is the largest section of the exam.
Candidates need to understand how to design and configure campaigns, use Flow for marketing orchestration, work with messaging channels, and personalize content.
Salesforce's official preparation trail specifically includes resources covering marketing campaigns and flows, Flow Builder elements for Marketing Flows, campaign optimization, and email personalization.
Data Modeling, Identity Resolution & Segmentation - 25%
Data is another major part of the certification.
Candidates should understand how Marketing Cloud Next works with Data 360, including data modeling, segmentation, and identity resolution.
This includes understanding how customer data from multiple sources can be unified and then used for segmentation, personalization, and activation. Salesforce's certification preparation trail includes dedicated material for Data 360, identity resolution match rules, and reconciliation rules.
Together, this section and Campaign Design, Flow Orchestration & Content account for 55% of the entire exam. Therefore, these are likely to be the two most important areas to focus on when preparing.
Platform Setup & Governance - 13%
This section focuses on setting up and governing a Marketing Cloud Next implementation.
Topics include areas such as Business Units, permissions, Data Spaces, content governance, and email domain configuration.
One particularly important concept is how Business Units and Data Spaces can be used to implement data isolation strategies.
Consent - 13%
Consent management is a significant part of Marketing Cloud Next and represents 13% of the certification exam.
Candidates should understand how consent data is collected, stored, and applied when communicating with customers.
Salesforce has included several consent-specific resources in its official certification preparation trail, covering consent fundamentals, segmentation and consent, consent concepts, and considerations for managing marketing consent data.
Agentforce & AI Innovation - 11%
Not surprisingly, Agentforce also has its own section in the new certification.
Candidates should understand how Agentforce can be used for marketing use cases, including creating and refining campaigns and supporting conversational marketing.
Salesforce's official preparation material includes Agentforce in Marketing Cloud Next as well as conversational marketing scenarios involving channels such as SMS, email, and WhatsApp.
Analytics & Performance Insights - 8%
The final section covers reporting and measurement.
Candidates should understand the reporting options available in Marketing Cloud Next and how marketers can monitor campaign performance and measure results.
How to Prepare for the Marketing Cloud Next Consultant Certification
Salesforce has already published an official Prepare for Your Marketing Cloud Next Consultant Certification trail.
Hands-on experience will also be especially important for this certification. Many of the objectives are implementation-oriented, so understanding why you would choose a particular architecture or configuration is likely to be just as important as remembering individual features.
Additional Practice Exams from the Community
Besides Salesforce's official study materials, there is also a very useful community-built resource created by Rodrigo Santander and Nobuyuki Watanabe.
They built an unofficial practice exam platform specifically to help candidates prepare for the new Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Next Consultant certification.
What makes this resource especially useful is that you can choose between two different learning modes:
- Study Mode: See the explanation for each answer as you work through the questions.
- Test Mode: Simulate a more realistic exam experience without immediately seeing the explanations.
The platform includes three separate practice exams with increasing difficulty levels:
Practice Exam Part 1 - Easy
A good starting point for reviewing the fundamentals and checking your overall understanding of Marketing Cloud Next.
Practice Exam Part 2 - Intermediate
A more challenging set of questions designed to test your knowledge in greater depth.
Practice Exam Part 3 - Advanced
The most difficult of the three practice exams, aimed at candidates who want to challenge themselves before taking the real certification exam.
These are unofficial practice exams, but they can be a great addition to the official Trailhead and Salesforce Help resources. The combination of multiple difficulty levels and detailed answer explanations makes the platform particularly useful for identifying areas where you may need some additional study before exam day.
Final Thoughts
The Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Next Consultant certification is quite different from the traditional Marketing Cloud certifications.
Its exam objectives show how Salesforce's marketing platform is evolving around Data 360, Flow, consent, cross-channel orchestration, and Agentforce. The fact that campaign orchestration and data-related topics alone represent 55% of the exam also gives a good indication of where Salesforce expects Marketing Cloud Next consultants to spend much of their time.
If you're already working with Marketing Cloud Next, this certification looks like a valuable way to validate those implementation skills.
And if you're planning to take it, you don't have long to wait: the new Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Next Consultant certification launches on August 21, 2026.
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