Dynamics 365 Marketing fair use policy is sometimes confused with Dynamics 365 Marketing quota limits discussed in an earlier post. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing uses Azure cloud resources to process all marketing activities and interactions with these actions. That is to say, Dynamics 365 Marketing fair use policy ensures that the cloud resources are shared between all the users.
For detailed information about the fair use policy, check Microsoft documentation.
But before we go into Dynamics 365 Marketing fair use policy, we shall revisit Dynamics 365 Marketing quota limits.
Dynamics 365 Marketing quota limits
The quota limits are primarily related to Dynamics 365 Marketing licences. To explain, we can buy more quota if the client business requires contacting more contacts. Generally, Dynamics 365 Marketing is definitely licenced from the other Dynamics 365 models.
Unlike Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Support and Field Service, where the clients pay per seat, Dynamics 365 Marketing is charged per marketing contact limits. Companies, if needed, can increase the limits to suit their business needs.
For more information about Dynamics 365 Licensing, please find the attached pricing model for Nov 2021.
Dynamics 365 Marketing fair use policy
To explain the fair use policy after understanding the quota limits, it is the thresholds that the clients cannot buy beyond them. From experience, I once had a vast utility service company with millions of active marketing contacts and clients, and they were sending large amounts of messages to their clients daily. Luckily, they did not hit the limits. Nevertheless, they might hit those numbers in the future.
So, this post might be necessary only for those with a large customer with a massive client and potential clients base.
The fair use policy controls outbound marketing activities, real-time marketing activities and marketing events.
Outbound marketing fair use policy
Outbound marketing fair use policy controls segmentation, sending emails, personalizing emails, custom channels, and syncing tables with Dynamics marketing.
Segmenatation
Segmentations are limited to the following.
| Active dynamic segments | 1,000 Segments |
| Total active & inactive segments | 10,000 Segments |
Sending emails
Sending emails cant exceed the following.
| Maximum emails per month | 10 million emails |
| Maximum emails per day | 1 million emails |
Dynamic content – email persomalization
Adding dynamic content to marketing emails is limited to
| Dynamic variables | 1,000 attributes |
| Related entities | One maximum |
To explain the related entity, we are required to understand that contact is the central entity for Dynamics 365 Marketing and going from there, we can use dynamic variables from any entity that is related to the contact entity directly, and we can’t use any table that is not directly connected with the contact table.
For example, if there is a table called “News” related to the Account table, we will not be able to use attributes from the “News” table as there is no direct relation.
I had to deal with this restriction for a client who wanted to build a highly personalized newsletter based on contacts areas of interest and preference. Meanwhile, the articles were hosted in the “Knowledgebase Article” table, and there was no direct connection between the two tables. We came up with a solution to solve the client need but after wasting time trying many times to get it to work.
Custom Channels
Before going into the fair use of custom channels, we need to make sure that we understand briefly what are custom channels and how they are helpful.
Custom Channels are Microsoft partners’ way to extend the capabilities of Dynamics 365 Marketing journey beyond the out of the box tiles to deliver a particular qualification. The Custom Channels are very useful as they can build a new communication such as social media and make it available for reuse in different journeys as a tile by the same client. Also, the Custom Channels can be shared using the App Source to be used by many other Dynamics 365 Marketing clients.
A maximum of 50 Custom Channel interactions is allowed per second.
Sync tables with Dynamics 365 Marketing
We discussed how we can sync tables with Dynamics 365 Marketing in a previous post. Also, it is important to know that we cannot uncheck any of the previously selected tables. Meaning, we need to plan before enabling any of the tables considering those restrictions.
| Maximum number of rows | 100 Million rows |
| Maximum rows of 1 record type | 20 Million rows |
Real-Time Marketing fair use policy
The newly introduced real-time marketing also has fair use restrictions on sending interactions (emails, text messages and notifications), dynamic distinct attributes and related entity attributes.
Sending interactions
The interaction in real-time marketing is one of three channels that can be used: email, text messages, or mobile notifications. The restriction is not one of the types as the limits can be consumed by one of a mix of the interaction.
| Maximum interactions per month | 10 Million |
| Maximum interactions per day | 33,000 |
Personalization
Real-time marketing allows us to build a personalized message using attributes from a table or one of its related tables.
Dynamic attributes
- Maximum of 100 distinct dynamic attributes.
Related entities
- 6 levels of related 1:1 entities.
- 1:N and N:N according to Microsoft is not supported yet.
Marketing Events
I don’t understand this section well, but I will restate Microsoft documentation, as I don’t think these limits can be met in normal circumstances.
- 60 events registrations processed simultaneously per second
- 40 event registrations request processed simultaneously per second (this point is not clear to me)
