What Is Agentic Marketing?

Let’s walk through what a typical marketing campaign looks like today. “Your company is about to launch a new product. Sales wants the campaign to go live by the end of the week.” Legal is still reviewing the wording for compliance. The data needed to personalize the messages is old or incomplete. And the email template? It’s still waiting for feedback from the design team.

By the time everything is ready, the moment has often passed. The campaign is late, and the opportunity is lost.

This is the challenge many marketing teams face every day — everything moves fast, but getting things done feels slow and scattered. There are too many tools, too many steps, and not enough time. At the same time, customers expect more than ever. They want brands to know who they are, talk to them like individuals, and respond quickly when they engage. And if that doesn’t happen? They leave.

One bad interaction can make a customer walk away, and it’s not always the fault of the team — it’s the system that’s broken.

Where AI fits in — and where it falls short

Many marketers are turning to AI to help.

But using AI tools doesn’t automatically fix things. In fact, most teams say that while they’ve tried AI, they still aren’t using their data properly or creating the personalized experiences they hoped for.

That’s because most AI tools today are like digital assistants. They suggest things, but they don’t actually do the work. They still need a lot of instructions, checking, and approvals.

So marketers still spend most of their time switching between tools, following up with different teams, and trying to meet deadlines.

This is why agentic marketing is so important right now.

What is agentic marketing?

Agentic marketing is a new approach where AI agents don’t just assist — they take action.

Instead of giving the AI every little instruction, marketers simply tell it the goal.
For example:
“We want to reconnect with customers who haven’t purchased in 3 months.”

And then the AI agent gets to work:

• It identifies the right audience
• Writes and personalizes the messages
• Chooses the best channels and times to reach them
• Adjusts content based on customer response
• And hands over the lead to Sales or Support if needed

All of this happens automatically, with the AI working behind the scenes.

This frees up marketers to focus on big-picture strategy, creative ideas, and improving the customer experience — instead of spending all day managing tasks.

What is Marketing Cloud Next?

To make agentic marketing real, Salesforce launched Marketing Cloud Next — a platform built specifically for this purpose.

It uses Agentforce, Salesforce’s system of smart AI agents, to manage entire parts of the marketing journey from start to finish.

Here’s what it offers:

1. Campaign creation in hours, not weeks

With Agentforce Campaign Creation, you can generate a complete campaign brief, let the AI build the journey in Flow, write the email and SMS content, and even pick the right audience — all in one go.
You can pull content from Google Drive, Zendesk, SharePoint, blogs, or other sources too.

2. Real conversations, not “do-not-reply”

Most marketing emails still come with a “do-not-reply” message. That stops customers from talking back.
But now, with Marketing Cloud Next, those messages become conversations.
The AI can read and respond to replies, change content on the spot, or bring in a human when needed.

It even builds web pages that adjust their layout, content, and offers based on each visitor’s behavior and interests.

3. Smarter lead follow-up

A lot of leads go cold simply because no one followed up in time.
Now, AI agents can add those leads to the right nurture journey, follow up with custom messages, and book meetings — even in different languages.
Everything runs continuously, 24/7.

There are also checkpoints built in so marketers can review and approve before anything goes out.

4. Live campaign optimization

Usually, marketers wait until a campaign ends to look at what worked. But by then, it’s too late to fix anything.

With Marketing Cloud Next, AI monitors your campaign performance in real time.
If ads aren’t working, it pauses them. If spending needs to shift, it makes suggestions.

And with Salesforce’s new LinkedIn integration, marketers can now:

• Sync customer lists for ad targeting
• Track conversions directly
• Access insights about who’s engaging

All of this can be done directly inside Salesforce Marketing Cloud Next and Data Cloud.

When is it available?

Marketing Cloud Next will be available for Salesforce customers starting July 2025.
The best part? You don’t need to throw out your old tools. It works alongside what you already use.

Final thoughts

Agentic marketing doesn’t replace marketers. It supports them.

It gives them time and space to do what they’re best at — being creative, strategic, and human.
Instead of juggling systems and chasing deadlines, they can focus on building relationships and delivering great experiences.

With AI agents doing the busy work, marketing becomes faster, more flexible, and more effective.
And most importantly — it becomes more human again.