Explore The Prospect and Activity Dataset In B2B Marketing Analytics

The Prospect and Activity dataset B2B Marketing Analytics (B2BMA) includes data from default and custom prospect fields and three years of engagement history information – bringing prospect demographic data and engagement activity together.

B2BMA allows us to join Salesforce and Pardot (Account Engagement) data to magically visualize it in dashboards, but before the Prospect and Activity dataset, there were limitations in how we could join the data together, and what fields were available.

With the Prospect and Activity dataset, we’re able to drill down even deeper into our prospect data. This guide walks through a real-world example: Reporting on content conversions. There’s some setup involved and considerations which I’ll cover in this guide, too.

Prospect and Activity Dataset: Enable and Access

The Prospect and Activity Dataset is available with:

• Salesforce Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic.
• Pardot Plus and Advanced editions. If you have Pardot Pro or Ultimate edition then you will need to have purchased the B2B Marketing Analytics add-on.
• Engagement History enabled.
• One of the following permissions: Use Analytics Templated Apps, Manage Analytics Templated Apps, or B2B Marketing Analytics.

If you check the prerequisite but still don’t have access, check with your Salesforce Administrator.

Let’s now locate and enable the Prospect and Activity dataset.

New to the B2B Marketing Analytics app: During the setup, you’ll be prompted to enable optional features. Ensure you check the box, “Include the Prospect and Activity dataset?” and you’ll be good to go!

Existing B2B Marketing Analytics users: Ensure you have the permissions (mentioned previously).

• Log into your Salesforce org, navigate to setup → Search for ‘B2B Marketing Analytics’.
• Click Enable Dataset.
• Navigate to your B2B Marketing Analytics apps in CRM Analytics to configure lenses and dashboards with your new dataset.

To locate the dataset, you’ll need to either a) reconfigure an existing app, or b) create a new one.

Add it to an existing app: Open the app, then click Reconfigure App at the top.

If you receive an error, such as “In the ‘sfdcDigest_Event_EWCUA’ node, the ‘Type’ field doesn’t exist, is deprecated, or isn’t accessible to the Integration User.” Refer to this knowledge base article to troubleshoot.

You’ll get a warning that cautions you when you reconfigure an app, it will overwrite any customizations you made to the following:

• Data security
• Dashboard colors and labels
• Actions

Note: This will only delete assets that are part of the B2B Marketing Analytics Legacy app.

Move dashboards, datasets, and saved lenses into My Shared App or My Private App to migrate customizations.

Next, upgrade the app and edit the existing queries to reference the new dataset IDs. Confirm that important assets and customizations are available in the new app. If you’re unsure about reconfiguring the app and deleting customizations or you get an error, you can always create a new app, and call it B2B Marketing Analytics Version 2.0.

Once the App installation is complete, when you navigate to the dataset section, you’ll see the prospect and activity dataset.

Create a New B2B Marketing Analytics App

When you’re on the home screen, click the create button on the top right, then select App.

1. Click “Create App from Template”.
2. Click “B2B Marketing Analytics”, then continue. Click continue again.
3. Follow the steps to configure your new App. Make sure you check the “Include Prospect and Activity dataset in step 2 of 3.

Exploring the Prospect and Activity Dataset Dataset

Once your Prospect and Activity dataset is ready for use, you can start visualizing your data through a lens.

You can open up the dataset, then select explore, and you’ll immediately be able to visualize your data. The prospect and activity dataset includes a variety of demographic fields ready for use. For a full list of fields, refer to this knowledge base article.

Example: Reporting on Content Conversions

This new dataset really allows marketers to take a look at their leads and customers in a way they never hadn’t been able to before with B2BMA. For example, how many marketers are concerned or monitoring their Pardot (Account Engagement) asset success? What is working, what content is converting leads, and what are the most popular content, forms, and custom redirects?

Previously in Pardot (Account Engagement), you could use the report table and see the number of unique views for each file, form (or whichever asset you were reviewing). Well, good news, you can now use B2BMA to not only show you in real-time your content engagement, but you can also add filters to categorize your assets.

If you’re a long-time user of Pardot (Account Engagement), chances are you’ve got an arsenal of landing pages, forms, custom redirects, and files. Now you can create a report on Pardot assets based on some sort of criteria. Let’s walk through this example.

1. Start by creating a lens. As a refresher, go to the dataset, then click Explore.
2. Let’s start by selecting the stacked chart.

Feel free to play around with each chart to get familiar with each option. But don’t overthink it, if a bar chart works each time, then use the bar chart. Think about your audience and what is going to be the best way to deliver the information so it is easily digested and understood.

3. Go ahead and select “Count of Rows” as your bar length.

4. Under bars, select “Asset Name”, then add “asset type”, then add “Activity”. So your lens setup should look like this:

Now you should have a lens that looks likes the one below. You’ll notice the data is segmented by the action – on the far left, you’ll see the engagement type, activity, open, view, and any other types would appear here. Then the content that is blurred out would be the content name, then you can see the content type. Finally, you have the number of people who have engaged.

Applying Filters

Depending on how you organize your assets, you can use a filter to drill down into a specific set of data and results.

Option 1: Filter based on a naming convention

If you use a specific naming convention that includes the activity type, such as a webinar, you can filter by the name.

For example, use: Name | contains | webinar. This will provide you data based on all the assets in Pardot that contain the name “webinar”.

1. Navigate to filters.
2. Then add a field, select “Asset Name”.
3. Use criteria “contains”, and enter your query.

Option 2: Filter based on Tags

If you tag your assets based on a vertical, marketing campaign type, or any other metric, use the same instructions as above and filter out the data based on the tag type. This will give you more detailed reporting based on a specific subset of data.

Option 3: Filter based on Source Campaign

If you aren’t using a naming convention or tags, you can revert to using the source campaign.

If you’re using an organized campaign naming convention or have a few campaigns that contain the information you are after, you can filter by the campaign name, follow the same steps as above but select the field “Activity Campaign Name” and use the criteria of contains, and enter the name. If you are looking to see the data based on a handful of campaigns, you can always choose “Equals” and check off more than one campaign.

Add to a Dashboard (with Filters)

To harness the power of this new dataset, let’s build a dashboard and adding demographic filters. If you need assistance on building a dashboard you can refer to the guide below:

1. When you’re on the lens, use the scissors button on the top right, to copy the lens. Then name the lens as it will appear as an option on the dashboard.
2. Navigate to your dashboard, and drag your new lens to the dashboard.

3. Now you’ll want to add some filters to your dashboard, so you can segment the data based on demographics. On the left-hand side of the dashboard, drag over the icon for the filter.

4. Once you’ve placed the filter on the dashboard, click on the filter > then select the “prospect and activity dataset” and then select your criteria. In the example provided below, we’ve selected a few pieces of sample data. The prospect and activity dataset will allow you to choose from a variety of data points, you can see the full list here.

Summary

To summarize, we have:

• Created a lens that shows the successful submissions for Pardot forms and landing pages.
• We placed that lens into a dashboard and added filters that allow us to see successful conversions based on demographics. Within a filter you can use selection criteria such as equals, contains, does not equal to create robust filters. So if you are curious to see how many conversions you are receiving from a few different industries, you can now use your filter to say “industry contains” and select your industries. That would show you the industries related to the form completions. Likewise, you could use number of employees, or company revenue to get insight into what content resonates with different types of companies based on demographics.

As if there wasn’t a ton of information and tools available already, we now have this great new dataset that allows us to really dive into our Pardot (Account Engagement) prospect data. The example above is just one of many ways that we can leverage this new data. You could also create dashboards that show a breakdown of your prospect database based on demographics such as revenue, company size, and etc. There are so many ways we can now use this information. Of course, we have to have good data, good processes, and consistency to be able to output good reports.

B2BMA is included in specific packages if you don’t have it reach out to your account executive. For help in getting started, reach out to us here, for a complimentary consult, we’d love to help!