I attended several sessions and came away with three main takeaways from the Agentforce World Tour.

Data 360 Was The Hidden Main Theme

On my train ride up to New York, I scanned the Salesforce events app. I did my usual routine of looking for every session related to Marketing Cloud.

I added Marketing Cloud-related sessions to my favorites so I can attend them if I do nothing else.  To be honest, all the Marketing Cloud sessions had Data 360 in the session description and focused on Marketing Cloud Next.

From the Marketing Cloud sessions I attended, Data 360 plays a major role.  From the keynote speech to everywhere I looked at the Agentforce World Tour, Data 360 played a pivotal role in the Salesforce ecosystem.

Agentforce Is All Grown Up

Let me be specific, Agentforce is here to stay.

The one thing that I noticed is that the Agentforce documentation is more mature. 

In 2025, speakers often mentioned that the Agentforce documentation was still changing. This year, that was not the focus. The message felt clearer: Agentforce is ready for prime time.

Agentforce is all grown up and reached a level of maturity in 2026.

Agentic Marketing Is The Future

According to Salesforce, “Agentforce Marketing uses autonomous AI agents to transform traditional channels into two-way conversations, and to be an always-on collaborator behind the scenes¹.”

That message came through clearly across multiple sessions.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Next, Data 360, and Agentic Marketing appear to be a major part of where the platform is heading.

Final Thoughts

In closing, the Agentforce World Tour NYC 2026 reaffirmed my decision to continue learning Agentforce and Data 360 this year.  Also, if you highly recommend you attend an Agentforce World Tour this year, if not, watch some of the sessions on Salesforce+.

Thanks for listening,
Ivan Hurt
SFMC Professional

¹Source: Salesforce. (n.d.). Agentic Marketing Platform: Next-Gen Marketing Cloud. Salesforce. Retrieved from https://www.salesforce.com/marketing/agentic-marketing/

The post Agentforce World Tour NYC 2026 Recap appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

However, after I passed the certification, Salesforce doesn’t let the certification go stale. You are required to do maintenance modules to keep your certification active. These modules are designed to help you stay current with important product updates to keep your certification active.

You are given a deadline to complete the maintenance module or lose your certification. After the countless hours I took to pass the exam, I am not going to let my certification lapse.

I wrote this blog post, so you don’t let your certification lapse either.

Here are the steps to maintain your Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist certification or any other Salesforce certification.

1. Do a web search for Salesforce Certification Maintenance Schedule
2. Verify when the due date for the maintenance module for your certification is due
3. Log in to Trailhead
4. Search Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification Maintenance
   • You should see 2 or 3 badges
5. Complete each badge to be on the safe side
6. Review the resources that are with each module
7. You should receive an email stating that your account is still valid

Bonus Points: Read the release notes for the product you work with daily.

So follow this advice and keep your certification active.

Thanks for listening,
Ivan Hurt, Email Developer

The post How To Keep Your SFMC Email Specialist Certification Active? appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

Parcel Unpacked 2025 is the place for email developers to network with other email developers or stay ahead of the curve. This two virtual conference is the essential for hands-on experience with the most innovative email development frameworks, discover best practices in email marketing, and unlock new ways to optimize your workflows for better results.

What to Expect at Parcel Unpacked 2025:

• Cutting-edge Email Development Tools: Learn about the latest frameworks, libraries, and automation techniques that will enhance your email development process.
• Industry Insights: Gain valuable knowledge from top-tier email developers and industry experts who will share trends and tips for success in 2025.
• Networking Opportunities: Meet fellow email developers, marketing professionals, and potential collaborators.
• Exclusive Workshops & Demos: Get hands-on with the tools and strategies that are shaping the future of email marketing.

Don’t miss the chance to network and advance your email developer skills at Parcel Unpacked 2025—register today to secure your spot!

You can register at https://www.crowdcast.io/c/unpacked2025.

The post Parcel Unpacked Is Back in 2025 appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

Google/Yahoo Email Changes Were A Good Thing

81% of people don’t answer a phone call from an unknown number (Pew Research)

Day one of Email Camp 2024 focused on email deliverability and the Google/Yahoo 2024 email changes. The Google and Yahoo email changes were intended to make email more secure and improve deliverability.

If Google and Yahoo didn’t change this to improve email deliverability, email would become the next telephone industry.

Email would have the same statistics as the above quote.

With no one opening emails, email marketing would lose a lot of its financial luster.

Email marketing has an overall ROI of 4,200% (Luisa Zhou)

No one would open emails from anyone unless you knew them personally.

When I started managing the nonprofits’ email marketing programs, I implemented the SPF, DKIM, and DMARC policies because I knew deliverability was important.

Email Camp only reinforced that the Google/Yahoo update was significant for emails overall.

Refresh Your Email Designs

I will be the first to admit that I hated it when we would have to implement a new email design.

However, after attending Email Camp 2024, I have a new respect for refreshing your email template designs.

By bringing various parties together, including non-marketing folks, the email design process can significantly improve with new ideas and voices.

With a templating system, new email designs can be quickly implemented, reducing the time needed to update the email template design.

In closing, Email Camp 2024 was a blast and well worth attending.

SMS Is The Future

When I started working as an email developer, SMS marketing began taking shape.  Now, SMS marketing is coming into its own.

On day three, several presentations showcased the powerful marketing tool SMS. SMS is a technology that email developers should look into further.

SMS is a secure, reliable marketing channel governed by government regulations.

This makes SMS a technology that I’ll be looking further into over the next few months.

Thanks for listening,
Ivan Hurt, Email Developer

The post 3 Things I Learned From Email Camp 2024 appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

In May 2024, Google launched its Gemini update that summarizes the email contents for a single email or across an email thread.

In June 2024, Apple followed suit during their Apple World Developer Conference (WWDC). With the release of iOS 18, Apple allows AI to summarize an email.

Ivan, what happens to the preview text that email developers have been using sense forever?

In all honesty, I am not 100% sure how this will affect the preview text. For the time being, I will continue to use preview text for any emails that I create.

However, AI has forced me to learn more about email marketing. I am solid on creating emails, making emails work across multiple devices and clients, and email development in general.

With AI enhancing emails, I’m glad I doubled down six months ago on learning email marketing.

The Google and Apple updates will not change email development in my opinion. Instead of relying on the preview text, good email marketers will continue to do what they’ve done for years: send quality content with a strong call to action (CTA).

The Google and the Apple updates do raise several questions for the future:

• How accurate will the AI email summaries bear the AI email summaries?
• Will user’s opt-in or opt-out of these and future AI features?
• What other updates Google and Apple had planning in the future>

In all honesty, I’m embracing AI, email marketing, and email development. I can wait to see how this affects emails of the future as I embrace AI.

Thanks for listening,
Ivan Hurt 
Email Developer specializing in Salesforce Marketing Cloud

The post AI, Google, Apple, and Preview Text appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

The first time I attended the Salesforce New York World Tour was back in 2019, before the pandemic shut down the world. The 2019 World Tour was a huge affair, and it was the first time I did not spend hundreds of dollars to attend an IT technical conference. I will get into that more of that later.

Salesforce World Tour New York 2023 is a huge event that takes over three floors of the Jarvis Convention Center. If you have never been to the Jarvis Convention Center, it is a huge place.  Salesforce filled every floor of the Jarvis Convention Center with Salesforce products, technical seminars, and product demos. The last time I went to a convention this large, I paid several a few hundred dollars to attend. The Salesforce New York World Tour is free.

Observation One

There has been a lot of talk in the news about Salesforce as a company losing a step. Many financial analysts have not looked favorably on the stock over the past few months. After attending the Salesforce World Tour; Salesforce is going to continue to dominate every industry its products are in.

Salesforce is on the cutting advantage of technology with A.I. and EinsteinGPT integrated into every Salesforce product. Other companies are struggling to use ChatGPT. Salesforce has their own version called EinsteinGPT, integrated into all their products.

Observation two

Salesforce Marketing Cloud filled a conference room in the Javis Convention Center. The one thing that I picked up is that there are not enough Salesforce Marketing Cloud professionals to meet the demand.

Salesforce administrators outnumbered Salesforce Marketing Cloud professionals three to one. So, if you’re an email developer looking upgrade your skills and your paycheck, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a platform you want to look into.

Observation three

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is not going anywhere. I saw several demonstrations with A.I. and EinsteinGPT integrated into Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

The future is bright for Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

I attended so many demonstrations on the power of Salesforce Marketing Cloud that I cannot list them all.

Conclusion

The Salesforce World Tour New York 2023 demonstrated the untapped potential of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. As an email developer, I am looking forward to the future of Salesforce Marketing Cloud thanks to the Salesforce World Tour 2023.

Thanks for listening,
Ivan Hurt 
Email Developer specializing in Salesforce Marketing Cloud

The post 3 Things I Learned from Salesforce World Tour NYC 2023? appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

I will speak along side Carla Sinfon Liau Hing and Sarah Gallardo at the Navigating the Non-Linear Path session on Day 2 of Parcel Unpacked.

Sarah Gallardo is a lead email developer at Oracle.

Carla Sinfon Liau Hing is a Marketing Operations Manager with over 6 years of experience in marketing campaigns and the MarTech stack. 

We will discuss how we each took the windy road to becoming an email developer. Join us as we share our career wisdom on navigating your own road into the email development space.

Register for both days, January 17th and January 18th, 2023, so you don’t miss

• The Magic of Interactive Emails (Live Coding) – 01/17/2023 10:00AM PST
• How Designers and Developers Can Stand out in a Job Interview – 01/18/2023 10:00AM PST
• Debugging Quick Tips

If you are looking to get into an email developer role or seasoned developer, register for Parcel Unpacked on January 17th and 18th 2023.

Thanks for listening,
Ivan Hurt 
HTML Email Developer

You can watch the replay of Navigating the Non-Linear Path session at Parcel Unpacked 2023 at https://youtu.be/KIq2aA-FRh8.

The post I’m speaking at Parcel Unpacked 2023 appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

However, when you do a search for Visual Studio Code extensions, you come up the same old list of

• Prettier
• Debugger for Chrome
• Settings Sync
• GitLens

These are the Visual Studio Code extensions; my developer guys and gals tell me to try all the time. However, I am an email developer and most of these extensions don’t amount to a hill of beans to me.

Don’t get me wrong, if I was a Front-End web developer or PHP developer, I’m sure I would use those extensions all the time to be more productive.

To be honest, I only use two Visual Studio Code extensions and here’s my list:

Live Server

Live Server allows you to see you emails in real time. Live Server will reload the page every time you make a change to automatically your latest update. Created by Ritwick Dey.

Live Server should be first tool in your email developer toolkit.

Email Snippet

Email Snippet is a hidden gem created by Ahsan Habib. A lot of email developers don’t know about this Visual Studio Code extension and it’s a crying shame. Email Snippet allows me to create faster emails using Visual Studio Code and was a game changer when I found it.

Show Email Snippet some love and add it to your email developer toolkit.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Those are the two Visual Studio Code extensions that I use as an Email Developer. Try them out and I hope they will be a game changer for you too.

Thanks for listening,
Ivan Hurt 
HTML Email Developer

P.S. If you want to learn Salesforce Marketing Cloud and elevate your Email Developer career like I did, check out SuperMums Salesforce Marketing Cloud Training, authorized Salesforce Training Provider.

The post 2 Best VS Code Extensions for Email Development appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

LET’S CATCH PLAY CATCH UP

I took the Supermums Salesforce Marketing Cloud course in June 2021. I completed the course in October 2021

WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?

This is just my opinion. I believe someone with six months of experience working as an email developer will benefit from this course.

Why do I say six months experience? With six months of experience, you should know email marketing terminology and an email automation system.

INSTRUCTOR

In my previous post, I mentioned Vicky, the instructor for the course.

Vicky brought a ton of real-world experience that you can only get from working with Salesforce Marketing Cloud. The little tidbits that she taught me helped me in my first week as a Salesforce Email Developer.

Supermums picked a winner when they hired Vicky as an instructor.

CLASS

I missed several weeks of the class due to health and work-related reasons.

Supermums provides a recording of the live classes. Vicky, the instructor, is a mind reader, and she answered my questions even though I wasn’t in the live class.

CERTIFICATION

The Supermums course does prepare you for the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist exam that I will be taking in February 2022. I also received a discounted code for the exam.

BONUS

One of the main reasons to take the Supermums course is a hands-on experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and Trailhead does NOT offer you access to Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Hands-on access to Salesforce Marketing Cloud makes this course so unique.

Side Note: The only way to access the Salesforce Marketing Cloud instance is to be a paying customer or through Salesforce Authorized Training Provider like Supermums.

AFTER COMPLETING THE COURSE

In December 2021, I was laid off.

When I updated my LinkedIn profile and resume, I was bombarded with interview requests with my newfound Salesforce Marketing Cloud knowledge. The Supermums course was the reason I received so many requests for interviews.

I received multiple job offers. I eventually accepted an offer as a Salesforce Email Developer in January 2022 with a 23% salary increase from my previous position.

Side Note: I have two years of experience as an email developer.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you want to move into Salesforce Marketing Cloud, I highly recommend the Supermums Salesforce Marketing Cloud course.

Supermums is definitely a winner in my book.

Thanks for listening,
Ivan Hurt 
HTML Email Developer

P.S. If you want to learn Salesforce Marketing Cloud and elevate your Email Developer career like I did, check out SuperMums Salesforce Marketing Cloud Training, authorized Salesforce Training Provider.

The post My final thoughts on the Supermums Salesforce Marketing Cloud Course appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

If you never heard of Supermums, check out their website https://supermums.org/ to learn more information. Supermums is an authorized Salesforce training partner, which is one of the reasons I signed up for their Salesforce Marketing Cloud course.

Side Note: Many companies offering Salesforce Marketing Cloud Training are not Salesforce Authorized Training Partners. Having that Salesforce Authorized Training Partner stamp makes a huge difference, in my opinion.

The Instructor

My instructor’s name is Vicki.

She is a marketing pro with tons of experience. She has explained the ins and out of Salesforce Marketing Cloud and offering tons of tidbits that only someone with hands-on experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud would know.

A lot of the advice during class has helped during my interviews for an Email Developer role requiring experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

The Class

The class meets virtually, and the recording are posted within a few hours so that you can watch the replay. Due to life, I’ve watched half of the classes on replay.

The live classes were awesome.

Each class tackles a part of Salesforce Marketing Cloud that you be expected to know as an Email Marketing Specialist. The classes build on top of one another. So, suppose you do not have a marketing background like me. In that case, you will definitely better understand email marketing and marketing in general.

My classmates are great, and you don’t have to be a mom or dad to attend the class.

My Thoughts So Far

Taking the Supermums Marketing Cloud course, the biggest financial investments that I made in my developer journey.

Investing in myself has paid off nicely.

I watched two of my classmates pass their Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist exams. That gives me confidence because I take my exam at the end of September.

I am getting more calls for Salesforce Marketing Cloud email developer roles, which offer a higher pay rate.

The Supermums course is a win for me.

Thanks for listening,
Ivan Hurt 
HTML Email Developer

P.S. If you want to learn Salesforce Marketing Cloud and elevate your Email Developer career like I did, check out SuperMums Salesforce Marketing Cloud Training, authorized Salesforce Training Provider.

The post My thoughts midway through the Supermums Salesforce Marketing Cloud Course appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.