Marketers

How to Create Buttons for Pardot Emails

By Lucy Mazalon

Buttons can make or break your email. This is how you present the call-to-action, the action you are encouraging your users to take, coaxing, tempting them with an eye-catching, irresistible button.

Note: Buttons are available as a component in the newer Lightning Email Builder for Pardot. Check out its best features out here.

It’s a fact we have to come to terms with – there is no built-in button function in the Pardot email builder. While we could choose to stew bitterly about this, it’s best to get on with finding a solution and look past this minor flaw. Not only that, but buttons need to be coded in a way that ensures they display correctly across all email providers (including that pesky Outlook!).

In this post, I will show you how to use a free third-party tool to create buttons that fit your brand, and then, how to implement these into Pardot, and test.

How to Create ‘Bulletproof’ Buttons

Bulletproof email buttons is a free online tool provided by Campaign Monitor. This tool is one of my favorites and no doubt will feature in your toolbox from today onwards!

Bulletproof means that this code will display correctly across all email providers. Experienced marketers will know the troubles Outlook causes when it comes to styling, especially with buttons! Luckily, we’re safe when using this tool.

Go through each of the boxes to set:

  • The button text
  • Background color (+ an option for an image!)
  • Font color*
  • Button width & height
  • Border color & radius (how sharp or rounded the corners should be)
  • Button URL (where you send your prospects when they click).

*A note on fonts: the default font selected is Sans-serif, shown in the code as font-family:sans-serif. This is an email-safe font. Feel free to replace the font with your preferred font in the code, but do so at your own risk – be sure to get advice on email-safe fonts beforehand.

Preview your button in the right-hand preview window, then copy the code in the yellow section.

How to Implement Buttons into Pardot Emails

Now, jump into your Pardot email template.
Click into the content block you want to insert your button into, and open up the source code (button highlighted in the image below). Copy the code here.

Always test how your button will display across all email service providers by generating a rendering test.

Once the render has completed and you’ve checked the button is not distorted, you are good to go!

Summary

This post has covered how to create buttons that fit your brand and how to implement these into Pardot and test. Despite there being no built-in button function in the Pardot email builder, I think you will agree that using this amazing third-party tool is not too much of a stretch to ensure your call-to-actions are presented in the best way possible.

The Author

Lucy Mazalon

Lucy is the Operations Director at Salesforce Ben. She is a 10x certified Marketing Champion and founder of The DRIP.

Comments:

    Ryan Gangle
    December 27, 2019 10:29 pm
    Bulletproof Buttons is a very straightforward tool for using with Pardot. Unfortunately, I am unable to track clicked links when using the CTA Button. How can I make those links register as Unique Clicks? Other links are tracked properly.
    Lucy Mazalon
    December 31, 2019 12:29 pm
    Hi Ryan, that's very strange, I've not come across this before. Does the URL start with http / https? (ie. not a variable tag?).
    Barry Flammia
    January 22, 2020 9:08 am
    This is most likely due to many platforms not being able to track urls inside vml code.
    Grant Heinrich
    January 22, 2020 12:55 pm
    Hi - same problem here. The cookie params are not added to the URL when your email template is sent, so the link can't be tracked.
    Lucy Mazalon
    January 23, 2020 1:18 pm
    Thanks for your comment, did you find a way to get around this?
    Jacob Ferrell
    May 15, 2020 10:07 pm
    Any way to align the button in the center? Other than that, it's fantastic!
    Jenni Schreiber
    June 26, 2020 7:02 pm
    Jacob did you ever figure out how to do this?
    Emma Linney
    February 15, 2021 4:59 pm
    Oh I got so excited about this, and then read the comments about not being able to track clicked links. Did anyone find a way around it? I wanted to use it in our newsletter subscription opt in process, using completion actions.
    Franco
    March 23, 2021 6:29 pm
    You can force center it by adding spaces before the button on the text editor, I guess you could also do it from the html
    Barb McKee
    June 28, 2021 5:09 pm
    Anyone know how can you add a variable tag in the button and if this works
    Ian Batt
    June 17, 2022 4:03 pm
    Not working. Won't accept my HEX code.
    Johanna Enroth
    December 01, 2022 1:17 pm
    Hi! I have heard that if you use https:// you should be able to track the link. Use http:// (without s) to NOT track the link.

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