Marketing Cloud Engagement Administrator Advanced Practice Exam: Hard Questions 2025

A retailer uses a mix of Email Studio sends (via Sendable Data Extensions) and Journey Builder sends. They observe that some contacts receive two copies of the same campaign email on the same day. The campaign uses the same Email asset but is triggered by both: (1) a daily automation that populates a sendable DE and starts a user-initiated send, and (2) a Journey that injects contacts from an entry event based on the same underlying purchase signal. The business requires that each subscriber receives the email at most once per 7 days across BOTH send types, regardless of source. Which approach is the most robust and scalable within Marketing Cloud Engagement?

A global organization uses Enterprise 2.0 with multiple Business Units (BUs). They want to ensure a single, consistent Contact Key across all BUs, sourced from Sales Cloud. Some legacy integrations currently write Subscribers using email address as Subscriber Key in some BUs, while other BUs use a CRM ContactId. They are starting to see mismatched tracking, preference center issues, and SMS MobileConnect relationships not aligning. What is the best administrative remediation plan to stabilize identity and minimize data loss?

An administrator inherits an account where All Subscribers contains 15M records. A data retention policy requires removing contacts who have been inactive for 24 months across email and SMS. The org uses Journey Builder, MobileConnect, and multiple send contexts across BUs. Legal requires that removed contacts cannot be messaged again unless they re-opt-in, and reporting needs to retain aggregate send metrics. Which approach best satisfies the requirements with the least risk of unintended messaging?

A business unit uses send logging and custom tracking extracts. After a recent change, a large subset of sends show "Not Sent" with an error indicating the subscriber was "held" or "skipped" due to status, but the sendable DE shows them as Active and included. The admin discovers that the same Contact Key appears multiple times in All Subscribers with different email addresses due to historical imports. What is the most likely root cause and best fix?

A company runs a preference center that updates subscriber choices for multiple brands. They must support: (1) brand-level opt-in/out, (2) global opt-out, (3) channel-level preferences (email vs SMS), and (4) enterprise reporting across BUs. They currently use Publication Lists differently in each BU and store preferences in separate DEs per BU. What architecture best supports governance, cross-BU consistency, and reliable enforcement?

An org needs to ingest daily files from an SFTP into Marketing Cloud. Files can arrive late and sometimes contain duplicate rows. The data feeds both segmentation SQL and Journey Builder entry from a staging DE. The admin must ensure idempotent processing (a file re-delivered should not cause duplicate journey entries or duplicate downstream records) and needs auditability. Which design is the best practice?

An administrator is setting up a new Enterprise 2.0 account with three brands and strict regional data governance. Requirements include: separate teams per brand, shared corporate templates/assets, centralized suppression and preference data, and the ability for one brand to be completely isolated (no shared subscribers/visibility) due to contractual requirements. What is the best BU and sharing strategy?

After enabling SSO, several users can log in but cannot access Email Studio or Automation Studio in specific BUs. In Setup, the users appear with correct Business Unit assignments, but the issue persists intermittently after role changes. Which action is most likely to resolve the access inconsistency while aligning with best practices?

A Journey Builder send is failing for a portion of the audience with errors indicating missing required attributes for personalization. The entry event injects contacts with Contact Key and Email Address only. The email uses dynamic content rules referencing fields stored in a synchronized data extension populated by Sales Cloud. Some contacts are new leads and have not yet synchronized. The business requires that the Journey must still send an email, but with safe fallback content when attributes are missing. What is the best solution?

A financial services company must prove compliance for commercial email: honoring unsubscribes within the required timeframe, preventing accidental sends to unsubscribed contacts, and maintaining evidence of consent changes. They use a custom preference center hosted on CloudPages, multiple BUs, and both user-initiated and automated sends. What administrative control set best ensures compliance and auditability end-to-end?