Are you looking forward to integrating WhatsApp with the Marketing Cloud?
Is it just for sending WhatsApp messages from the Marketing Cloud?
Probably, not. You would want something more than that.
No matter what you want for your business operations, sometimes you just have to make the right decisions. You must choose suitable connectors and apps for integrations to get the best capabilities.
Marketing Cloud Next does a lot well. Customer journeys, campaign orchestration, email — it’s a capable platform for teams that need the full stack. And yes, it now supports WhatsApp natively, as part of its broader messaging offering alongside SMS and RCS.
But native support and practical usability aren’t the same thing. Getting WhatsApp running on Marketing Cloud Next means committing to Data Cloud, working through consumption-credit pricing, and building out identity resolution before a single message goes out. For teams that just need WhatsApp to work inside their existing Salesforce setup — without buying the whole data platform — that’s a lot of overhead for what should be a straightforward channel.
That’s where 360 SMS comes in.
Why 360 SMS?
360 SMS is a full-fledged and advanced texting app that offers numerous capabilities for effective texting from Marketing Cloud. However, some users already use Marketing Cloud and have all their other marketing processes set up.
So, they need something built natively rather than capabilities built on top of the Marketing Cloud or customized. They need something that uses MC directly. And this is something the 360 SMS app is good at.
From reducing the messaging price to text operations time, it provides you with everything you need to text successfully from Marketing Cloud.
Let’s find out what makes 360 SMS better than other connectors for integrating Salesforce WhatsApp and the Marketing Cloud.
What You Get from Other Connectors and Apps for WhatsApp Integration with Marketing Cloud
Most connectors in this space solve one problem and create three others. Here’s what you typically run into:
No drag-and-drop. WhatsApp operations stay tied to Tasks in Journey Builder — the complexity doesn’t go away, it just moves around.
Consumption-credit pricing baked in. Marketing Cloud Next bills through credits, and WhatsApp sends draw from the same pool. At volume, that adds up fast and in ways that are hard to forecast before a campaign goes live.
Custom fields don’t travel. You can’t pull them into the activity, which means you can’t tie messaging logic to conditions in your CRM data. Every send is less targeted than it should be.
Manual template imports every time. No import-once-and-reuse. Each message composition means starting from scratch or doing the manual work again.
API-only paths mean developer dependency. Nothing pre-built, everything custom, and the maintenance burden stays with your team long after the initial build is done.
What you get from 360 SMS for Marketing Cloud
- Messaging costs drop significantly. Marketing Cloud Next runs on consumption credits — the cost per WhatsApp message shifts based on volume, message type, and region, making budget planning genuinely difficult at scale. With 360 SMS, you’re on a flat subscription. What you pay is what you pay, regardless of how many messages go out. For high-frequency teams, that predictability alone changes the economics of the channel.
- An ideal Salesforce WhatsApp integration always eases WhatsApp operations for its sales and marketing teams. The same thing is done for Marketing Cloud too. With the 360 SMS app, you can bring drag-and-drop capabilities to the Marketing Cloud. You can eliminate dependencies on cumbersome Tasks in the Marketing Cloud journey builder.
- You do not need to start everything from scratch. You can import templates and custom field values from Salesforce data and tie messaging to certain conditions. You can even apply filters in the Marketing Cloud. For example, you can bring opt-in and opt-out custom fields, which apply compliance automatically while messaging from Marketing Cloud, and this is something others don’t give.
- With the 360 SMS app for Marketing Cloud, setup is easy and quick as much effort is not required, and the process is pretty simple.
Usage and Ease of Use with 360 SMS
- Integrating the 360 SMS app with Marketing clouds makes things much easier for you, providing extended usage and ease of use.
- You can create customer journeys and schedule messages faster with drag and drop. You no longer have to create Tasks in journey builder.
- Launch campaigns within a few minutes using point-and-click capability
- Bring your business expenses by reducing Marketing Cloud WhatsApp messaging costs.
- You can import custom fields and templates, which helps you accelerate message composition. You can edit templates and merge them with any custom field value. Plus, out-of-the-box message composition lets you create messages much faster.
- You can reuse data already in the Marketing Cloud and import data from any data source for running mobile campaigns.
Do a Lot More than just WhatsApp Messaging by choosing the right WhatsApp and Marketing Cloud Integration.
WhatsApp is one channel. And for most teams, it’s not the only one they need.
Marketing Cloud Next covers SMS, WhatsApp, and RCS — three channels. 360 SMS covers 15+. Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Viber, LINE, Kakao, Zalo, LinkedIn, WebChat, and more. If your customers are on those platforms — and in most industries, they are — you shouldn’t need a different tool for each one.
But here’s the thing most teams only realize mid-implementation: having WhatsApp available in a platform and having it work the way your sales and service teams actually operate are very different. 360 SMS sits natively inside your Salesforce org. Your CRM data, your contact records, your existing fields and lists — all of it is right there, used directly, without routing through a separate data platform first.
No Data Cloud required. No consumption-credit surprises. No developer needed to wire it up.
Reach out at care@360smsapp.com or contact us here to see how it fits alongside your current Marketing Cloud setup.