Salesforce Marketing Cloud - Increased HTTPS Requirements
With the release notes for Self-service SSL certificate setup In the Marketing Cloud setup area and the notice of future blocking of non-SSL-certified content in Google Chrome, Salesforce is responding to the increasing security requirements of many Internet browsers.
The fact that Salesforce is now also notifying all Marketing Cloud customers via email about the upcoming changes in Google Chrome shows that there is really a need for action here.
What can happen in the worst case scenario?
On the one hand, working in Marketing Cloud with non-SSL-certified content is becoming increasingly difficult when using Google Chrome. First, you can still display the unprotected content temporarily. However, from January 2021, these will blocked, which has serious effects on the production of all types of content.
On the other hand, this also has enormous effects on external perception.
By the end of this year, recipients must confirm the loading of “non-secure content.” From January, the images will then be completely blocked. In case of doubt, this can lead not only to a poor user experience, but also to the Vloss of trust and reputation lead.
In other words, exactly what you absolutely want to avoid as a professional email marketer.
What should you do?
First, in each business unit and for each private domain, it is necessary to check whether it is already protected by an SSL certificate.
- 1. To do this, go to Setup/ Settings/ Account Settings.
- 2. The Portfolio Base URL can be found under “General Settings”. If it starts with https, a corresponding certificate is stored.
- 3. However, if the Portfolio Base URL starts with http, there is a need for action.
An SSL certificate must be purchased and set up for each public domain to be certified. Please note that only SSL certificates purchased from Salesforce can be stored. A possibly existing wildcard certificate for a domain cannot be used for these purposes.
Therefore, contact your respective Marketing Cloud Account Executive directly to purchase the certificates.
Once the certificates have been purchased accordingly and stored on the server side, you will soon be able to set them up yourself for the respective private domains in the Marketing Cloud setup area.
You can find out how this works here.
Until self-service is available, you can still go the previous route via a support ticket.
Our recommendation:
Check promptly whether all your private domains are running over https. If there is a need for action, don't hesitate too long to set it up. The process without self-service can take up to 6 weeks!
