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/

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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

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This year, my trip was cut short because I tripped up the steps in Penn Center. By the time I walked to the Javis Center, my knee was throbbing in pain. Fortunately, my knee was fine by the time I got back home.

Salesforce and Salesforce Marketing Cloud are going all in on AI and Data Cloud.

Throughout the day, I saw multiple presentations about the power of generative AI and Data Cloud.

Data Cloud is an awesome tool that ties in the data and opens up a world of opportunities for marketers.  Salesforce generative AI and Privacy Center are great tools to allow companies to use generative AI, provide privacy, and stay compliant with US and international laws.

The overall theme of Spring 2024 Salesforce World Tour NYC is that AI is a tool for email developers to embrace not fear. Salesforce is making AI a tool to help everyone on the Salesforce platform to be more productive.

Unfortunately, I was only able to stay for a few presentations because the throbbing in my knee got worse.

In conclusion, the Spring Salesforce World Tour 2024 was a huge success because I look forward to working more with AI and Data Cloud in the near future.

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

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A few months ago, I joined the Philadelphia Salesforce Marketer group.  They were kind enough to send me an invitation to attend the Salesforce 2021 Connections conference watch party.

At the conference, Salesforce announced a marketer career path on Trailhead.

This announcement excited me.

Trailhead is a free online tool that teaches you how to transform your career in the Salesforce platform.

I was amazed at the different opportunities to use my HTML email development skills to advance my career with Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

I was hooked.

I was excited about the Salesforce announcement because the marketer career oath had two trails: Email Marketing Analyst and Email Marketing Manager.

I spent the next two weeks completing the Email Marketing Analyst trail. After that, I started looking into opportunities as an email developer using Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Opportunities Galore

Lots of companies are seeking email developers with Salesforce Marketing Cloud experience.

After doing some research, I realized I wanted to take my email developer to the next level. So I was going all-in on Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email development.

There was one small problem!

I couldn’t get access to Salesforce Marketing Cloud to learn it.  Trailhead was great, but I needed real-world experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Invest In Yourself

After much research, I came across the Supermums Marketing Cloud training course.  Supermums has an excellent reputation and training partner with Salesforce.

Now, I had to make a decision.

Do I invest in myself or wait for a company to spend money to train me in Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

About 2 AM, I remembered a Jay-Z quote. I sign up for Supermums Marketing Cloud training course.

Luckily, I did sign-up because the course started the next day, and the next session was later in the year.

Final Thoughts

Over the next few months, I will be changing my blog to include HTML Email development using Salesforce Marketing Cloud.  I will also be blogging about the Supermums course.  I look forward to getting started and learning about Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

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 Why I joined Supermums Marketing Cloud course? appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

I know I’m a newbie email developer who’s been living under a rock. 

Thanks to #emailgeeks hashtag on Twitter, I could buy a ticket before the registration ended, and I’m so glad I did.

Mailcon is the largest email marketing conference for email marketers. Due to the pandemic, Mailcon was virtual.

Here are three observations that I learned from attending Mailcon for the first time as an email developer.

Too Few Email Developers

I did a quick search on Mailcons’s community board and only found a handful of email developers in attendance. I went to the community board to network. I typed in a couple of terms for email developers, including email developers and HTML email developers.

I only found about five email developers who attended the conference. This search was done by job title.

I did reach out to the email developers in the Mailcon community. Everyone from the Mailcon community gave me great feedback to help me grow my career.

Be Prepared

While I was at the conference, my bio read, “Freelance email developer looking for remote email developer gigs.”

Several people reached out to me about working remotely as a freelance email developer. 

I just wish I had more HTML Emails on my portfolio.  

I recently removed several HTML Emails to revamp my email developer portfolio. I only had two email projects on my portfolio.

The lack of projects on my portfolio cost me several freelance opportunities from Mailcon.

I did manage to get one freelance gig from Mailcon. I know I could have landed more freelance gigs if I had more projects on my portfolio.

Attend More Email Marketing Conferences In 2021

Lastly, attending more email conferences in 2021 is a must. 

As a budding email developer, it never occurred to me to attend the email marketing conference. The thought never crossed my mind.

I learned so much from Mailcon. Mailcon gave me a better understanding of the current email marketing trends. I even learned more about marketing in general.

Final Thoughts

Mailcon was an excellent investment as an email developer. I gained so much knowledge from attending Mailcon. 

Thanks to Mailcon and all of the speakers for putting on a fantastic virtual conference. 

I look forward to attending next year.

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 3 things I learned from attending my first Mailcon? appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

Started out with a dream…

A few months ago, I started writing Urban Fantasy stories in hopes of self-publishing these stories on Amazon Kindle platform.  I did research on getting growing an audience and started learning more and more about email marketing.

I joined several author’s e-mail list, I received several e-mails from the authors and noticed the e-mails use HTML.  I realized that when I send I start building my e-mail list, I need to send out exceptional e-mails if I wanted to keep readers on my e-mail list engaged and keep reading my e-mails.

So, I signed up for CodingPhase.com Responsive HTML Email Course.

Taking action counts for a lot…

First, I highly recommend CodingPhase.com.  I am not an affiliate of the site, so I won’t make a dime from endorsing this dude and his courses.

I took the CodingPhase course and learned email development.  I also fell in love with email development more so than frontend web development.  I started becoming obsessed with learning the ins and outs of email development.  I started following email developers on Twitter and reading up best practices for email development.

Action meets Preparedness

After taking the course, I could create a decent HTML email through coding.  By chance, one of the authors who I was on their email list sent out an email asking for help managing their weekly email newsletter.

I got in contact with the author and showed them some of my sample emails that I coded.  The author was impressed and wanted to hire me to manage their email newsletter.

The author has four different pen names.  The author sends me the content for each newsletter.  I code, test, and send out the emails.

I didn’t know that I would find my passion for email development from wanting to write urban fantasy novels.  As weird as it sounds, this is how I became a freelance email developer.

Thanks for reading,
Ivan Hurt
Email Developer

P. S. A special thanks to Joe and CodingPhase.com for starting me on the path to email development.

P.S.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 strange journey to landing my first client as freelance email developer appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

My wife said, “I thought you wanted to become a front-end web developer.”

I told my wife, I did want to become a front-end web developer until 2 things happened:

• SimpleProgrammer YouTube video called “Finding Your Programming Niche” reminded me why it’s more profitable to specialize
• I started writing Urban Fantasy and looking at author’s emails

I know these two things seems worlds apart but stay with me while I make these connect the dots between each idea.

I’m a big fan of Jon Sonmez and SimpleProgrammer.com.  His YouTube video reminded me of why I went from a Desktop Support Technician to a Windows Migration Technician.

What’s the difference between Desktop Support Technician to a Windows Migration Technician.

• You can hire anyone with a CompTIA A+ certification to be a desktop support technician
  • More fish in the pond means recruiters can easily fill the position
• Windows Migration Technician must have specific experience doing hardware refreshes and operations system migrations
  • Less technicians have these particular skills, so recruiters easily found me when these jobs became available
• Windows Migration Technicians made 25% more than a Desktop Support Technician
  • Recruiters needed technicians with migration experience, they were will to pay more to hire someone with windows migration skillset
• Windows Migration Technician and Desktop Support Technician jobs are always available in most metro areas

I did some research and I realized that the specializing in e-mail development has a huge advantage over front-end web development.  The similarities between Desktop Support Technician and Windows Migration Technician are the same as e-mail development and front-end web development.

• Marketing agencies use e-mail marketing a lot and need a good e-mail developer
• Less competition for e-mail development jobs so anyone with experience with e-mail development has a stronger chance of getting hired
• E-mail development pays more because of the lack of qualified e-mail developers

“OK”, my wife said, “but what does Urban Fantasy authors have to do with this.”

A few weeks ago, I started writing Urban Fantasy stories in hopes of self-publishing these stories on Amazon Kindle platform.  In doing my research on building an audience, I discovered e-mail marketing which lead me to learn about e-mail development.

When I joined several author’s e-mail list, I received several e-mails from the authors and noticed the e-mails use HTML.  I realized that when I send I start building my e-mail list, I need to send out exceptional e-mails if I wanted to keep readers on my e-mail list engaged and keep reading my e-mails.

The usual tools provided by e-mail services providers wouldn’t work, so I would need to create my own responsive html emails.  This is how I started to learn about e-mail development and started me down the rabbit hole of wanting to specialize in e-mail development instead front-end web development.

Thanks for reading,
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 Why I choose to focus on email development? appeared first on IvanHurt.dev.

This is how it is so far being an email developer.

Week 1

The first thing I learned from Week 01 is to go back and review HTML5 and CSS3 code.  This is a must if you are going to be a email developer.  I’m halfway through CodingPhase Timeline.

CodingPhase Timeline is great a resource.

I didn’t forget HTML5 and CSS3, but you sometimes forget the little things like how to I make text uppercase.  I think it’s text-something.  I had to go back and reread all of my notes on HTML5 and CSS3 until I drilled most of it in my head.

Week 2

This is my second week as a freelance email developer and I master time management.

My life works like this:

• 40 hour work week
• 10 hours a week on studying on CodingPhase
• Wife
• Some sort of social life

With all of these things, I had to learn time management.  I had deadlines to meet for my client and if I didn’t meet them then I would loose my first freelance client and I didn’t want that.  So, I set 1 hour each day to work on my client’s email designs for his weekly newsletter.  I also learned how to use the Pomodoro technique to become more focused and get more done.

Week 3

In my third week, I learned the most important skill of all.

Research.

I wanted to do some cool new CSS3 features I read in Web Developer magazine.  I thought these features would look great in this weeks newsletter for my client.

However, some email clients do not support the newest CSS3 features.  By doing some research, I was able a workaround and still create a killer newsletter for my client.

Conclusion

In the past 3 weeks, I learned a lot about email development but more importantly how to better serve my clients through better time management and research.

Thanks for reading,
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.

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