Marketers

Pardot (Account Engagement) Release Archive: 2017-2023

By Lucy Mazalon

Winter ’22

Winter ‘22 is a bumper release for Salesforce generally, and there are plenty of juicy updates for Pardot, too – ooh yes, this was a big one.

This release gaves us more drag-and-drop capabilities (!), Slack connectivity, mailability insight, and more. Salesforce has grouped the new features and enhancements into categories (eg. “Marketer experience”, “Data and Content”, and “Manage and Extend Pardot”), however, I’ve gone ahead and ranked which entries appeal more to the average Pardot marketer.

1. Drag-And-Drop Landing Page Editor for Pardot

The Pardot community has been teased with this for some time, finally, a no-code, modern landing page builder is here!

The Lightning email builder release gave us a taste for an easier, faster, building experience. The landing page builder will work in the same way – a components-based builder, which means blocks such as buttons, images, forms are available. Compared to the ‘Classic’ landing page builder, the new experience will make aligning blocks, and brand customization easier.

  • Build landing pages inside the Lightning Experience.
  • Users can start from saved templates/select approved images from Salesforce CMS.
  • Landing Page Source field: displays which LPs were built in the new experience/in Pardot Classic (image below)
  • If you are using the drag-and-drop email editor, you can start straight away with landing pages.
READ MORE: Top Features of the Pardot Landing Page Builder

Details

2. “Slack Notification” Completion Actions (Beta)

Yes, you read that correctly – Pardot completion actions will tap into Slack, to send notifications to sales/marketing users when a key prospect activity happens.

READ MORE: Connect Pardot to Slack: Notify a Slack Channel

This comes at an interesting time. Following Salesforce’s acquisition of Slack (completed recently), the community anticipated big Slack-related announcements. Plus, email notifications are feeling a little tired, considering Slack is where most teams expect to get alerts (not their inbox). Another downside to email notifications in Pardot, is how much information appears (not customizable).

Users will receive a snapshot of key prospect data, and admins can customize the text!

  • A Slack app will connect to Pardot, with a Slack connector in Pardot.
  • Slack channels can be selected/deselected.
  • “Notify Slack channel” appears as a completion action option.

Note: this is in beta, which means you need to opt in first (via Pardot settings).

3. Use Lightning Experience Emails in Engagement Programs

Another big win for marketers! Now, you can “push” emails built in the Lightning (drag-and-drop) email builder for use in Engagement Studio programs. This plugs a huge gap that Pardot users were quick to grumble about when the new email builder was first released.

  • An “Activate for automations” quick action will appear on the email content record,
  • For each Engagement Studio “send email” action, you can enter the campaign, sender, and reply-to settings to use (nice! Previously, this was defined on the template level, which meant duplicating templates to tweak these settings).
  • Users will need the “Activate Email for Automation” system permission.

Details

4. Create Custom Components for the Email Content Builder

Pardot’s drag-and-drop builder uses components (reusable blocks) – you’ll be familiar with the standard ones (image, button, etc) – now you’ll have the opportunity to add custom ones.

Custom components could make your email content more engaging. While there haven’t aren’t any examples currently, you can look at other interactive email examples, which is what I suspect Pardot is hinting to.

I haven’t included an image of the code (it’s not that sexy).

You may be asking how? Developers who are familiar with Javascript (a widespread, platform-agnostic coding language) will pick up Lightning Web Component skills quickly, and Salesforce Developers in your internal team/at your consulting partner will almost certainly be proficient in Lightning Web Components (LWC).

Details

5. Prospect Mailability Insights (Generally Available)

You may have heard about the significant changes to how prospect mailability works – in other words, the fields that determine whether a prospect will receive your email, or not.

Here are the key facts:

  • All prospect records include a ‘mailability’ section
  • Update prospect mailability and opt-in status using Pardot automation (automation rules, prospect imports, and Engagement Studio programs).
  • Do Not Email field and the Opt Out field are decoupled. Now they operate independently, which reiterates that these fields should be used by different parties (ie. being controlled by the prospect themselves vs. an internal user).
  • Pardot Administrator or Marketing users can reset Bounce counts on prospect records.
READ MORE: What is a Mailable Prospect in Pardot? Do Not Email vs. Email opt-out

6. Einstein Key Account Identification (Generally Available)

Einstein Key Account Identification “uses AI to surface the accounts with the highest likelihood to purchase” within your Salesforce org. You could say this new feature is Pardot Einstein Behavior Score at the account level (vs. the individual), and Pardot score on steroids.

READ MORE: Salesforce Einstein Key Account Identification: Grade Accounts With AI
  • The Einstein tier and insights will appear on the account record.
  • Add the “Tier” field to list views. Use the sort functionality in list views to rank accounts quickly.

Note: available for Pardot Advanced or Premium editions.

Details

7. New and Updated Pardot User Permissions

With the mailability updates (point #5) you’ll be pleased to know that there are additional user permissions that will enable admins and marketers to update prospect mailability (and also restrict users who aren’t permitted to).

  • New user permissions: Update Do Not Email field, Reset hard bounce count, and Reset soft bounce count.
  • “Toggle Opt In Status” → now Update Opted Out field.
  • Which permissions are enabled by default, for who?Pardot Administrator and Marketing user roles include “Update Do Not Email field”, “Reset hard bounce count”, and “Reset soft bounce count” (by default)
  • Pardot Administrator user role also includes “Update Opted Out field” (and is available for custom user roles).
  • Sales user roles include the “Update Do Not Email field” permission for prospects assigned to them only.

Read more…

8. Pardot API Updates (+ Trailhead Modules!)

Last month, we gushed over how great the developer.salesforce.com (the website for Salesforce Developers) looks following its big refresh. And what’s more, Pardot Developer documentation is included alongside all Salesforce (and its extended platform), no longer separate on its own site.

One standout is the “Developer Centers”, which pull together the documentation, dev tools (eg. Salesforce CLI, VS Code), code samples, Trailhead modules, and more.

New Trailhead modules to get to grips with the Pardot API:

(I will definitely be jumping into Trailhead to earn these badges!)

There are other Pardot API Version 5 changes (support for pagination, new endpoint for External Activity).

Read more…

Other Updates

  • Customize Prospect Unsubscribe and Resubscribe Page Content
  • View IP Address for Prospect Activities in Pardot: hover over a prospect’s activity to view. Create more effective visitor activity filters, eg. you notice a lot of test clicks coming from a single IP, you can filter out that activity.
  • Farewell to Pardot Classic app/tab: scheduled for retirement in all Salesforce orgs by October 17, 2022 (it will no longer be available for new accounts from October 11, 2021). This is not to be confused with retiring Pardot’s legacy application of pi.pardot.com which is remaining intact and accessible to all customers 
  • See Segmentation Prospect Lists ‘update at’ and ‘updated by’ on list views (the page you land on when you click on the tab).
  • Unarchived Dynamic Lists retain the prospects that were part of the list before it was archived.
  • Essentially, the Dynamic Lists are frozen when they are sent to the Recycle Bin.
  • Bring your own encryption keys to Pardot: add a layer of security to your Pardot account, and quickly destroy your data in a compliance emergency.
  • Plan for Pardot Drip Program retirement: remember Drip programs? There may still be some lurking in older Pardot accounts. If you want to keep them, convert them to Engagement Studio programs before the Summer ‘22 release.

To celebrate more drag-and-drop capabilities (!), Slack connectivity, mailability insight (and more), I’ve put together a quiz so you can test how much you know about Pardot’s new features and enhancements.

Quiz time!

Give it a go, and let me know what you think!

(ps. scroll down for the full clues)

Across

2. Which marketing asset will get a new drag-and-drop builder? _ _ _ _ _ _ _   _ _ _ _ _  | Clue

4. Which month in 2022 will the Pardot Classic app/tab be retired? _ _ _ _ _ _ _Clue

7. Which field should be used by internal users as a global suppression for email? _ _   _ _ _   _ _ _ _ _ | Clue

8. The name of one “mailability status”. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Clue

9. What version is the current Pardot API? (spelled out, in letters) _ _ _ _ | Clue

11. Key Account _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  is the Einstein product that uses AI to surface the accounts with the highest likelihood to purchase within your Salesforce org. | Clue

Down

1. Where can you now learn more about the Pardot API? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Clue

3. “_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  for automations” is the name of the new quick action on email content records that will “push” emails built in the Lightning email experience to Engagement Studio. | Clue

5. Name of the new section on prospect records. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Clue

6. Pardot Administrator or Marketing users can reset what on prospect records? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Clue

10. The collaboration platform Pardot completion actions will be able to send notifications to. _ _ _ _ _ | Clue

Summer ’21

This release put an emphasis on Einstein (AI-driven features), how marketers can leverage the Account object, mailability insight, and more. Salesforce grouped the new features and enhancements into categories (eg. “Marketer experience”, “Data and Analytics”…) – however, I’ve went ahead and ranked which entries I consider the most important for the average Pardot marketer.

1. Einstein Send Time Optimization

We heard rumours about this new feature at the tail end of last year, and now it’s arrived!

You now have three options available to choose from when an email should be sent: a) send now, b) send at a specific time and date, or c) let the technology crunch the numbers based on past engagement data from your database. While this has been the case in other email marketing platforms for some time, I really welcome this addition to Pardot.

Yes, let Einstein decide when your emails should be sent. You have a ton of flexibility because it’s in your hands when the sending time frame should be; within that, Einstein can experiment on your behalf (as little as 3 hours, up to 7 days!)

Any Pardot customer can take advantage of this – so why hesitate? Note, a couple of considerations:

  • The “Einstein Optimized” option will appear after 72 hours (give or take)
  • You must be using the new Lightning Email Builder (Pardot’s new email send experience)
READ MORE: Einstein Send Time Optimization for Pardot [Infographic]

2. Prospect Mailability Improvements

“Get more visibility on Prospect mailable status” is the hook. Safe to say, it does deliver on a promise of answering “will a Prospect receive my email?”

As soon as I read this entry, I immediately resonated with it, throwback to the numerous times I had to troubleshoot mailability ‘issues’, or explain how the ‘Do Not Email’ and ‘Opted Out’ fields work together.

READ MORE: What is a Mailable Prospect in Pardot? Do Not Email vs. Email opt-out

You will now be able to view:

  • A clear, practical status (eg. ‘Transaction Email Only’ if the prospect is opted out but not marked as ‘Do Not Email’).
  • Email uniqueness: ie. if this is the only Prospect with this email address in your Pardot database (useful for insight following the duplication nightmare AMPSEA bought for many people).
  • If a bounce has been detected, and whether that was a hard or soft bounce (which have different implications, as we know)

To enable this extra insight, click on the notification banner when you see it appear on your Pardot dashboard:

Details: Get More Clarity and Control on Email Marketing Settings

3. Designate a Salesforce Marketing Admin

Since Pardot began to transition on to the core Salesforce platform (and the release of the Pardot Lightning App), some Pardot Admins/super users have been concerned about losing control over Pardot administration. Now using Salesforce Setup to handle Pardot setup tasks, the permissions required meant having the same power as the Salesforce Admin – ‘all or nothing’. This is a valid security concern for some organizations.

Now, Pardot Admins can be given sufficient system permissions to do Pardot setup and administration, without having the full scope of the System Administrator profile. The Pardot Admin regains control, the Salesforce Admin can work without the burden of Pardot Administration – win win.

A new ‘Marketing Admin’ permission* will have full access to Marketing Setup and Pardot configuration pages.

*(in combination with the ‘View Setup’ permission)

Details

Above: the Marketing Setup App in Salesforce (arrived as part of the Spring ’21 release)

4. Einstein Key Account Identification

Salesforce didn’t keep the Einstein Key Account Identification release secret, in fact, it’s already made quite a splash around the media circuit.

READ MORE: Salesforce Einstein Key Account Identification: Grade Accounts With AI

Einstein Key Account Identification uses AI to surface the accounts with the highest likelihood to purchase within your Salesforce org. “You could say this new feature is Pardot Einstein Behavior Score at the account level (vs. the individual), and Pardot score on steroids” was my first thought.

Key facts:

  • “Einstein Account Tier”: introducing a new score which uses letters, similar to Pardot grading.
  • Likelihood to covert: Einstein indicates how likely it is that the account will have an opportunity created in the next six months (eg. “3x more likely to convert”, shown in the image below)
  • Einstein Scoring card insights: information on contributing factors (impact of data such as their industry, or recent engagement) – in other words, the ‘why’ behind the Account Tier.

Now, you have the option to try out the beta functionality by enabling it from Salesforce Setup. Note that it will take “a few days for Einstein to build your custom model, based on account data from your org and supplemental data from the public web”.

5. Accounts as Campaign Members

What are Pardot product development’s top priorities? Often the first priority mentioned is enhancing account-based marketing (ABM), being able to take a view of all marketing activity at the account level, and not solely at the individual prospect level. The product is moving in this direction, as a core differentiator/value sell against competitors.

Now you can add an Account to a Salesforce Campaign (in addition to Leads and Contacts, as has always been the case).

READ MORE: 8 Ways to Add Leads to Salesforce Campaigns as Campaign Members

This feature set includes:

  • “Add Account” button on Campaigns,
  • Campaign History related lists on Accounts,
  • Changes to the Campaigns and Campaign Members report type.
  • And… Pardot have an extra trick up their sleeve – Marketers can add an account to a campaign even before the account has any contacts. When contacts are added to the account, they will also be added to the campaign.

6. Dynamic Content List Views (New ID Column)

When inserting Dynamic Content into an email, the merge field contains a reference. How do you relate the ID in the email merge field, to the Dynamic Content record itself? Quick answer: using the ID field, a new column on the Dynamic Content List Views!

It may not seem like much at first glance but the alternative is unattractive, either sifting through your Dynamic Content records (or URL hacking, a hack I relied on a lot!). Here it is in action:

7. Object Sync for Pardot (OSP)

Tableau CRM (AKA. B2B Marketing Analytics)

Object Sync for Pardot (OSP) is generally available (previously referred to as ‘Pardot Object Sync’ when it was in Beta). OSP, in a nutshell, optimises your dataset performance in Tableau CRM by syncing only the data you need across to Tableau CRM.

There have been multiple enhancements and fixes since the Spring ‘21 release, such as all visitor activity data now included in the B2BMktVisitor object (previously only the first and last interactions were available), and being selective about which Business Units you fetch data from.

Details: Updates and how to use the B2B Marketing Analytics app templates.

8. Pardot API: Improved Documentation

The documentation has had a significant rework (4,891 additions and 3,085 deletions!) which included updated code samples and newly documented endpoints.

Sink your teeth into it here.

Bonus Features and Changes:

  • Salesforce CMS setup improvements: we heard across the community that this was the trickiest item during the setup for the new Lightning Email Builder. A new default CDN domain for public channels will mean you don’t need to rely on your website admin or domain registrar/website hosting provider to complete your setup (image below).
  • Changes to Engagement Studio Metrics Formulas: the metrics you will see appear in the Engagement Studio tooltips are now based on delivered emails only. Before, your metrics were at risk of being skewed with any undelivered emails (which deceptively hindered your email open rates).
  • List Email Reporting Pages: some labels have changed, pie charts are now donut charts. Hopefully, this isn’t a dealbreaker for you (personally, I’ve always preferred a donut over a pie chart). The reason behind this is Einstein Send Optimization coming onto the scene (and no doubt building a stronger foundation for the future of email, as a result).
  • Mark List Emails as Operational: you can now do this in the Pardot Lightning App.
  • Faster load time for List Email Statistics: these tables will default to the last 30 days. You can extend the timeframe from there.
Above: the new default CDN domain for public channels when setting up Salesforce CMS, required for the Lightning Email Builder.

Spring ’21

If you thought Salesforce couldn’t squeeze in more before the year comes to an end – you were wrong!

This release puts an emphasis on reusability with cloning capabilities for campaign assets and emails, updates that bring the Lightning email builder up to parity with the legacy (classic) Pardot email builder, and more. As is practically tradition now, I will give you a run-down of what I think is important for Pardot admins and users to note.

1. Quickly Clone Campaigns with Related Assets

Marketing assets (emails, landing pages, forms, files, marketing links, snippets) as records in their own right, can be related to Salesforce campaigns. You see these appearing on related lists on the Salesforce campaign.

In the spirit of user productivity by replicating campaigns, the ability to clone a campaign, and all the marketing assets in one go was sorely missing. Also known as ‘deep clone’, now it’s possible to copy everything at once – or select/deselect which asset types – so you are ready to launch a repeat campaign immediately.

Source: Salesforce release notes

Clone an Email Content Record to Save Time: similarly, you can clone emails (email content name, description, template, and HTML content) delivering parity with the legacy (classic) Pardot email builder.

2. Prospect Activity Data with First-Party Tracking (Generally Available)

Pardot (and other marketing automation platforms) used third-party cookies to track prospect activity. Pardot were acting as the third-party between your organisation and the prospect. There’s been a shift in the industry to first-party cookies born out of browsers not trusting third-party cookies (and therefore suppressing prospect activity tracking for some prospects). Read this overview on the Spot for Pardot to learn more using a solid analogy.

After a successful beta, first-party tracking has now been opened up for general release – so get on to updating your tracker domains!

READ MORE: Cookieless Future + Salesforce Marketing Data

3. Two-Click Unsubscribe

The unsubscribe link in an email is quite dangerous, when you think about it. Once that link is clicked, the prospect is opted out.

Now prospects will need to confirm they intentionally unsubscribed. Not only will this mean prospects have to ‘jump through two hoops’ to unsubscribe (reducing accidental human clicks) but also it will prevent ‘automatic unsubscribes’, clicks on the link as bots carry out their scan for spammy links. This will mean one less type of ‘weird clicks’ that users will see on email reports.

You can also customise the message, shown below from the Pardot back-end view:

Source: Salesforce release notes

4. Specify a Link for Completion Actions in Pardot Emails

During the first months the Lightning email experience has been in general availability there was plenty of feedback – one that I heard often was completion actions based on link clicks (‘When a prospect clicks in this email — to this action’) were not tied to a specific link click in the email. Instead of being able to set the completion action to only fire when the key link was clicked (ie. your email’s CTA) it would fire for any link click.

Now it’s possible to single out a specific link from your email to only take the action on a meaningful link click (which again, brings the Lightning email experience in parity with the legacy (classic) Pardot email builder).

Source: Salesforce release notes

5. Create Reports for Email Content in Salesforce

With Pardot new and existing Pardot objects syncing with actual Salesforce records (not just read-only data as it was previously), we have been able to leverage Salesforce reports and dashboard to report on the data. It’s amazing to have the feature-rich, flexible, and intuitive Lightning report builder at our fingertips to pull Pardot reports.

You can now create a custom report type for the ‘Email Content’ object to show engagement statistics by email content record (a roll-up of all list emails related to the email content). You can see a similar example I built for landing pages:

READ MORE: How to Build a Pardot Landing Page Overview Report in Salesforce

6. Track Accounts as Campaign Members (Beta)

What are Pardot product development’s top priorities? Often the first priority mentioned is enhancing account-based marketing (ABM), being able to take a view of all marketing activity at the account level, at not solely at the individual prospect level. The product is moving in this direction, as a core differentiator/value sell against competitors.

This feature set includes related lists, “Add account” button on campaigns, and changes to the Campaigns and Campaign Members report type.

READ MORE: Accounts as Campaign Members with Salesforce (and Pardot, MCAE)

7. Pardot API V5 Generally Available

The Pardot API V5 involved a complete rebuilding of the Pardot API using modern best practices. There will be more Pardot objects available via the API (namely the newer marketing asset objects) and will use asynchronous methods, which is best for performing actions such as exporting large amounts of data (because other processes aren’t halted while the process completes, which is the case in synchronous methods).

We heard during the TTTC Live session that the recent work on the Pardot API will pave the way for AppExchange (third-party vendors) apps to fulfill these requirements from Pardot customers.

See also: Pardot API: New and Changed Items

8. Pardot Object Sync – Custom Field Sync (Beta)

Pardot Object Sync as a dataset to use in B2BMA (which is now Tableau CRM) is still in beta and is being enhanced some more. “Now your standard and custom fields are available as a single Prospect dataset, and you can choose which custom fields to bring into Tableau CRM.”

Bonus: New Salesforce Marketing Setup App

There’s a new dedicated set up area for marketers in Salesforce – you can see how it’s accessed below. This will give marketers easy access to some Pardot admin capability, such as the Pardot guided set up paths and other feature activation pages:

Source: Salesforce release notes

Don’t Forget! Pardot User Authentication is Being Retired

You may remember the stir that June’s Salesforce feature retirement notice caused? Salesforce announced the end of life for Pardot-only Logins on February 15, 2021. From that date onwards, all users logging into Pardot must use Salesforce’s single sign-on (SSO). If you still need Pardot-only users, you will need to transition those users to a Salesforce Identity License ASAP. Put it high on your new year to-do list – don’t leave it until the last minute!

READ MORE: Changes to Pardot Login and Salesforce Identity Licenses

Additional Features and Changes:

Marketing Cloud Releases

Releases for Salesforce Marketing Cloud are on a different schedule to core Sales Cloud and Pardot. The most recent release (October 2020), included Customer 360 Audiences, Sandbox for Datorama, Datorama Media Planning Center, Einstein for Marketing Cloud Enhancements, and more.

Winter ’21

1. Lightning Email Builder for Pardot (Drag-and-drop Experience)

This has been the most highly anticipated release over the past few years (along with Pardot Sandboxes).

Introducing “Email in Lightning”, part of the new Content Builder in Salesforce Lightning. Here’s an overview of how email content is being transformed:

  • New email builder (drag-and-drop interface),
  • Preview and test capabilities,
  • New send experience: send and resend it from the email content record to different segments (more info later),
  • Report on individual email sends, multiple email sends from the same email, and email templates (more info later).

The amazing part to this story is that Salesforce have tied together the release for Pardot marketers with the new builder for the whole Lightning platform, therefore unifying any email template building experience in Salesforce!

Source: Compose Emails with the New Lightning Content Builder

New Lightning Email Builder Features

  • Drag-and-drop interface to resize and move blocks (up, down, left, right).
  • Reusable components, eg. buttons, images, HTML.
  • Store and fetch images from Salesforce CMS (‘Select from CMS’) – an end to Pardot or external file hosting (available in all Pardot editions).

Source: Source Images from Salesforce CMS for Lightning Content Builder

How to find the Lightning Email Content Builder

Once your org is Winter ’21 enabled, you will be able to access ‘Email Content’ from the Salesforce App Launcher.

Each email will exist as a Salesforce record (Email Content record). The ‘Edit in Builder’ action (button) will take you to the builder.

Source: Compose Emails with the New Lightning Content Builder

Prerequisites:

  • Verified Salesforce-Pardot Connector
  • Have Connected Campaigns enabled
  • Have Handlebars Merge Language (HML) enabled.

2. New Pardot Email Test and Send Experience

New ‘Preview as’ and ‘Test’ actions will (hopefully) be an improvement from email render test, especially in terms of speed:

Source: Preview and Test an Email in Lightning Experience

The send experience does have a similar layout to Pardot’s classic email builder, with the addition of the ‘Campaign’ search bar (where you define which campaign this email send should relate to).

When using the Lightning Email Content Builder, you will be able to send and resend the email content faster, and in a less messy way. This is a great to test sends to different prospect segments.

Source: Define the Send Experience for Email in Lightning

3. Pardot Email Reporting Revamp

As I mentioned, each email will exist as a Salesforce record (Email Content record). You will find popular email reporting KPIs in the ‘Engagement Metrics’, such as click through rate, opt out rate etc.

These fields will aggregate (add up or average depending on the metric) the results of all email sends for an email template (available with all Pardot editions).

READ MORE: Add the Engagement Metrics Component: See Pardot Campaign Performance [Tutorial]

Source: Review Aggregate Email Metrics in Lightning Experience

4. Resync Prospects: Mass Update After Sync Errors

As a long-term Pardot consultant who has been tasked with resolving prospect sync error queues, having only two option to resync prospects once errors were cleared (either one-by-one or via import) was a big headache.

‘Resync Prospects’ will be available as an action when you mass select prospects in the sync error list:

Source: Sync Prospects with Resolved Errors More Easily

5. Pardot Object Sync Improvements (B2B Marketing Analytics) – Beta

This new way of syncing prospect data to B2BMA promises to speed up sync times, especially data in custom prospect fields.

“Pardot Object Sync works by copying your custom prospect data into a new dataset. It improves performance in the Analytics platform because the prospect data can be updated separately from other large datasets.”

Source: Get Prospect Custom Field Data Faster (Beta)

6. Success Milestones for Pardot Einstein Attribution

Pardot Einstein Attribution aims to solve the gaps left in campaign attribution as a result of contacts not being associated with Salesforce opportunities and campaigns properly. It’s a recent addition to the platform (Summer ’20), and it’s great to see more being added to this flagship feature.

READ MORE: Pardot Einstein Attribution: A Deeper Dive

Now, you can choose an opportunity stage as a ‘success milestone’, which means that you can set a stage that your business considers a major checkpoint in the opportunity lifecycle (as opposed to the default milestone – when an opportunity is created). Good if you don’t consider opportunity creation an important event in terms of marketing attribution.

7. WordPress Pardot Plugin Updates

The Pardot WordPress Plugin has a couple of notable updates if you are using it:

READ MORE: Benefits of Connecting Pardot with WordPress

Extra Features

Summer ’20

The Summer ’20 preview release notes have been dropped, and oh my – I knew that this release was going to be big for Pardot, but the amount of new features and apps is jaw-dropping. The full release notes are 530 pages long – but don’t worry, I have pulled out the most important things to know about Pardot updates: the ‘wow’ factor announcements, B2B Marketing Analytics enhancements, sexy Pardot Einstein releases, and other miscellaneous updates.

Here are the announcements with ‘wow’ factor from the release:

  • Pardot Sandboxes
  • Add to Pardot Lists and Engagement Studio Programs Buttons
  • Upgrade to Salesforce Connector v2
  • Manage Pardot Users in Salesforce
  • Engagement Data on Opportunities

1. Pardot Sandboxes

Yes, this may have been the day you’ve been waiting for: Developer Sandboxes for Pardot have arrived. Sandboxes function as test or staging environments, where you can build and test configuration without risking anything going horribly wrong and disrupting business operations.

As a copy of your organisation’s live environment (production), you can simulate things like new automation, integrations using the Pardot API, or feature updates to ensure you are happy with the results before launching it live.

The Sandbox will function like a regular business unit, which can be spun up from a full Salesforce Sandbox. Hold up! While this is big news, don’t get carried away until you’ve read the small print about your eligibility – you must have Pardot Advanced edition (or Pardot Premium with the v2 connector) (full considerations here).

Take a look at the Pardot Sandbox infographic to discover the what, how, who and when.

2. Upgrade to Salesforce Connector v2

The Salesforce v2 connector for Pardot is easier to setup, offers easier (better) control over data syncing, and doesn’t require a user license as a ‘connector user’ – in short, v2 went out on a mission to solve the biggest pain points of the v1 connector.

Now you can ‘upgrade’ your connector to take advantage.

See the full comparison chart.

3. Manage Pardot Users in Salesforce

Salesforce User Sync (now available for 3 years) keeps Salesforce user profiles in sync with Pardot user roles. The new enhancement will mean that Admins will manage a single user record in Salesforce, where they can ‘assign’ a user to Pardot. The big difference is that a user record doesn’t have to be created twice in both Salesforce and Pardot, avoiding the duplication of work that was required before.

Read the release notes for instructions on how you should enable this because the steps you need to follow will depend on whether you have already enabled Salesforce User Sync, or not.

4. Engagement History Dashboard for Opportunities

Have you seen Engagement History Dashboards? If you haven’t, where have you been hiding?!

Engagement History Dashboards are out-of-the-box dashboards that you can embed in Salesforce Lightning pages that show campaign performance over time – from the campaign perspective, account, and now opportunity too!

Add the Engagement History Dashboard to Opportunities to see:

  • Prospect activity of related contacts*,
  • Details about the associated campaigns,
  • A list of recent activity of related contacts*.

*’Related contacts include both Opportunity Contact Roles or any contact related to the account.

What I love about Engagement History Dashboards is that they give a slice of analytics to organisations that don’t have B2B Marketing Analytics, or bring Analytics closer to users that haven’t explored the full Analytics platform yet.

Release notes details here.

B2B MARKETING ANALYTICS (B2B MA)

  • B2B Marketing Analytics Setup Path
  • Pardot Dataflows Easy Interface
  • Retiring B2B Marketing Analytics Legacy Apps

Note: B2B Marketing Analytics is only available with Pardot Advanced edition, or as an add-on.

5. B2B Marketing Analytics Setup Path

Nice one, Pardot! The setup steps and process for B2B MA has evolved since its launch 2+ years ago which has caused some contradictions in documentation. Looking forward, a setup assistant built in to the Salesforce setup interface will be the source of truth to guide Admins through a logical ‘path’, “instead of comparing help articles to figure out what comes next”, as Salesforce themselves put it.

Here’s a preview of the slimmed-down implementation path:

Release notes details here.

6. Pardot Dataflows Easy Interface

Note: this change is available for the B2B Marketing Analytics Plus add-on.

In a nutshell: an easy interface to create datasets. Access and customize datasets by seeing which fields flow into your datasets, and selecting/deselecting which fields to include.

Release notes details here.

7. Retiring B2B Marketing Analytics Legacy Apps

Have you been using B2B Marketing Analytics for a long time? Do some of your datasets predate B2B Marketing Analytics app templates? If yes, you need to migrate your apps to B2B Marketing Analytics 2.0.

Check if this applies to you, and some recommended steps to follow here.

PARDOT EINSTEIN

These are certainly the most ‘sexy’ features of the Pardot Summer ‘20 release, and worth reading about even if you don’t use Pardot Einstein – you may even be swayed to upgrade, and make the leap.

  • Pardot Einstein Attribution
  • Marketing Campaign Intelligence App

Note: Pardot Einstein is only available with Pardot Advanced edition, or as an add-on.

8. Pardot Einstein Attribution

When I first heard about Einstein Attribution a few months ago, my mind was blown.

“Einstein Attribution leaves rules-based influence models in the rearview mirror”

‘Rules-based influence models’ are the first-touch/last-touch/even-touch Campaign Influence models you will familiar with. These models rely on data relationships (opportunity contact roles) and timing (Campaign History at the time of lead conversion etc.), which makes this way of measurement less accurate overall.

What does Einstein Attribution aim to do? Essentially, Einstein Attribution will override rules-based attribution, and pick up gaps in attribution using a AI data-driven model that “attributes revenue share based on your actual customers, their engagement, and your successes”. It’s an additional Campaign Influence model called ‘Data-Driven Model’ (and will appear in the Campaign Influence models list in Salesforce setup, alongside your other standard ones).

The star of the show is exploring the Data-Driven Model in the B2B Marketing Analytics Multi-Touch Attribution dashboard:

I could talk for longer (much longer) on this topic, but instead, I will leave that for a future blog post!

Release notes details here.

9. Marketing Campaign Intelligence App

Note: this change is available for the B2B Marketing Analytics Plus add-on.

Another stellar addition is the Marketing Campaign Intelligence App – now you can get further predictive with your Pardot data.

This app “brings two easy-to-read dashboards together in one place”:

  • Campaign Engagement dashboard: prospect engagement data from Pardot,
  • Campaign Performance dashboard: relevant campaign data from Salesforce.

The main aims of this app are:

  • To get a better view of specific relationships that are hidden within dataflows.
  • Identify the best next step for future campaigns (use Einstein Discovery Stories)

This is only scratching the surface – release notes details here. Read how B2BMA Plus is different to B2BMA.

10. Pardot API: New and Changed Items

Release notes outline updated support for the Export API, improved Visitor Activity querying, and Pardot API Authentication (removes the need for a Pardot-only user to authenticate).

Miscellaneous

  • First-Party Tracking (Beta)
  • Reuse Snippet API Names
  • Pardot Assets to Load HTTPS (May 2020)
  • Enable Person Account Syncing Yourself (May 2020)
  • Advanced Email Analytics Data Limits (May 2020)
  • Handlebars Merge Language Enabled By Default for New Accounts (May 2020)

First-Party Tracking (Beta)

I hold my hands up – I am not a cookie or web tracking expert, so I will explain this briefly, in a way that doesn’t go above my own head!

“First-party cookies are created by the host domain – the domain the user is visiting. These types of cookies are generally considered good; they help provide a better user experience and keep the session open. This basically means the browser is able to remember key pieces of information, such as which items you add to shopping carts, your username and passwords, and language preferences.”
Explained with the help of clearcode.cc

The other type is third-party cookies, which are “created by ‘parties’ other than the website that the user is currently visiting”, so its no surprise that many individuals consider these privacy infringements and threatening to overall digital security. These have been common to Marketing Automation tracking, but word on the street is that web browsers have started moving away from supporting third-party cookies (even blocking them by default) – so Pardot have launched a pilot to leap ahead of the curve to improve Prospect tracked web activity.

Release notes details here.

Reuse Snippet API Names

“Now you can use the same API Name for your snippets when you assign each snippet to a different campaign or business unit.” No doubt a nice win for organisations that went head-first in with Snippets.

Release notes details here.

Pardot Assets to Load HTTPS

May 2020 release

“When a browser requests an SSL-enabled Pardot asset over HTTP, Pardot will force redirect the request to HTTPS.”

Release notes details here.

Enable Person Account Syncing Yourself

May 2020 release

Release notes details here.

Spring ’20

1. Prospect and Engagement Activities on List Emails

Over the past few releases, Pardot have made big moves to transform the marketing assets we manage in Pardot (forms, emails, landing pages, campaigns) into Salesforce records. Thanks to Connected Campaigns and Pardot Asset sync, we can display who engaged with List Emails, when and how, effortlessly in Salesforce.

This is especially beneficial for Salesforce users, who now can see engagement from the email level (similar to the ‘Sent Email’ report in Pardot). Of course, you can take this further and use this data to build some awesome Salesforce reports – but more on that another time!

2. Engagement History Dashboard on Leads & Contacts

Have you added the Engagement History Dashboard to your Campaigns and Accounts? No? Well, make a note to do so!

We will be able to add a similar Lightning component to leads and contacts, where users can drill-down into specific assets or engagement activities (just how the other Engagement History dashboards function).

3. Account Engagement on Campaigns – plus Stronger Data Relationships

This is a nice addition to the Engagement History Dashboard on Campaigns. Based on which leads and contacts are associated to your campaign as Campaign Members, the chart totals up those activities, and splits them by account (or company, as according to the notes, this is including both leads and contacts). It takes me back to the most engaged visitors on the Pardot dashboard – how we’ve come full circle!

You don’t need to do anything, the chart will be automatically added.

Plus, new related lists will help make connections between accounts and campaigns:

  • Which accounts are related to a campaign (on the campaign view)
  • Which campaigns are related to an account (on the account view)

It’s a better view for quick insight, rather than having to pull additional reports or scroll through long lists of Campaign Members!

4. Einstein Behavior Scoring: Explore Factors & New Dashboard

Ever wondered how Salesforce determine your Einstein Behavior Scoring? Now you can find out! CRM Intelligence and data models may have once felt out of your hands, but with Spring ‘20, you will be able to explore what patterns of engagement behavior Einstein is picking up on and using to calculate that number.

Picture this dashboard: an Activity graph shows engagement behavior, eg. email clicks; by drilling down on this graph, a second Assets graph will surface the top performing assets eg. email templates for the behaviour.

5. Account-based Marketing Analytics App Template + Einstein Discovery Predictions (Pilot)

This feature, launching in Pilot, caught my eye because it involves Einstein Discovery, a tool that I have been intrigued by ever since I saw the first demo. Up until now, its affiliation with marketing products and strategy has been sparse, but this looks set to change.

There’s a focus on how to take actions that will maximise and accelerate opportunities in the pipeline. What’s the difference between this and B2B Marketing Analytics? Here’s a quick overview:

“The B2B Marketing Analytics app offers a high-level glimpse into your account-based marketing activities. The complete ABM app template gives you more control over what information to display and how [plus access to a powerful Einstein Discovery story*]”

*An Einstein Discovery story: “helps you explore relationships between a relevant metric (outcome variable) and the possible factors (explanatory variables) that are potential influencers of that metric.”

6. Business Snippets

There was a mention of ‘Business Snippets’ in the release notes, but I could not see further information on this. My guess is that this relates to Snippet sharing across Pardot Business Units which was hinted at in the Pardot Roadmap session, but I could be wrong!

I will add more information as and when it becomes available. In the meantime, here’s an introduction to Snippets.

Bonus: Sales Cadence Builder – High Velocity Sales Copies Engagement Studio

Scrolling through, I spotted the Sales Cadence Builder. This is an Email Engagement mapping tool that looks very similar to the Engagement Studio canvas and functionality, where Salesforce can listen for Engagement, then choose the next action based on prospect engagement, or lack of!

A good step in getting more people throughout the organisation thinking with a customer journey mindset!

Winter ’20

1. Snippets (Reusable Email Content)

Yes – you read that correctly! Introducing snippets: a block of text, images, or links that can be pulled into email related to the same campaign. Snippets centralise content, in practice, this means that you will only need to make the update in one place (the Snippet editor), and bam – all emails using that snippet will be updated.

  • Snippets will be a type of Marketing Asset
  • Create and edit through any connected campaign – the Snippet becomes associated with that campaign.
  • Access only through a new ‘Snippets’ tab on the Pardot Lightning App

Snippets will go a long way for managing email content across Engagement Studio programs. Here’s why: Engagement Studio can only use email templates, so the number of email templates marketers have had to create in their Pardot accounts has boomed. Keeping track of content across these disparate templates has been a real-time sponge for many teams.

Great use cases that would need reusable content blocks are:

  • Webinar date information,
  • Event locations,
  • Client testimonials.

While we wait for a revamped Email Builder (one day!), reusable snippets are a great win worth shouting about!

2. Engagement History Dashboards on Accounts

Engagement History Dashboards first came on the scene in Summer ‘19, where Admins could enable these pre-made graphs for Salesforce Campaign page layouts.

Now, these Engagement History Dashboards can be embedded on accounts too! This means that prospect engagement data with Landing Pages, List Emails, Forms, Links etc. can be looked at the account-level – almost like a lens into marketing activity for all the contacts belonging that account.

Image: an Engagement History Dashboard on a Salesforce Campaign.

Image: an Engagement History Dashboard on an account.

For an introduction to Engagement History Dashboards: Enable New Engagement History Dashboards – Get Enhanced Pardot Campaign Reporting Now

3. Engagement History – More Activity Types

Not only is Engagement History reporting going to spread across your Salesforce org – more types of Engagement data will be available to report on.

  • Current: Forms, Landing Pages, List Emails, Marketing Links (custom redirects)
  • NEW: Web page visits, Automated emails (emails send via Engagement Studio or Autoresponders).

These data types are popular because any marketing operation is recording tonnes of page views, and sending automated emails. The new data will appear on Engagement History dashboards by default, and will patch up the current visibility limitations – just like placing the missing piece of a puzzle!

4. Einstein Behavior Scoring on Assets

Einstein Behavior Score is a Pardot Einstein feature that looks at a prospect’s engagement in terms of ‘ready to buy’ behaviour. Over time, the Einstein ‘engagement model’ learns what patterns of marketing touchpoints lead to a purchase, and when it spots these positive insights with other prospects, increases their score too.

An example to illustrate: if attending a webinar led to multiple conversions and won opportunities, Einstein learns this is a good sign. When a prospect attends a webinar, Einstein bumps up their score, because they are more likely to convert into a won opportunity.
Of course, this is a simplistic example that masks the real complexity.

Advancing from slightly vague descriptions, such as this ‘Prospect’s event attendance is in the top 10% of prospects in the last year’, the Einstein Bahviour Score feedback will now tell you which specific marketing assets/tactics are driving those conversions, eg: ‘Prospect attended Product A Event’ – an event Einstein knows is key in winning opportunities.

For an introduction to Einstein Behaviour Score, check out: What is Pardot Einstein Behaviour Score? How is it Different to Prospect Scoring?

5. Einstein Behavior Score Component Visibility Settings

Following on from above, with Einstein Behavior Score getting more detail-heavy, Salesforce now give us the option to pick which score components are visible to which users.

As a refresher, there are two different AI-driven ‘scores’:

  • Einstein Lead Score = more useful for sales teams.
  • Einstein Behavior Score = more useful for marketing teams.

Set component visibility by editing Lightning Record Pages; Admins will already be familiar with this (here’s a guide on Lightning Components on Lightning Record Pages).

6. Einstein Behavior Score as a Column on Reports

Need I say more?

7. Marketing Assets as Objects in the Object Manager

Even though it doesn’t sound thrilling, this is a stepping stone for Pardot’s transition into the Salesforce core platform.

The Object Manager is the area in Salesforce setup where Admins customise objects, for example, changing page layouts, adding custom fields etc. Marketing Assets include landing pages, forms, and marketing links (custom redirects) – the assets you are now syncing to Salesforce Campaigns.

These Marketing Assets are now accessible in the Object Manager, which means an Admin can:

  • View fields
  • Edit page layouts
  • Edit ‘compact layouts’ – key fields at a glance’ for both the Salesforce mobile app and Lightning Experience)
  • Edit ‘search layouts’ – what information is displayed in search results.
  • View relationships with other objects

It doesn’t sound like we will be able to add custom fields just yet though, but perhaps we won’t be waiting much longer!

8. Einstein Campaign Insights Custom Report Type

Campaign Insights is a Pardot Einstein feature that sits as a component on Salesforce Campaign pages. Marketers have access to ‘insights’ for List Email, landing pages, forms and link clicks – an example ‘insight’ is: “High open rate on emails with a specific subject line”.

What does it mean to build a custom report type for Campaign Insights? Custom report types ‘join’ different objects together so that you can pull reports that include information on two related records – eg:

  • Which industries engaged with a high-performing campaign.
  • The location of prospects that opened an email with a specific email subject line.
  • Job titles of prospects that submitted forms in the last 30 days.

9. B2B Marketing Analytics: Prospect and Activity Data Combined

A ‘super dataset’ that pulls in engagement data and Prospect data, so that users can match activity to default or custom prospect fields.

Summer ’19

1. Engagement History Dashboards

Available for: All Pardot Editions (+ Connected Campaigns as a prerequisite)

Engagement History allows you to access prospect engagement data in Salesforce. Interactions with Pardot marketing assets are displayed on Salesforce campaigns, to give insight on key performance metrics for Landing Pages, List Emails, Forms and Links.

Now, reporting on Engagement History is getting easier. Admins will be able to enable the Engagement History Dashboard (from setup), and embed it onto Salesforce Campaign pages, like below:

Source: Summer ‘19 Preview Release Notes

Be aware that Salesforce user access to Engagement History features (including the dashboard) will be limited. The number of users that have access to Pardot features in Salesforce is limited according to your Pardot edition (Growth: 5, Plus: 10, Advanced: 20).

2. Engagement Activities in Related Lists

Available for: All Pardot Editions (+ Connected Campaigns as a prerequisite)

Following on smoothly, Engagement History on Salesforce connected campaigns gives Pardot Marketing Asset reporting a makeover. It’s a much cleaner, flexible interface to work with than was previously available in Pardot Classic, because each prospect and their level of engagement is clearly listed under each asset.

Each Pardot marketing asset related to a Salesforce Campaign becomes a record in its own right, so that Lead/Contact records can be related to the specific marketing asset, and their level of interaction – similar to how Campaign Member Statuses work. In the image you can see a Landing Page record and which Leads/Contacts have Viewed, Clicked, or submitted (‘Success’), and when.

Source: Summer ‘19 Preview Release Notes

3. Einstein Campaign Insights

“Monitor Prospect Engagement with Campaign Insights (Generally Available)”


Available for: Pardot Advanced Edition

Campaign Insights is a Pardot Einstein feature that sits as a component on Salesforce Campaign pages. Marketers have already had access to List Email Campaign Insights when the feature was in Beta, and now more asset types will be added, including landing pages, forms and link clicks.

AI-powered insights & explanations include:

  • High open rate on emails with a specific subject line
  • High engagement within a specific segment because of a form.
  • Which combination of touchpoints led to conversions

Source: Summer ‘19 Preview Release Notes

4. Einstein Behavior Scoring + Workflows / Process Builder

“Use Behavior Scoring with Workflows and Process Builder”

Available for: Pardot Advanced Edition

Einstein Behavior Scoring is another Pardot Einstein feature, that takes scoring far beyond the traditional Pardot Score. Unlike Pardot Score, Behavior Score looks at a prospect’s engagement in terms of ‘ready to buy’ behaviour, taking into account what Pardot activities led other prospects to convert at various stages. Using a number from 1-100, Leads and Contacts are scored relative to one another, so you can make quick comparison within segments and beyond (and avoid the often skewed activity scores).

Savvy lead routing can be triggered by a change in prospect score, a popular example isonce score has reached 100, to change a lead status to ‘Hot’, or notify a sales rep. But what about Behavior Score?

Using Salesforce Workflows or Process Builder has opened up a seemingly limitless number of Behavior Score automated triggers! Both of these Salesforce automation features are very powerful, because you can leverage any standard or custom criteria in your Salesforce org, and tell Salesforce to take a number of different actions when the criteria are met (eg. create a record, update a record, Post to Chatter – and others).

The image shows how Admins will select Behavior Score when building processes:

Source: Summer ‘19 Preview Release Notes

5. Switch Between Pardot Business Units

Available for: Pardot Advanced Edition (purchased or upgraded after 12th February 2019), for users created in April 2019, or after.

Pardot Business Units is new this year, to fulfill the needs of Pardot customers marketing across multiple divisions – especially big news for enterprise-level customers, where it’s a common and necessary requirement.

Previously, users could only belong to one business unit – a temporary limitation that no longer exists thanks to this release. Going forward, users can switch between Business Units easily using the dropdown menu in Pardot Settings tab in the Pardot Lightning app – like below:


Source: Switch Between Pardot Business Units

6. Two-factor Authentication for Pardot-only Users

“Make Pardot Credentials More Secure”

Two-factor Authentication (2FA) means in order to login, you need to combine the ’something you know’ (password), with ‘something you have’ (eg. Mobile phone) as an added layer of security. Many of you will be familiar with receiving a confirmation code to your mobile device – this is Two-factor Authentication at play.

The majority of Pardot users are likely to access Pardot through single sign-on (SSO) from Salesforce, especially following the release of Salesforce User Sync around this time last year. However, there will be occasions where users will not be synced with a CRM username, known as ‘Pardot-Only’ users – usually because they either don’t have a Salesforce license, or are deliberately kept as Pardot-only. Now, these users can use Two-factor Authentication too. To enable when the release is live, go to your Pardot account settings.

7. Salesforce Engage Default Templates

Available for: Salesforce Engage

Ensure your Salesforce Engage users are sending properly branded emails each time by defining and enforcing a default email template across your company.

8. ‘Overwrite Prospect Opted Out’ Setting Sync Behaviour

“Overwrite Prospect Opted Out” is a setting available on the Salesforce-Pardot connector.
There’s a change happening to how Pardot marks prospects who have opted-out, then later been opted back in.

Jess warned us about this in a previous post, which may be useful for comparing this functionality between its sometimes troublesome current state, and the way it will work in the future.

Additional FYIs

Other minor items on this release cycle:

  • Use Quick Filters on Pardot Views – to filter faster by pulling in your commonly used filters into list view sidebars (see pp. 58 of the release notes).
  • B2B Marketing Analytics Legacy App Is Retiring

Spring ’19

  • Pardot Einstein
  • Engagement Metrics on Campaigns
  • Salesforce-Pardot Selective Sync Rules
  • Custom Tracker Domains and Vanity URLs for Email Links
  • Salesforce-Pardot Setup Assistant
  • B2B Marketing Analytics Setup Assistant
  • Pardot New Languages: French, German, and Spanish
  • Engage Campaigns Email Templates Search

1. Pardot Einstein

The big bang release on the B2B marketing front – Pardot is getting the Einstein treatment!

What does this mean? AI will be injected into Pardot marketing features, and used to aggregate data, crunch the numbers, to pull out meaningful insights.

It’s part of the running “High Velocity Sales” theme, tools that can accelerate business user’s decision making, and ultimately, performance.

Pardot Einstein will come in two parts:

Einstein Behaviour Scoring:

“prospects generate a lot of data, but it’s hard to know what to do with it”.
Grades leads / contacts based on Pardot prospects’ activities, cutting out the ‘noise’ that can often skew scoring. This is a Lightning component, which needs to be added to your org to show this data.

Campaign Insights:

This brings 2 advantages:

  1. optimize your marketing assets and
  2. find new audiences. “guessing what makes prospects engage with your campaigns isn’t effective”.

Both will require some level of admin setup.

Back when Pardot Einstein was announced pre-Dreamforce, Pardot Einstein was shrouded in mystery, with very little visualisation. I pulled together examples from other Salesforce products to help visualise what Pardot Einstein might look like.
Read the post: Pardot Einstein: What We Know So Far (and some speculation!)

2. Engagement Metrics on Campaigns

Now generally available!

The Engagement Metrics Component allows you to see Marketing Asset performance directly within Salesforce Campaigns.

Previously, how campaign assets performed during a particular campaign were kept exclusively on the Pardot side. Now, with Connected Campaigns, Salesforce Campaigns are the master over Pardot Campaigns – so we can bring these important metrics into Salesforce Campaigns, showcasing the high-level performance metrics.

Read this post for more information: See your Pardot Campaign Performance Snapshot in Salesforce: add the Engagement Metrics Component!

3. Salesforce-Pardot Selective Sync Rules

This is major! We have often thought/written about our Connector User woes on the blog, as currently selective syncing of Leads/Contacts to Pardot from Salesforce is determined by the dedicated Connector User’s permissions. It wasn’t transparent and frequently misleading to those not familiar with their Connector User.

From a simple dropdown menu, you will be able to specify filters using Salesforce fields, such as Country, Record Type or Industry. You can also leverage this functionality for extra data privacy and security.

Pardot Selective Syncing

The control is placed into Pardot Admins’ hands – able to adjust the syncing rules without having Salesforce Administrator rights. Pardot Admins will be able to edit the Marketing Data Sharing settings on the Salesforce-Pardot connector from within the Pardot Lightning app interface.

4. Custom Tracker Domains and Vanity URLs for Email Links

Links contained in Pardot emails are rewritten when sent to be unique to each recipient, so that each link click can be tracked back to the specific Prospect record. Clever stuff.

However, rewritten links can often look spammy, or not ‘on brand’. It’s possible to hide these rewritten tracked links, but it’s not as easy as it could be.

Come Spring ’19, you will have full control over how these email links look – to ensure they are on-brand and generally ‘friendly’.

5. Salesforce-Pardot Setup Assistant

The Salesforce-Pardot Connector has its quirks, something I’ve got to grips with after a few years of Pardot consulting – I’m sure other consultants, admins and users can share their own stories. Which makes this next development all the more thrilling!

The new setup assistant will accelerate time-to-live by cutting out the majority of fiddly Pardot implementation steps that have tired many admins over time. Everything can be done from the Salesforce interface in one swoop. Plus, organisations that need to connect multiple Pardot accounts to one single Salesforce org will be able to do so without contacting support.

6. B2B Marketing Analytics Setup Assistant

I felt that things have been too quiet on the B2B Marketing Analytics front, especially since it was included in Pardot Pro and Advanced Editions back in the summer. After playing around with dataflows, recipes and the small matter of replication, I start to understand why organisations haven’t embarked on Analytics yet.

Just like the new connector setup assistant, time-to-analytics will be (hopefully) rapid, so more teams can break out beyond traditional Pardot reporting.

7. Pardot New Languages: French, German, and Spanish

A warm bienvenue, willkommen and bienvenido to these users.

8. Engage Campaigns Email Templates Search

Adding folders and folder permissions to Engage Template library to help narrow down which templates Sales users should use when.

Winter ’19

  • Pardot Lightning Experience
  • Prospect re-opt in
  • Salesforce Campaign Member sync.
  • Convert Engagement Programs into repeatable
  • Filter Engagement Studio Canvas by Date
  • Salesforce-Pardot Connector v.2

1. Pardot in Lightning Experience – Generally Available (GA)

It’s no secret now that Pardot is moving into the Salesforce Sales Cloud, becoming one platform. The Pardot Lightning App is coined a ‘native experience’, as Pardot has transformed with a user experience consistent with Salesforce Lightning – hence the name: Pardot Lightning App.

Previously, it has sat in the App Launcher menu as ‘Pardot Lightning Beta’ – so this name will be changed as it’s lifted out from Beta testing. So what? It’s the end of the Pardot-as-an-iframe version, which (let’s be honest) was ‘buggy’ for super users. Instead of the iframe superficial integration, the navigation now aligns with Salesforce Lightning and has been cleaned up. Many Pardot users have already had the chance to play around with this, and if your opportunity hasn’t come yet, here’s a tour around its features and UI.

2. Easily Opt In Opted-Out Prospects Synced to Salesforce – Generally Available (GA)

AKA: re-opt in/resubscribe

Yes please! There was a desperate need for this functionality – not being able to resubscribe prospects was a product flaw. The flaw was down to the Salesforce-Pardot Connector, and ironically, was designed this way to always protect the Email Opt Out field between the two platforms.

It’s the end of crazy workarounds, such as the double automation rule trick, and disabling CRM sync to opt prospects back in, which Tom Ryan details in his post. Even Salesforce say you couldn’t resubscribe prospects ‘without a fight’!

From the release note wording, it sounds like the re opt-in has to still be done by an internal user. In cases where you want to Prospects to opt back in themselves, you will need to put some automation behind your resubscribe button/field to notify the appropriate users to go in and make the change.

I think GDPR kicked off this ruckus, once everyone started auditing prospect email preferences, and closely examining their opt-out/in processes. The upside is the newfound awareness around permission-based marketing and communication preference frameworks in means we can all be trusted to override unsubscribed prospects.

The new setting is found on your Salesforce connector settings, called ‘Overwrite Prospect Opted Out field’. It’s limited to 100 prospect re-opt ins per day, per account.

3. Create Salesforce Campaign Members from Prospects

Last release, ‘Connected Campaigns’ were all the rage. Pardot campaigns became ‘connected’ to their Salesforce counterparts, sharing the same information such as name and cost values.

But there was still the problem of pushing prospects from Pardot into Salesforce Campaigns, to be created as Salesforce Campaign Members. Completion actions and automation rules did the trick, but it was time-consuming and open to human error.

Now, Prospects associated to Pardot Campaigns will automatically appear as Campaign Members on the Salesforce side – and the Pardot campaign will be marked as the ‘First Touch’ in campaign influence reporting for that Lead/Contact.

Two settings you need to enable for this are Connected Campaigns and Member Sync.

4. Convert Engagement Programs to Allow Repeat

You may have heard the wonderful news about repeating Engagement Programs, which have been an opt-in only beta feature until now. Here’s an overview on repeating Engagement Studio Programs if you want to get a flavour.

Bet that got your mind whirring about your own use cases for repeating Engagement Programs, whether that be quarterly campaigns, or a nurture track every time a prospect submits a key webform. Now you will be able to convert them into being repeatable flows. There are so many key use cases, it’s a wonder how we survived without it!  

5. Filter Engagement Studio Canvas by Date

A nice quick win, to compare Engagement Program performance over different periods in time.

6. Salesforce-Pardot Connector Version 2

This is the ‘New’ connector, and will only be available for new accounts (I’m assuming accounts activated after the Winter ‘19 release date).

What’s different?

  • No connector user required: currently, you have to set a designated connector user, and many are not aware of what this implies. The connector user appears as the user who created and edited records in Salesforce (on behalf of Pardot) and is the default assigned user where the CRM user does not exist in Pardot.
  • You can pause syncing: you can control the sync for prospects, custom objects, camp

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:

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    December 23, 2022 7:30 am
    very useful and informative post you shared here

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