Spring ’24 Release Highlights for Account Engagement (Pardot)

The Salesforce Spring ‘24 release notes have arrived (all 571 pages!). As is tradition, I’ll be covering the highlights for Account Engagement (Pardot) Admins and users.

This release features a teaser for a new email builder, the introduction of the Einstein Assistant for Account Engagement, how to protect your deliverability in light of upcoming changes enforced by Google and Yahoo, and how to create a data stream in Data Cloud to bring in email engagement data. Depending on your Salesforce instance, Spring ‘24 will arrive for you either mid-January, or the first two weeks of February 2024. Check your own release dates below:

1. New Email Builder

“Try out the new builder” are the words from Salesforce. This could be a teaser at what’s to come.

For those who have been on the Pardot/Account Engagement journey for some time, you will know that the Lightning email builder took over from the Classic email builder to offer a more modern, modular building experience. While there were big strides taken between the two, Salesforce are always striving to do better. 

So, how about you give this v3 a go? For now, starting from the weeks following the release window, Account Engagement marketers can click Edit in Builder from any email content record. You’re not committed to the newest email builder, as you can decide which experience (existing or new) you choose each time you go to edit an email.

2. Einstein Assistant for Account Engagement

2023 was the year of GPT (it rhymes nicely, doesn’t it?) Back at TDX in March, we were introduced to Einstein GPT (now Einstein 1) which opened our eyes to potential use cases for using Gen-AI technology within the Salesforce platform, including marketing use cases. 

In the months that followed, demos have become more contextual, with lifelike scenarios for Marketing Cloud’s Email Studio and Content Builder. This was all wrapped in the messaging of how to use Gen AI safely, to keep prompts in the boundaries of the Salesforce platform to not jeopardize data privacy by exposing it to LLMs (large language models) that are not exclusive to your organization. 

Now, it will be the turn of Account Engagement. With Einstein Assistant for Account Engagement quickly create forms, landing pages, email subject lines, and email body copy. 

The images below show this in action in a Marketing Cloud context (the assumption is that the user interface will be similar for Account Engagement).

3. Sending Domain Updates

Upcoming changes, and guidelines, from Google and Yahoo were announced, which prompted Account Engagement (Pardot) marketers to prepare for them. 

The updates signaled a clamping down on spam and unsolicited email sending. The key indicator for email service providers (ESPs) – which are  the providers of your prospects’ inboxes – is a verified DKIM record. This communicates to the ESP that “Yes, Account Engagement is authorized to send emails on our organization’s behalf”. 

Ensure that you have added and verified your DKIM record by navigating to: Account Engagement Settings → Domain Management.

If you haven’t already validated your sending domains with DKIM, here’s what you will need to do:

• For each of your sending domains, Account Engagement generates a unique validation key.
• Copy and paste the validation key into your DNS record (website control panel for your domain).

4. Data Cloud & Email Data

This year has also been the rise of Data Cloud, spurred on by any customer being able to gain access to a freemium version of the tool (for up to 10,000 unified profiles).  

You will now be able to import email engagement data from Account Engagement to use in Data Cloud for profile reconciliation – in other words, an extra source of behavioral data to unify so that you can build a more complete picture of this particular individual across the cocktail of systems your organization uses. 

This will be streamed into Data Cloud using the Account Engagement connector, and by creating a data stream for email engagement data. 

Misc. Updates

• The Twitter Connector Has Been Retired: Back in August, Twitter/X announced that they would be revoking access to multiple public APIs. Posting to Twitter via the Social Posting feature will no longer work – and you will no longer be able to retrieve ongoing engagement statistics for posts already published.  
• Account Engagement API: New and Changed Items: For anyone using the Account Engagement API for custom integrations, you can review the list of changes.

Summary

There’s still time to get prepped for these new features ahead of the Spring ’24 release, so make sure you know what to expect before they arrive. Happy reading!

Read More

• Salesforce Spring ’24 Features: Top 10 Developer Updates You Need to Know
• Salesforce Spring ’24 Features: Top 10 Admin Updates You Need to Know
• Salesforce Spring ’24 Features: Top 10 Flow Updates You Need to Know