Both enhanced platforms have similar objectives, of making the user experience even smoother, and providing more integrations to other Salesforce tools.

Today, Salesforce is holding its Salesforce Connections 2021 event, which is focused on their commerce and marketing platforms, and improving the brand experience around them. The event focuses on telling customer stories of the way building strong relationships led to very strong business growth. This year, it is also being used to make a couple of major announcements.

“Digital customers are now expecting a very connected experience,” said Lidiane Jones EVP and GM, Salesforce Commerce Cloud. “84% of customers now value the experience as much as they value the product that they buy. Experience has become a very critical part of loyalty.”

Jones noted that after Salesforce launched Digital 360 last year, which integrates new technology, services and learning across their marketing and commerce platforms that help create more connected, personalized experiences, IDC ranked them  number one in marketing application share, and Gartner classified them as a leader in multi-channel marketing.

“Digital 360 powered unprecedented demand in the past year, with transactions more than doubling from the year before,” Jones said.

The major announcement around Commerce Cloud at the event was a refresh of the platform.

“We are announcing a new generation of Commerce Cloud to grow customer relationships, and personalize every transaction,” Jones stated. “The connected and composable apps bring together the full customer experience. We want to bring this to every industry – from manufacturing to grocery, from insurance to telecom.”

Jones said that the new Commerce Cloud’s focus is on creating an integrated experience with the Salesforce Customer Data Platform out of the box with a single click.

“We are focused on making this a fast, agile and scalable platform, which will allow customers to be able to adapt very quickly,” she said.

“We are also announcing a new experience for headless commerce, with additional APIs and developer toolkits,” Jones added. “We are also announcing new Progressive Web App [PWA] kits connected to a rich set of services.”

Jones also introduced a brand new product – B2B2C Commerce.

“It is focused on helping customers launch a direct-to-consumer experience very fast,” she said.

Finally, Jones noted that Salesforce is launching a new Order Management with omnichannel inventory – with payments being fully connected to the portfolio.

Salesforce made very similar announcement around their Marketing Cloud, essentially a state of the art new refresh.

“We are launching the next generation of Marketing Cloud, as a single source of truth,” said Michael Kostow, EVP and GM, Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

To be that single source of truth for marketers, new native integrations are being announced with Salesforce Interaction Studio and Salesforce Loyalty Management.

“This will let our customers understand who their best customers are, ensure that they deliver them a personalized experience,” Kostow said.

A new integration was also announced between Marketing Cloud and messaging app WhatsApp

“This will allow customers to connect in WhatsApp,” Kostow said. “It’s really exciting to be able to reach customers in this fast growing platform.”

Salesforce Snapshot is also being extended to the Snapchat platform, so that Salesforce data will be able to deliver a 1-on-1 experience there. Kostow also noted that Salesforce Datorama marketing intelligence reports are now in Marketing Cloud.