12 Questions for Your Salesforce AE Before a 2027 Renewal

A Marketing Cloud renewal in 2027 happens inside two overlapping uncertainties: the Advertising Studio run-off (mechanical, dated, certain) and the Braze acquisition (strategic, undated, unanswered). The questions below separate the two — and turn your AE meeting from a pitch into a deposition. Bring them in writing; ask for the answers the same way.

The run-off mechanics (certain — pin the dates)

1. What is our exact Marketing Cloud term end date, and does the Advertising Studio line drop at that renewal?

It does — renewals ended August 15, 2026. The point of asking is getting your date and the mechanism acknowledged on the record. Most contracts co-term; many land by January 31.

2. What exactly stops working, and when?

Good answer: precise ("the Ad Studio modules at term end; everything else continues"). Bad answer: vague reassurance. Note that audiences you built keep running in the ad platforms — don't let anyone delete them in Ad Studio on the way out, which suppresses the destination audience. Build your replacement first, re-attach the existing audience IDs, then decommission.

3. What transition support is included at no charge?

You're owed a straight answer before any paid proposal appears.

Data Cloud Ad Audiences (the pitch you'll hear — slow it down)

4. Which ad-activation product is go-forward: Data Cloud Ad Audiences or Braze Audience Sync?

The only honest answer this quarter is "not yet decided." Get that honesty in writing — it reframes the urgency of every migration pitch that follows.

5. If we buy Data Cloud Ad Audiences now and it's rationalized after the Braze close, what happens to fees paid and audiences built?

No good answer exists, which is the point.

6. What's the all-in cost at our audience count?

List price is $2,400 per audience per year, plus the Data Cloud implementation underneath. Count your active Ad Studio audiences and do the multiplication in the meeting.

7. Which destinations does it reach today — and which of ours are missing?

Check your actual platform list against theirs before any architecture conversation.

The Braze acquisition (collect positions, not predictions)

8. When do you expect integration roadmap announcements, and through what channel?

Pins a follow-up date to the file.

9. What happens to Braze Audience Sync's packaging post-close?

Nobody knows. The written "we don't know yet" is your protection against urgency theater.

10. Will you commit in writing that our renewal terms are unaffected by the acquisition through our next term?

Reasonable, specific, and answerable — a refusal tells you plenty.

Marketing Cloud Engagement (the long game)

11. What is the written roadmap commitment for Marketing Cloud Engagement beyond fiscal 2028?

After Audience Studio (end-of-life February 2024), Social Studio (November 2024) and Advertising Studio (renewals ended August 2026), "trust us" is not a roadmap. The timeline, maintained.

12. What price protections apply through the integration period?

Acquisitions reshuffle packaging. Caps negotiated now cost the vendor little and protect you a lot.

How to run the meeting

Send the questions ahead. Take answers in writing or follow up in email "to confirm our understanding." Refusals and non-answers go in the same file as answers — at the next renewal, the file is your leverage. And keep the two decisions separate throughout: the operational one (audiences keep running — solvable today, inside SFMC, without a platform bet) and the strategic one (which platform, decided in 2027 with the roadmap in writing).

Frequently asked questions

Is it adversarial to ask these?

No — it's what your procurement team exists for. Good AEs respect a customer with a file; the questions mostly protect the AE too, by replacing hallway promises with positions their own product team has signed off.

What if the AE answers none of them?

Then you've learned the roadmap doesn't exist yet, which is itself the answer: don't make platform decisions against a roadmap that doesn't exist. Keep operations running independently and re-ask next quarter.

We renew in November — we can't wait for answers.

You don't need to. Renew Engagement on the shortest workable term, decline the Data Cloud Ad Audiences escalation, keep your audiences running via Cezium Ads, and walk into the 2027 conversation with options instead of sunk costs.

Related: There's No Point Migrating to Data Cloud Ad Audiences Right Now · The SFMC Holding Pattern · The Question Sheet (printable)