Salesforce Campaign Influence – Made Easy

Introduction

Salesforce Campaign Influence is a great feature to track influential Campaigns for an Opportunity. Salesforce had introduced new feature in this module and as part of a customer implementation I implemented & explored this module, in this content, I shall articulate my findings along with few interesting facts. 

Holistic View of Salesforce Campaign Influence Module

Earlier Version - Campaign Influence (still exist in classic) 

The original version of Salesforce Campaign influence tracks influential Campaigns for Opportunity. To highlight few basic properties of this feature, at Campaign record detail from ‘Opportunity related list’ you can create a new Opportunity with the same Campaign as ‘Primary Campaign Source’, alternatively you can set the ‘Primary Campaign Source’ from the Opportunity detail. This will show one entry in Opportunity’s related Campaign Influence list (assuming the ‘Campaign Influence’ related list is present at Opportunity detail page layout), additionally in that related list it flags (also allow you to uncheck) the campaign as primary.  

Also, if ‘Auto Association’ is enabled, when any Contact is added to the Opportunity through ‘Opportunity Contact Role’ (‘Opportunity Contact Role’ related list required to be present in Opportunity layout) the Campaign(s) associated to that Contact (through Campaign Member) will be automatically added to ‘Campaign Influence’ section of the Opportunity. Also auto association rule can be fine-tuned to restrict while generating the Campaign Influence automatically.

(Above picture shows how Campaign Influence created for this version.)

Things to remember here

• Campaign Influence object is NOT API exposed, i.e. you can’t query it, neither report on it.
• Campaign Influence related list is not available in LEX
• No ‘Attribution Model’ available (i.e. no way to show Influence % or revenue share of related Campaigns for the Opportunity)
• No specific permission set is required to access this feature
• You can add associate Campaign manually as well with the Opportunity.

Campaign Influence 1.0

Salesforce now provides option to enable ‘Campaign Influence’ from setup which allows a great way to track Campaign’s attribution (Influence %, revenue share) on Opportunity.

This version brings access to object “Campaign Influence” which is API exposed and can be extended with additional attributes and process automation, validations.

This enforce auto-association by default, you can just fine-tune rule to restrict while generating the Campaign Influence records automatically.

(Above picture shows how Campaign Influence created for this version)
This also enforce ‘Primary Campaign Source Model’ where Opportunity's ‘Primary Campaign Source’ gets 100% influence credit, and any other Campaigns in related Campaign Influence of the Opportunity gets 0% influence credit.  Let me elaborate it with one example - let’s say a Campaign named ‘start’ (what’s in a name? 😊) is the Primary Campaign Source of an Opportunity, and if multiple Contacts associated to the Opportunity are also engaged with the same Campaign ‘start’, there will be multiple Campaign Influence records created, and in that case 100% Influence of that Campaign is distributed equally amongst the Campaign Influence records which are having different Contacts tied to it.

In above example, con1 and con4 both are associated to Campaign ‘start’, since that Campaign is marked as ‘Primary Source Campaign’ for the Opportunity, all 100% Influence is evenly distributed to Campaign Influence records tied the Contacts i.e. con1 & con4.

Things to remember here

• Supports in Lightning Experience as well
• Campaign Influence object is API exposed, reportable, extendable, process automation & validation can be developed
• Auto Association can’t be disabled
• Permission set with license ‘CRM User’ or ‘Sales User’ needed to access Campaign Influence

Customizable Campaign Influence

Customizable Campaign Influence is a super set of the previous, with all features & setup requirements included, it additionally allows you to go beyond the default attribution model (described above), and this is where ‘Campaign Attribution Model’ comes into the consideration. Following two implementation option of custom attribution model based on your customer scenario-

Option 1 - When you enable B2B Marketing Analytics , following model is generated automatically – First Touch Model (the Campaign with which the Contact was associated first is considered for having the credit for the Opportunity) , Last Touch Model (the Campaign with which the Contact engaged most recently is considered for having the credit for the Opportunity ), Even Distribution Model (all Campaigns associated through Contact of that Opportunity are considered for having equal distribution of the credit for the Opportunity), you can make any of it as default to follow its attribution model. I find the article 'Everything You Wanted to Know About Marketing Attribution Models' very helpful on this context. 

Option 2 - You can create a custom attribution model from ‘Model Settings’ from the setup. In order to provide credit to associated Campaigns as per your customer way of business (custom multi touch etc.), you can develop apex trigger (on Campaign Influence object or any other objects depending on business case) ensuring Campaign Influence records are created with defined Influence% and Revenue Share (setting relevant Model id in it). I find the article "Implement Custom Campaign Influence Models with Apex Triggers" is very helpful 

Things to remember

• Ability to go beyond default attribution (Influence % & revenue Share) to address any business need
• While setting up your custom attribution model, you can mark it as default. Additionally, you can either set it lock, if it is not locked, it will allow user to associate ‘Campaign’ (through Campaign Influence) of an Opportunity manually as well. 

Summary

If your customer only looks for related Campaigns for an Opportunity and your customer is using classic, the 'earlier version of Campaign Influence' suits your need. If your customer implementation is on Lightning Experience, and also need campaign attribution you may use Campaign Influence 1.0 with little setup configuration, and finally if your customer is looking for more robust and complex credit calculation to related Campaigns, Customizable Campaign Influence is for you.

Important Understanding

While Salesforce knowledge articles are extremely helpful, here I wanted to highlight one open question & the understanding. As per the article, What’s the Difference Between Customizable Campaign Influence and Campaign Influence 1.0?

the “API Access” is NOT available in ‘Campaign Influence 1.0’ but available in ‘Customizable Campaign Influence’ However, as per ‘Campaign Influence 1.0’ setup, the article  Configure Campaign Influence instructs to enable ‘Campaign Influence from setup' and when it is enabled, you can always use API towards Campaign Influence however it does not make any sense to use API for Campaign Influence when ‘Primary Campaign Source Model’ is used (i.e. Campaign Influence 1.0), but then the question is if both Campaign Influence 1.0 and Customizable Campaign Influence requires to enable ‘Campaign Influence’ from setup, what is “that” which comes “without enabling Campaign Influence from setup” at all? My understanding is - it is the ‘Earlier Version of Campaign Influence’ (refer diagram at section ‘Holistic View of Salesforce Campaign Influence Module’ above)