Marketing Cloud Engagement SFTP Zip export to an External File Location

If you have experience using Marketing Cloud Engagement Automation Studio, you likely are familiar with Data Extract, File Transfer, and Import activities. These activities enable the export/import of files to either SFMC SFTP or an external file location.

Frequently, people ask when to use an external file location instead of SFMC SFTP. A good example is when you need to limit access to exported files to specific providers, as SFMC SFTP users have access to all files and folders. Using an external SFTP location allows you to restrict access to only those who need it.

It is worth noting that when importing from an external file location, the file drop functionality is not available. Therefore, the automation will need to rely on scheduled automation or Trigger entry.

Recently, I was working on a solution that called for us to export a zipped segment to an external file location. I have worked with Data Extract and zipped files before, and there is a Zip extract type in the activity options. However, this would only enable the zipped file to be exported to the SFMC SFTP Export folder. Normally then we would use a File Transfer activity to export the file from the SFMC Safehouse to the external file location, so when I asked around I was told it was not possible.