Salesforce has made a name for itself in the CRM space. Despite its move into data and AI and rumors of changing its name to Agentforce, Salesforce still trades under the ticker CRM.
But Salesforce has strong roots as a marketing platform, dating back to its acquisition of ExactTarget in 2013. As is Salesforce’s wont, ExactTarget’s marketing automation capabilities went through several name changes, eventually becoming Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
Marketing and commerce tools like Marketing Cloud are important enough to the Salesforce business that the company relied on them during quarterly earnings calls — until last week.
After seeing growth in the marketing and commerce segment slow from +4% to +3% to +1% in successive quarters, the segment turned negative in Q4 2026 at -1%. When announcing its first quarter 2027 results last week, Salesforce did not provide figures for its marketing and commerce tools, but instead rolled them into its Agentforce Apps segment.
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The growth at Salesforce is clearly elsewhere in the company, and right now, it’s at the data layer.
The combination of Agentforce and Data 360 generated nearly $3.4 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR), the company said in last week’s earnings announcement, a 200% year-over-year increase. Data 360 processed 52 trillion records, an increase of 136% from the previous year.
It’s a story Salesforce is happy to share.
Why is Salesforce failing marketers?
Almost everyone who has evaluated Salesforce for their marketing needs will talk about budgets and complexity. Salesforce offers a comprehensive platform – few doubt that – but it comes at a cost.
Marketing teams that want to use Salesforce to create personalized customer journeys, for example, might find themselves investing in as many as half a dozen Salesforce tools, including MuleSoft, Agentforce, Data 360, Commerce Cloud, and more.
A complete platform? You bet. But if you’re looking for agility and ease of use, this stack is a tough sell.
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Salesforce also has a reputation for being heavily dependent on IT resources. Its workflows rely heavily on SQL, API integrations require development resources and complex data modeling.
The competition knows all this and is talking about a more agile, easier-to-deploy form of marketing automation. Vendors like Braze, Klaviyo, and Iterable tout faster deployments, no consultants, greater marketing control over the platform, and maximum flexibility.
Adobe is a strong competitor in the enterprise segment. Braze performs well when it comes to customer engagement. Shopify is strong in the commerce sector. In other words, marketers have options.
Salesforce was full of good news during its first-quarter 2027 earnings conference call. The company’s bet on Agentforce appears to be paying off. It tells a fascinating story about obtaining your data in order to power your future agent. It has the tools needed to deliver on that promise
But marketers looking for marketing automation are increasingly finding it elsewhere.
