Even though we’re in the midst of a warm summer, it’s time to start thinking about the Salesforce Winter ’20 Release! More specifically, what features and Enhancements will be delivered for Pardot Winter ‘20. With a huge amount of technical resource assigned to the Pardot product development, the Pardot deliver plenty of new features with each release cycle – and of course, this announcement is no exception!
The Release Date for Winter ‘20 will depend on your instance of Salesforce, but the main dates are on Oct 5th, 11th & 12th – but don’t forget sandbox previews either! I highly recommend reading this quick guide to release and pre-release access. Don’t forget that Pardot has double the number of releases that the core Salesforce platform does, so the Pardot August release is arriving even sooner (August 21st).
This release covers the nice 9 treats that will be delivered by the end of the year, grouped into broad categories: Content Management, Einstein Behavior Score, Engagement History, and other Reporting goodies.
#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.
Summary
It’s no surprise that the Winter ’20 release will be a bumper one for Pardot, as I heard a huge amount of technical resource is assigned to B2B Marketing product development – focusing on bringing Pardot on to the Salesforce core platform and bolstering B2B Marketing Analytics.
To finish up, here’s the link to the Salesforce Winter ‘20 Release Notes. Totalling 540 pages, it’s some light beach-side reading!
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