Shared Suppression and Templates Across a New Regional Business Unit
An Enterprise 2.0 account has a parent Business Unit and two child BUs, Retail and Loyalty. A new APAC team of three marketers needs its own BU for brand and data isolation, but must reuse Retail's 12 email templates and a 48,000-address global suppression list. The APAC team also needs read-only visibility into Retail's journey performance for reporting. The account currently has no Shared Data Extensions and no shared content folder outside the parent BU. The admin must add the BU without duplicating suppression maintenance and without giving APAC users edit rights to Retail data. The launch is in 3 weeks and the APAC team has no Marketing Cloud admin.
1. Recommend a Business Unit and data-sharing structure. Justify why a new child BU under the parent is preferable to adding APAC users to Retail, and specify how the suppression list and templates should be shared.
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Create APAC as a child BU under the parent, not as users inside Retail. A child BU gives data isolation and a place for APAC-specific sender profiles, while the parent remains the sharing point. Put the master suppression list in a Shared Data Extension at the parent and run an Automation Studio query/import to populate each child BU's suppression list; do not ask APAC to maintain a copy. Put the 12 templates in a shared Content Builder folder at the parent and grant APAC read access. Give each APAC user two roles: editor in APAC and a read-only reporting role in Retail. That satisfies visibility without Retail send/edit rights. Do not use a shared admin login; roles are per user and per BU.
2. The APAC team wants to send to contacts who are already unsubscribed in Retail. What should the admin configure, and what is the risk if the team simply imports the Retail suppression list into APAC?
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Importing the Retail suppression list once creates a static snapshot. Within days it drifts: new unsubscribes in Retail will not reach APAC, and APAC may send to someone who opted out. The risk is a compliance breach and deliverability damage. Configure an automated daily sync from the master Shared Data Extension to the APAC suppression list, and add a send-time exclusion check in the APAC send process. Also review Account Settings for enterprise-level unsubscribe behavior; if enabled, a Retail unsubscribe already applies across BUs. Document which control is authoritative so the team does not rely on both.
3. What permissions should the three APAC users receive to satisfy the read-only Retail reporting requirement without exposing Retail's send capabilities?
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Use least privilege. In Retail, assign a role with tracking and Journey Builder reporting permissions only: no Email Studio send, no Content Builder edit, no subscriber export, no admin. In APAC, assign an editor role that includes Journey Builder, Content Builder, and Email Studio send but excludes user management, API integration, and data export. Do not assign the Administrator role. If APAC needs only aggregate journey performance, consider a dashboard/report subscription instead of broad login access, which further reduces risk.