When it comes to automating actions in Account Engagement (Pardot), the typical ‘weapon’ of choice would be Automation Rules. However, leveraging Engagement Studio’s automation capabilities can be incredibly beneficial for any business looking to create more complex automations in a visual interface.
In this post, we will explore how you could leverage Engagement Studio Programs for automation (if it applies to your use case)…
Should You Use Engagement Studio?
It may be time to explore using Engagement Studio programs for automation if:
- You have multiple Automation Rules that have similar entry criteria, or your automation is becoming increasingly complex: It’s easy to create automations but before you know it, you’ve got an ‘automation spaghetti’ that may even overlap with one another. Engagement Studio programs will come in handy if you want to stitch together what could’ve been two (or more) rules, check against different criteria, push prospects down different “paths” and have multiple actions applied to them.
- Your automation is not (particularly) time-sensitive: One of the key features of Automation Rules is how quickly it takes effect. Upon rule activation, every prospect in your Account Engagement instance is checked for a match against your predefined criteria. Comparatively, an Engagement Studio program will take a longer time to apply actions to prospects because of how it relies on static or dynamic segmentation lists as entry criteria as well as the processing time required to go through each mode.
- You lack clarity on what happens to your prospects when the automation is applied: Unfortunately, when you have multiple Automation Rules in effect, there is no way to determine which will apply to your prospect first. While there is a known known workaround to fire off Automation Rules in a specific order, using an Engagement Program will help facilitate proper planning of not just the order, but also allow you to visually see the consequence of the automations your prospects go through.
- Your organisation has hit the Automation Rule limit: In a typical Account Engagement account, you’re given a limit of 100 running Automation Rules. If you have multiple, active Automation Rules, you could consider refactoring some of them into Engagement Studio programs to work around this limit.
Here’s how to change your Automation Rules to Engagement Studio programs…
1. Audit Your Existing Automation Rules
Firstly, look at your Automation Rules. After all, it is recommended that everyone should audit their Account Engagement account once a quarter, and Automation Rules should be a primary target for these audits.
Note: You could also start creating automation in Engagement Studio from scratch without having to combine existing Automation Rules. Just head on over to Step 2 if this is the case!
You could potentially combine two or more of your existing Automation Rules into an Engagement Program, should they have entry criteria that affect a similar group of users, even if there are minor differences in these criteria. This is where a Complex Rule would come into play, but more on that later!
2. Identify the Rules You’ll Need for Your Automation
Next, ask yourself: which prospects should be affected by your automation?
Here is a list of criteria you could check against when using Automation Rules versus Engagement Studio Programs:
| Criteria | Automation Rules | Engagement Programs | Additional Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prospect Account Field | ✔ | X | Prospects must have an account to match, even if the rule uses the “doesn’t contain,” “isn’t,” or “is empty” operators. |
| Prospect Account Custom Object | ✔ | X | |
| Prospect Assigned Queue | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Prospect Assigned User | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Prospect Assignment Status | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Prospect Campaign | ✔ | ✔ | Filters prospects based on an Account Engagement campaign. |
| Prospect CRM Campaign | ✔ | ✔ | Prospects must be associated with at least one Salesforce campaign, even if the rule uses the “doesn’t contain,” “isn’t,” or “is empty” operators. |
| Prospect CRM Campaign Status | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Prospect CRM Status | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Prospect Custom Field | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Prospect Custom Object | ✔ | X | |
| Prospect Custom Redirect | ✔ | X | |
| Prospect Default Field | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Prospect Email Opens | ✔ | X | |
| Prospect Email Status | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Prospect External Activity | ✔ | X | Requires Marketing App Extensions to be configured in Salesforce Marketing Setup. |
| Prospect File | ✔ | X | Only applicable for non-image file downloads. |
| Prospect Form | ✔ | X | Applicable on forms which do not sit on a landing page. |
| Prospect Form Handler | ✔ | X | |
| Prospect Grade | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Prospect Has Been Emailed | ✔ | X | |
| Prospect Landing Page | ✔ | X | Applicable on landing page views or form submissions from landing pages. |
| Prospect List | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Prospect Opportunity | ✔ | X | Users can define multiple rules that must all match a single opportunity tied to a prospect for that prospect to match the relation group. This criteria doesn’t work inside a rule group. |
| Prospect Opportunity Custom Field | ✔ | X | |
| Prospect Opportunity Default Field | ✔ | X | |
| Prospect Opportunity Status | ✔ | X | |
| Prospect Profile | ✔ | X | |
| Prospect Public List Opt-In Status | ✔ | X | |
| Prospect Query | ✔ | X | Includes site search, paid search, and organic search. |
| Prospect Score | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Prospect Score for Scoring Category | ✔ | X | |
| Prospect Tag | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Prospect Time | ✔ | X | Number of days since a prospect was created or since the prospect’s last activity. Note: Day is defined as between 12 AM and 11:59 PM in the time zone of your business unit. |
| Prospect Webinar | ✔ | X | Available only with a verified webinar connector on Account Engagement. |
| Visitor Google Analytics Parameter | ✔ | X | Evaluates all visitor records related to a prospect for the presence of Google Analytics parameters. |
| Visitor Hostname | ✔ | X |
Source: Automation Rule Criteria and Engagement Program Rules on Salesforce Help.
Right off the bat, you’ll notice in the table above that Engagement Programs is limited in the amount of prospect data it can check against, especially if it’s not directly on the prospect profile details (i.e. account fields, opportunity fields, search queries, form submissions).
However, if you’re still keen on using Engagement Programs in these cases, you can consider this workaround of using dynamic segmentation lists that access these rules and use the list to feed prospects into your Engagement Program.
3. Identify the Actions You’ll Need To Apply
Next question: what needs to happen to the prospects once they meet the criteria you defined previously?
Here is a list of actions you can (or cannot) apply to prospects, depending on if you’re using Automation Rules or Engagement Programs:
| ACTION | Automation Rules | Engagement Studio Program |
|---|---|---|
| Add Prospect to List | ✔ | ✔ |
| Add Prospect to Salesforce Campaign | ✔ | ✔ |
| Adjust Prospect Score | ✔ | ✔ |
| Adjust Prospect Score for Scoring Category | ✔ | X |
| Allow Deleted CRM Lead or Contact to Recreate from Account Engagement | ✔ | X |
| Apply Tags | ✔ | ✔ |
| Assign Prospect to Queue | ✔ | ✔ |
| Assign Prospect to User | ✔ | ✔ |
| Assign Prospect to User in Group | ✔ | ✔ |
| Assign Prospect via Salesforce Active Assignment Rule | ✔ | X |
| Change Profile Criteria | ✔ | X |
| Set Prospect’s First Touch Campaign | ✔ | X |
| Change Prospect Custom Field Value | ✔ | X |
| Change Prospect Default Field Value | ✔ | ✔ |
| Change Prospect Profile | ✔ | X |
| Clear Prospect Field Value | ✔ | ✔ |
| Create Salesforce Task | ✔ | ✔ |
| Do Not Sync With CRM | ✔ | X |
| External Actions | X | ✔ |
| Increment Prospect Field Value | ✔ | X |
| Mark as Reviewed | ✔ | X |
| Notify Assigned User | ✔ | ✔ |
| Notify User | ✔ | ✔ |
| Remove Prospect From List | ✔ | ✔ |
| Prospect Tags | ✔ | ✔ |
| Send Prospect Email | ✔ | ✔ |
Source: Automation Rule Actions and Engagement Program Actions on Salesforce Help
Again, you can see that Engagement Programs also have more limitations on actions you can apply to the prospect when you compare it directly to Automation Rules.
4. Time to Build
Are the available criteria and actions on Engagement Studio sufficient for your marketing automation? If the answer is yes, let’s go back to the list you should have by now:
- The Automation Rules you would like to combine (if applicable)
- The static or dynamic segmentation list you’ll need for your program
- The entry criteria for the automation
- The action that should be applied to the prospect
A good example of a series of Automation Rules that could potentially be converted to an Engagement Program would be an event’s RSVP and attendance (see below), where it would impact the same list of users. This means users who filled a particular form, but there are additional criteria which “branch out” depending on whether users RSVP-ed yes or no, and if they attended or not.
Automation Rule Details
#1: Event RSVP Yes Automation
Rules
Prospect Custom Field – 2024 Office Event RSVP – is – Yes
AND
Prospect form – 2024 Office Event Form – was completed successfully
Action
Send Prospect Email – Thank you for your RSVP!
Add prospect to list – 2024 Office Event – RSVP Yes
#2: Event RSVP No Automation
Rules
Prospect Custom Field – 2024 Office Event RSVP – is – No
AND
Prospect form – 2024 Office Event Form – was completed successfully
Action
Send Prospect Email – We’re sorry you can’t make it!
Add prospect to list – 2024 Office Event – RSVP No
#3: Event Attendance True Automation
Rules
Prospect Custom Field – 2024 Office Event Attendance – is – Yes
Action
Send Prospect Email – Thank you for your coming to our event!
Apply Tags – 2024-Office-Event-attendee
Create Salesforce Task (assigned to Assigned User)
#4: Event Attendance False Automation
Rules
Prospect Custom Field – 2024 Office Event Attendance – is – No
AND
Prospect Custom Field – 2024 Office Event RSVP – is – Yes
Action
Send Prospect Email – We’re sorry you couldn’t make it!
You can now design your Engagement Studio Program as follows:
Things to Note:
- As a first step, you should create a dynamic list of prospects that match the criteria “Prospect form – 2024 Office Event Form – was completed successfully”. This ensures that every customer who fills up your form is accounted for.
- The Email Open step is another workaround that forces the program to “wait” for a designated number of days – this can be either edited or removed once the event is over to allow the prospects to flow to the next step.
5. Test, Test, Test
One of Engagement Studio’s key features is the “Test” tab, which lets you test each decision node in your program to ensure it works as expected.
6. Lastly… Start Your Engagement Program!
Once you’ve finished testing every possible scenario and everything works as expected in the “Test” tab, you can start your program and, if applicable, pause your Automation Rule(s) too.
If you still want to make edits, you can go ahead and pause the program, make your changes, and then ‘un-pause’ when you’re done!
Summary
In a nutshell, there are plenty of distinctions between Automation Rules and Engagement Studio Programs. However, it’s important to note that each rule has its time and place.
With many more criteria and actions available for your perusal, Automation Rules may still be a more favored option for automation in Account Engagement.
While there may be some limitations, Engagement Studio programs also have much more to offer beyond running email drip programs. Not to mention, they can be a lifesaver if you need to navigate the limit on Automation Rules.
Thankfully, you do not need to use one or the other exclusively. These are just two of the many tools that you have in your Account Engagement toolbox – use them wisely!