Summer ‘21 New Pardot Features & Updates – My Top 8 Picks

The Salesforce Summer ’21 preview release notes are here* which means more features are coming to Pardot in May/June 2021 (check your dates here). If you’re still catching up from the last release through Q1, I’m not surprised! Nevertheless, the Salesforce world doesn’t stand still for too long…

This release puts an emphasis on Einstein (AI-driven features), how marketers can leverage the Account object, mailability insight, and more. Salesforce has grouped the new features and enhancements into categories (eg. “Marketer experience”, “Data and Analytics”…), however, I’ve gone ahead and ranked which entries I consider the most important for the average Pardot marketer (plus, saving you reading the 388 page document).

*note: some links currently point to the legacy releasenotes.docs.salesforce.com site, where the preview release notes are currently published. When this goes live on the newer Salesforce release notes home, we will update the links.

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: Boost Email Engagement with Einstein Send Time Optimization

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.

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:

Read more: 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)

More information (link may be dead until the release becomes available).

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.

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).

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.

Read the full 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.

What’s next?

These features and enhancements are coming to Pardot in May/June 2021, depending on your org. So, check your dates here, and prepare to give your Pardot app and Salesforce org a boost!