Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Overview

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is an enterprise marketing automation platform that tracks website visitors for campaign attribution, customer journey orchestration, and personalized marketing. When its tracking scripts appear on a website, they capture visitor behavior to build customer profiles within the Salesforce ecosystem. Marketing Cloud encompasses multiple "studios" (Email, Mobile, Advertising, Social) and connects web activity data to broader CRM-driven marketing workflows.

What This Script Does

Salesforce Marketing Cloud deploys tracking scripts — commonly the _etmc.push or Collect.js tracking code — to capture visitor interactions on the website. The data feeds Marketing Cloud's Journey Builder for automated marketing flows and its Contact Builder for unified customer profiles.

Key cookies set:

• _sfmc_id or _et_id — a persistent visitor identification cookie that stores a unique ID for cross-session visitor recognition. Expiry varies by implementation, commonly 2 years.
• _sfmc_session or _et_session — session identifier for grouping page views and events within a single visit. Session-scoped.
• _sfmc_cid — stores campaign attribution data linking the visit to a specific Marketing Cloud campaign. Varies by implementation.
• Additional cookies may be set depending on which Marketing Cloud products are active (Advertising Studio, Personalization Builder, etc.).

Tracking endpoints vary by implementation — commonly *.exacttarget.com, *.sfmc-content.com, or custom domains configured by the organization. Data collected includes: page URLs, product interactions, form submissions, campaign click-through attribution, browser metadata, and custom data attributes defined by the site operator.

Marketing Cloud's web tracking integrates with its Journey Builder to trigger automated marketing actions based on website behavior. For example, an abandoned cart event on the website can trigger an email sequence, or a product page visit can update a contact's interest profile for future personalization.

When Advertising Studio is active, Marketing Cloud can also sync website visitor segments with advertising platforms (Google, Facebook, Twitter) for retargeting campaigns, expanding the scope of data use beyond owned marketing channels.

Consent & Compliance

Salesforce Marketing Cloud spans both marketing and analytics categories. It collects behavioral analytics data from the website, but its primary purpose is fueling marketing automation, campaign attribution, and customer journey orchestration.

Under the GDPR, Marketing Cloud processes personal data including persistent visitor IDs, behavioral profiles, and — when integrated with Salesforce CRM — potentially identifiable customer records. The use of this data for automated marketing journeys and campaign targeting requires explicit consent as the lawful basis.

The ePrivacy Directive requires consent for the persistent tracking cookies set by Marketing Cloud. The visitor identification cookies (commonly 2-year expiry) serve marketing purposes and are not strictly necessary for the website to function.

Under CCPA/CPRA, the behavioral data collected by Marketing Cloud constitutes personal information. When Advertising Studio syncs website visitor segments to third-party ad platforms for retargeting, this likely constitutes "sharing" of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, triggering opt-out requirements.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Yes. Salesforce Marketing Cloud sets persistent tracking cookies, collects detailed behavioral data for marketing automation, and can syndicate visitor segments to advertising platforms. It is not essential for website functionality and requires consent under EU privacy regulations.