A Practical Guide to Salesforce Pardot: Uses, Features, and Advantages

As a business, we want to maximize our marketing efforts by nurturing our prospects. 

The marketing and sales teams need to engage with customers in a targeted and personalized way as they move from leads to prospects to customers.

Organizations often lack the time and resources to focus on marketing. However, B2B marketing automation tools like Salesforce Pardot can help with this.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, formerly known as Salesforce Pardot, helps teams work better and increase their marketing efforts while also boosting sales.

Salesforce Pardot is a tool that helps with sales and marketing automation. This blog will explain what Salesforce Pardot is, its benefits, and how to use it in your business. Let’s get started.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, previously known as Pardot, is a popular choice for Salesforce users who need a B2B marketing automation tool. It works well with Salesforce’s main features and is priced reasonably, making it accessible for many organizations. New users appreciate it for being easy to use and having a simple learning curve.

With numerous marketing automation tools available, selecting the right one for your business can be challenging. Salesforce Pardot, now rebranded as Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (MCAE), stands out for its reliability and robust features tailored to marketing and sales teams. It could be the ideal solution to meet your marketing automation goals.

Quick Overview of Pardot:

• A marketing automation platform primarily designed for B2B businesses.

• Commonly used by medium to large B2B companies with smaller databases and lengthy sales cycles, focusing on high-value deals.

• Key functionalities include lead scoring, lead management, campaign oversight, and ROI tracking.

• Seamlessly integrates with Salesforce CRM and other marketing tools.

• Now officially called Marketing Cloud Account Engagement by Salesforce.

What is Salesforce Pardot?

Pardot is a marketing automation tool that helps marketers find potential customers who are likely to buy. Marketers do this by connecting with prospects in a timely and appropriate manner. The goal of marketing automation is to treat each prospect as an individual, allowing them to learn about your product or service at their own pace.

What is Salesforce Pardot Used For?

Salesforce Pardot, also called Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, is a marketing automation solution built mainly for businesses that sell to other businesses (B2B). It helps companies streamline their marketing efforts by automating key tasks such as tracking leads, managing email campaigns, and measuring the success of marketing activities.

How Pardot Helps Businesses:

Generating Quality Leads

Pardot makes it easier to gather potential customer information through tools like web forms and landing pages. It then helps qualify these leads automatically, ensuring salespeople focus only on those who are most likely to buy.

Nurturing Prospects Over Time

Sales cycles in B2B can be lengthy, and Pardot supports this by allowing marketers to send carefully planned email sequences. These keep potential customers engaged with helpful content and guide them gently toward making a purchase decision.

Effective Email Marketing

With customizable templates and automation features, Pardot enables marketers to send personalized emails that resonate with recipients. Features like A/B testing help refine these campaigns to get the best results.

Managing Campaigns Across Channels

Pardot helps marketers track and improve their campaigns all in one place, from social media ads to events. It makes it easier to find out which marketing efforts give the best return on investment.

Supporting the Sales Team

Pardot works well with Salesforce’s sales platform, giving sales teams essential updates about prospect behavior. This information helps them focus on the right contacts and adjust their outreach for better results.

In summary, Pardot is a valuable tool for businesses looking to automate repetitive marketing tasks, build stronger relationships with potential buyers, and ultimately increase sales performance.

• Also Read: 5 WAYS PARDOT CAN BOOST YOUR BUSINESS

How Does Pardot Fit into the Salesforce Product Suite?

Pardot is a versatile marketing automation tool within the Salesforce ecosystem. While it can function independently, Pardot truly shines when integrated with other Salesforce products like Sales Cloud or Experience Cloud. This integration enables organizations to streamline better, automate, analyze, and measure their sales, marketing, and customer support efforts, creating a cohesive experience across teams.

What Does Pardot Do?

Pardot is a marketing tool designed to help businesses connect with potential customers who are ready to make a purchase. It does this by sending personalized messages and running campaigns that address the specific needs and interests of each customer. By timing these messages carefully, Pardot makes sure customers receive relevant information when they are most likely to respond.

Instead of spending hours on repetitive tasks, marketing teams can rely on Pardot to automate communications and track how prospects respond. It helps businesses connect with leads, build strong relationships, and increase their chances of turning prospects into loyal customers.

Key Features of Pardot (Marketing Cloud Account Engagement)

Pardot offers a variety of marketing automation tools designed to help businesses attract, engage, and convert leads more efficiently. Depending on the subscription plan that suits your needs, you can access features such as:

The most sought-after features of MCAE Salesforce include:

• Lead Generation. Easily create web forms, landing pages, and calls-to-action using drag-and-drop tools to capture and organize leads from various sources.

• Lead Nurturing. Automate personalized email campaigns and customer journeys to maintain engagement and guide prospects toward a purchase.

• Lead Scoring. Assign scores to leads based on their activity and engagement, allowing your marketing team to focus on the most promising prospects. Advanced plans include AI-powered scoring with Einstein to identify ideal customers.

• Lead Grading. Evaluate how well leads match your target customer profile to prioritize efforts on the most qualified prospects. AI can automate this process on higher-tier plans.

• Flexible Scoring Categories. Customize scoring criteria to align with your specific business goals and priorities.

• Email Marketing. Build targeted email campaigns with customizable templates, automated workflows, A/B testing, and robust analytics for optimal results.

• Cross-Campaign Management. Manage and analyze campaigns across multiple channels, including social media, email, and paid advertising, all from one platform.

• ROI Reporting. Get detailed insights on campaign performance and return on investment to fine-tune your marketing strategies.

• Delivering Tailored Content. You can create and send personalized content to your leads based on their interests, behaviors, and demographics using the MCAE Salesforce. You can also automate this process to make it easier.

• CRM Integration. Pardot connects with Salesforce Sales Cloud CRM to improve sales. This integration helps sync lead data and track interactions, making it easier for sales and marketing teams to work together.

• Analytics and Reporting. Pardot gives you tools to track marketing performance with analytics, dashboards, and reports. All subscription plans include standard reports and dashboards. If you choose a more expensive plan, you can access Einstein AI and real-time analytics for automated data analysis. Standard reports should align with your lead management process, but you get additional features with the higher-tier plans.

• Social Media Marketing. You can schedule posts, monitor interactions, and track engagement on platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn using Pardot.

• Website Tracking. Pardot lets you track how visitors use your website. You can see their page views and interactions to understand what interests them and how engaged they are.

• Lead Lifecycle Management. You can define lead stages, statuses, transitions, lead generation, and nurturing to manage leads effectively through the sales funnel.

• Account-Based Marketing (ABM). Focus your marketing efforts in Salesforce Pardot on specific accounts or industries to boost your account-based marketing initiatives.

• AI-Powered Insights by Einstein AI Salesforce. Pardot uses AI and machine learning to predict trends, improve lead scoring, and create data-driven marketing plans. However, remember that Einstein AI is only included in the more advanced and costly Pardot subscriptions.

• Security and Compliance. Benefit from Salesforce’s strong data protection measures and compliance with laws like GDPR.

Is Pardot Part of Salesforce?

Yes, Pardot—now known as Marketing Cloud Account Engagement—is an integral part of the Salesforce product family. It functions well on its own but truly adds value when connected to other Salesforce tools.

Pardot, now called Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, is a marketing automation tool from Salesforce. It is part of the Salesforce product suite and can easily be connected to other tools.

Pardot is part of Salesforce so that it can connect with other Salesforce products like Sales Cloud, Experience Cloud, and Tableau. This integration allows marketing, sales, support, and data analytics teams to share data easily, allowing them to collaborate better and work more efficiently.

• ALSO READ: SALESFORCE PARDOT - BEST MARKETING TOOL FOR B2B AUTOMATION

Is Pardot a CRM Tool?

No, Pardot is not a standalone CRM tool. It is a marketing automation platform with CRM systems like Salesforce Sales Cloud. Pardot focuses on marketing tasks, while CRM systems like Salesforce Sales Cloud are meant to handle customer interactions, sales processes, and customer data.

Pardot can work with CRM systems like Salesforce Sales Cloud. This connection lets you see how marketing efforts are linked to sales results. As a result, you can better measure marketing's return on investment (ROI), campaign success, and overall impact on the business.

If Marketing and Sales Clouds work together, both teams can access important information about leads. It includes data on their activities, interactions, account engagement history, lead scores, and behavior tracking.

Businesses can better align their marketing and sales efforts, manage leads more efficiently, and enhance customer relationships.

Who Uses Pardot?

Pardot is primarily used by businesses operating in the United States, especially those in the computer software and information technology sectors. It is designed with B2B companies in mind, helping them automate and optimize their marketing efforts.

The ideal users of Pardot are small to mid-sized businesses with 50 to 200 employees and annual revenues between $1 million and $10 million. These companies use Pardot to improve lead generation, nurture prospects effectively, and align their marketing efforts with their business goals for better growth.

Some of the companies using Pardot are:

How Much Does Pardot Cost?

Salesforce Pardot provides four different subscription plans to match the unique needs of various businesses: Growth, Plus, Advanced, and Premium. Each plan offers different features and capabilities, so the price varies depending on what your company requires. This tiered approach allows businesses to choose the right level of functionality to support their marketing goals while staying within budget.

What is Marketing Cloud Account Engagement?

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement is the new name for Pardot, Salesforce’s marketing automation platform designed specifically for B2B businesses. Its primary purpose is to help companies improve their marketing efforts so they can achieve better sales results. By using this tool, companies can boost their marketing effectiveness, increase conversions, and build strong, lasting relationships with their customers.

The rebranding to Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (often shortened to MCAE) happened in 2021 to better showcase its connection with the broader Salesforce Marketing Cloud family. This change highlights that MCAE is more than just Pardot—it is part of a broader range of tools aimed at helping marketers engage customers across many channels.

MCAE supports businesses in nurturing leads and running successful marketing campaigns by offering features such as automation, data insights, and personalized messaging. With these capabilities, companies can connect meaningfully with their audience and drive higher sales performance.

Codleo: Your Partner for Pardot Excellence

Do you want to use Pardot to improve your marketing and increase sales, but are unsure how to start? Codleo offers consultancy and Pardot implementation services to help.

Have you already bought a Pardot subscription but don’t see a good return on your investment? Are you facing problems with features or need fresh insights on your marketing strategy?

Codleo can help you maximize Salesforce Pardot and boost your sales. We will identify and fix the issues you’re facing so you can gain more benefits from Salesforce and increase your revenue.

Our consulting services for Salesforce and Pardot help you get the most value from your investments. We aim to improve how you use these products and make your marketing campaigns more effective.

Codleo Consulting is a Salesforce consultancy and AppExchange app development company. We are a certified Pardot and Salesforce partner. As a Salesforce Summit Consulting Partner, our team has over 120 Salesforce certifications, highlighting our expertise in the Salesforce ecosystem.

Want to learn how Pardot can work for you? Schedule a free call with our Salesforce consultant today.