dynamics 365 customer insights training oct 2025

MB-220 training and Dynamics 365 Marketing training is the old name, MB-280 training and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Journeys training or even more relevant, Dynamics 365 Customer Experience training is the new name to know in 2025.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing is a marketing-automation application within the Dynamics 365 customer engagement suite. It is designed to help organizations find and nurture the right leads by running multi-channel marketing campaigns (email, web, events, SMS, etc.), ultimately turning prospects into business relationships.

The Marketing app works in tandem with Dynamics 365 Sales (CRM), enabling close collaboration between sales and marketing teams and providing tools for email marketing, customer journey orchestration, lead scoring, event management, and marketing analytics. In essence, Dynamics 365 Marketing allows businesses to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time, improving customer engagement and conversion rates.

MB-220: The Former Dynamics 365 Marketing Certification (Retired)

MB-220 was the exam code for the Dynamics 365 Marketing Functional Consultant Associate certification. This credential (officially titled Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Marketing Functional Consultant Associate) was intended for professionals who configure and use Dynamics 365 Marketing in their organization or as consultants. Candidates for MB-220 typically included marketing specialists and functional consultants who understood marketing principles and the Dynamics 365 Marketing application, including its integration with the Power Platform and Dynamics 365 Sales. Achieving the MB-220 certification validated skills such as configuring the marketing application, managing segments and leads, creating marketing emails and pages, orchestrating customer journeys, and running events and webinars.

Relevance and Retirement: In recent years, anyone searching for MB-220 training materials is likely looking to gain expertise in Dynamics 365 Marketing. However, it’s important to note that MB-220 has become out-of-date in the context of Microsoft’s current certification offerings. Microsoft officially retired the MB-220 exam on November 30, 2024. This means the MB-220 certification path is no longer available, and any training specific to MB-220 now reflects older content. The retirement was part of a broader update to Dynamics 365 certifications aimed at streamlining the credentials and keeping them aligned with the latest Dynamics 365 product updates and job roles. Notably, Dynamics 365 Marketing itself was rebranded and folded into the Dynamics 365 Customer Insights product line in 2023 (as the “Customer Insights – Journeys” app), reflecting Microsoft’s move to unify customer experience tools. Consequently, the MB-220 exam (focused on the Marketing/Journeys app) was phased out in favor of a new, consolidated certification that covers a wider scope of customer experience capabilities.

MB-280: The New Dynamics 365 Customer Experience Analyst Certification

To replace MB-220 and several related exams, Microsoft introduced MB-280, a new exam that embodies the evolved Dynamics 365 customer experience focus. Passing MB-280 earns you the Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Customer Experience Analyst Associate credential. This new certification, launched in late 2024, consolidates multiple former specialties into one. In fact, MB-280 is designed to cover the skill areas of the retired MB-220 (Marketing functional consultant), as well as the retired Dynamics 365 Sales exam (MB-210) and the Customer Insights Data exam (MB-260) under a single comprehensive credential. The rationale was to streamline the certification journey and reflect how Dynamics 365 professionals now often work across sales, marketing (customer journeys), and customer data insights in an integrated way.

Credential Focus: The Dynamics 365 Customer Experience Analyst Associate certification emphasizes a blended skill set spanning both sales automation and marketing automation, underpinned by data insights. As a candidate for MB-280, you are expected to be proficient in Dynamics 365 Sales (understanding an organization’s sales process and configuring the Sales application) and also knowledgeable about Dynamics 365 Marketing (Customer Insights – Journeys) features, as well as the Customer Insights – Data analytics capabilities. In practice, this means the exam covers tasks like configuring core Sales functionality (lead and opportunity management, product catalog, sales forecasting, AI-driven sales insights), tailoring and customizing the Dataverse environment and model-driven apps, and demonstrating how marketing journeys and customer data insights can be used to support and enhance the sales process. For example, an MB-280 certified professional should know how to set up and manage customer journeys (marketing campaigns) that nurture leads for sales, as well as how to leverage customer data profiles and segmentation from Dynamics 365 Customer Insights to personalize interactions. The role is often described as a customer experience analyst because it bridges traditionally separate domains (sales, marketing, and analytics) to ensure a cohesive end-to-end experience for the customer.

Launch and Validity: Microsoft made the MB-280 exam available around September 2024 (initially as a beta, then fully released). It is currently the valid certification for anyone seeking credentials in the Dynamics 365 customer engagement space covering marketing and sales. Unlike its predecessors which isolated marketing and sales, the MB-280 certification reflects the current Dynamics 365 ecosystem where marketing automation (formerly Dynamics 365 Marketing) is tightly interwoven with sales and customer data platforms. As of now (2025), MB-280 is the recommended path for consultants or analysts who would have previously pursued MB-220 training – it ensures you are certified on the latest unified approach to managing customer experiences using Dynamics 365. Microsoft has also indicated that this new exam structure helps validate skills in newer areas like AI-powered features and integrations across the platform, aligning the certification with modern Dynamics 365 capabilities.

Key Takeaways for Learners and Professionals

If you were originally interested in MB-220 training to master Dynamics 365 Marketing, you should now orient your learning toward MB-280. The MB-280 training content will cover Dynamics 365 Marketing’s functionality (now part of Customer Insights – Journeys) alongside Dynamics 365 Sales. By pursuing the Customer Experience Analyst certification, you’ll not only learn how to configure marketing emails, customer journeys, lead nurturing processes, and event management (the core of the old MB-220 skill set), but also how these marketing functions support and feed into sales processes in Dynamics 365. Additionally, you will gain insight into using the Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate) to extend Dynamics 365 capabilities and using Customer Insights – Data for analytics, which were not deeply covered in the standalone MB-220 Marketing exam. This broader scope better reflects real-world Dynamics 365 projects, where a functional consultant is expected to configure end-to-end customer engagement solutions that drive both marketing outreach and sales pipeline acceleration.

In summary, MB-220 was the dedicated certification for Dynamics 365 Marketing functional consultants, but it has been retired as of November 2024. Those skills are still very relevant, but they are now tested under the umbrella of MB-280, the Dynamics 365 Customer Experience Analyst exam. The new MB-280 certification (Dynamics 365 Customer Experience Analyst Associate) is the current, valid credential that encompasses Dynamics 365 Marketing (customer journey orchestration) and Dynamics 365 Sales expertise together. Professionals looking to validate or update their Dynamics 365 Marketing skills should therefore focus on MB-280 training and certification, which ensures they are up-to-date with Microsoft’s latest Dynamics 365 Marketing (Customer Insights – Journeys) features and how these integrate with sales and data insights to deliver a unified customer experience. By earning the MB-280 certification, you demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of Dynamics 365’s customer experience applications, positioning you to better support marketing and sales teams in a coordinated, data-driven way.