Audiences

Salesforce stopped renewing Marketing Cloud Advertising Studio on August 15, 2026. What happens to my LinkedIn, Google and Meta audience syncs?

By The Tofu team ·

Your audience syncs run until your current contract term ends: Salesforce stopped renewing Marketing Cloud Advertising Studio on August 15, 2026. Its retirement notice, published November 3, 2025, covers Marketing Cloud Advertising, Ad Studio and Active Audiences. Once your syncs stop, the audiences already in LinkedIn, Google and Meta stop updating, and each platform's expiry rules take over. Salesforce's replacement is the Ad Audiences add-on for Data 360 (formerly Data Cloud). You can also use a sync tool such as LeadsBridge or Zapier, or upload lists yourself. Set one up before your term ends.

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As of November 2026.

What changed

BeforeNow
Renewing Advertising StudioYou could renew Marketing Cloud Advertising, Ad Studio and Active AudiencesNot renewable since August 15, 2026
Your current subscriptionRan for its termStill works for the rest of your existing contract term, Salesforce says
Salesforce's ad audience productAdvertising StudioData Cloud Ad Audiences, now part of Data 360
Lead Capture apps for Sales and Marketing CloudBrought Meta and Google leads into SalesforceNot affected. Still available on AppExchange
Final shut-off dateNot in the notice, which says to contact your Account Executive with questions

Salesforce's notice says customers who wanted to renew had to do it before August 15, 2026. It doesn't say how long a renewal signed before that date can run. It also doesn't say what happens to audiences you already sent to ad platforms. If those answers matter to your plan, get them from your Account Executive in writing.

Who it affects

Any team that bought Marketing Cloud Advertising, Ad Studio or Active Audiences. The notice applies to "all products sold under" those names, so check your contract for any of the three.

For B2B advertisers, the syncs at risk are usually the quiet ones that keep campaigns clean:

  • current customers excluded from acquisition ads
  • open opportunities excluded, or targeted with late-stage ads
  • target account contacts pushed to LinkedIn for ABM

When those stop updating, a customer you sign next month keeps seeing acquisition ads, and a deal you lose never leaves your late-stage audience.

You can ignore this if you already sync audiences through HubSpot, a sync tool or your own uploads. LinkedIn's CRM Sync is a LinkedIn feature, not part of Advertising Studio. It brings Salesforce data into Campaign Manager for revenue reporting and conversions, not audiences.

What to do now

  1. List every audience Advertising Studio feeds. For each one, note the ad platform, the Salesforce report, list or data extension behind it, and every campaign that uses it for targeting or as an exclusion. Then find your contract end date. That is your deadline.
  2. Ask your Account Executive what the notice leaves open. When does syncing stop for your org? Does anything happen to audiences already in LinkedIn, Google or Meta? What would Data 360 Ad Audiences cost you, which ad platforms does your contract cover, and how many audiences does it include?
  3. Pick a replacement for each platform. The table below compares the routes.
  4. Build the new audiences and run them side by side. Compare the audience sizes in each platform, then swap the new audiences into your campaigns and exclusions before the old syncs stop.
  5. Don't rely on a frozen list for exclusions. A customer list that stopped syncing misses every customer you sign after that day.
RouteLinkedInGoogleMetaCostWatch out for
Data 360 Ad Audiences (Salesforce's pick)Yes (LinkedIn Advertising)Yes (Google Ads)Yes (Meta Custom Audiences)Salesforce's pricing page names "Ad Audience add-ons" under its Enterprise Profiles plan ($420 per 1,000 profiles a year) but gives no add-on price. Ask salesYou need Data 360 and the Ad Audiences add-on. Confirm which platforms and how many audiences your contract covers
LeadsBridgeYesYes (Customer Match)Yes (Custom Audiences)Pro plan from $79 a month (about $60 a month billed yearly) for 2,000 leads a month and 15 bridgesEach custom audience counts as one bridge, and the price rises with volume
ZapierYesYes (customer lists)Yes (Custom Audiences)Salesforce is a premium app on Zapier, so you need a paid plan. The Professional plan, from $19.99 a month billed yearly ($29.99 monthly), includes premium appsAdds or removes people as Salesforce records change. It doesn't copy a whole report
The platforms' own toolsList upload in Campaign ManagerUpload in Audience manager, or Data Manager from a source like Google Sheets, BigQuery or SnowflakeCustomer file audience through the Marketing APIFreeNo direct Salesforce audience sync on any of the three that we could find

Salesforce's Data 360 advertising page says it has "100+ advertising destinations through native connectors," naming "Google Ads, Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Amazon Ads, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snap, The Trade Desk, and CTV partners." A Salesforce Help article from October 2026 lists LinkedIn Advertising, Google Ads and Meta Custom Audiences among the platforms Data 360 can send segments to, and says a missing platform may mean your org hasn't bought the Ad Audiences add-on. We couldn't open the Data 360 limits pages in Salesforce Help to check how many ad audiences come with a contract, so confirm that with Salesforce.

LinkedIn. CRM Sync connects Salesforce in Campaign Manager (Data, then Signals manager) for revenue reporting and auto-created conversions. LinkedIn says this CRM data "may also in the future support" more Campaign Manager uses, such as expanded targeting, but today it doesn't build audiences. Without a sync tool, you upload a company or contact list: in Campaign Manager, click Plan, then Audiences, Create audience, Matched Audience and Company / Contact. For the sync tools in more detail, see How do I keep a HubSpot list or Salesforce report synced to a LinkedIn matched audience automatically?

Google. Google Ads Data Manager connects to Salesforce for offline conversion import and enhanced conversions for leads. For audiences, Google says Data Manager "doesn't support Customer Match for Salesforce using direct connection" and suggests Zapier instead. Data Manager can read Customer Match lists from sources such as Google Sheets, BigQuery and Snowflake, so a scheduled Salesforce export to one of those also works. Or upload a file: go to Audience manager from the Tools icon, click the plus button and select Customer list.

Meta. Meta builds customer file custom audiences from hashed customer data. Through the Marketing API you can send up to 10,000 records per request, and changes usually take up to 24 hours. You must accept Meta's Custom Audience Terms, and Meta says it may not process removals when a business portfolio doesn't own the ad account.

For the exclusions themselves, see How do I automatically exclude current customers and open opportunities from my LinkedIn, Google and Meta ads?

Dates to watch

DateWhat happens
November 3, 2025Salesforce publishes its retirement notice (Knowledge Article 005166882)
August 15, 2026Advertising Studio subscriptions can no longer be renewed
Your contract end dateYour subscription, and the syncs that come with it, run out. Ask your Account Executive for the exact date
30 days without use in an ad set or changesLinkedIn marks the audience Archived
90 days without edits or use in an active or draft ad setLinkedIn marks the audience Expired, and its data is no longer available
540 daysGoogle Customer Match memberships expire. Google says to add or update at least 100 members in that window to keep a list eligible
2 years unused in any active ad setMeta flags a customer file audience for deletion

An audience that stays in a live campaign won't expire on LinkedIn or Meta. It just stops changing while your CRM keeps moving.

Where Tofu fits

Tofu doesn't replace Advertising Studio. It connects to Salesforce or HubSpot and your ad accounts, and it can build LinkedIn matched contact and company audiences from a Salesforce list or report, from an existing LinkedIn audience or from a plain-English description. It doesn't send audiences to Google or Meta, and it doesn't keep a LinkedIn audience synced as your report changes, so pair it with one of the routes above if you need ongoing sync. Tofu is a full ads agent at a flat $2,500 a month, so it only makes sense if you also want it to plan and build your campaigns.

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