Pardot Training: Get up and running with Salesforce Pardot

For those of you who are here for Pardot training only and already have your Pardot instance connected with Salesforce you can skip this section.

Each Pardot campaign has a unique tracking code that tracks visitor and prospect activity when added to your web pages.

Pardot tracks visitor and prospect activities on your website and on Pardot landing pages by setting cookies on their browsers. These cookies are set in order to remember preferences (like form field values) when a visitor returns to your site. Pardot also sets a cookie for Pardot users that are logged into the platform; this allows them to maintain the login session, remember table filters, and so on.

FAQ

• How Does Pardot Track Activities?
• How are prospects associated with a campaign?
• How to implement tracking code?

The reason you need to implement these DNS records is for email authentication. With these 3 DNS records present, recipient inboxes can see that Pardot has the necessary permissions to send emails from your domain and is what allows them to be sent on to recipient inboxes. Learn more about email authentication and the three records here.

All assets (i.e. content files, landing pages, etc.) that are hosted by Pardot, are accessible via generic 'go.pardot.com' URLs. In order to mask those generic Pardot URLs with a more relevant, branded subdomain, you'll need to add a new CNAME record to your DNS platform.

Once you've decided what you'd like your branded CNAME to be (i.e. go.companyname.com or www2.companyname.com), simply create that new subdomain as a CNAME record that points to or resolves to go.pardot.com | Additional instructions for your web team is provided here.

User roles define which Pardot features and data your users have access to. When you create users, you assign them roles.

Campaign Resources:

• Pardot Campaigns vs Pardot Lists
• Leveraging Salesforce Campaigns & Pardot

The connection between Pardot and Salesforce allows for smooth, timely syncing of data between the two systems. While changes to records are synced between Pardot and Salesforce within minutes, other prospect, user, and system actions will also trigger prospects to be added to the sync queue.

Read more about the actions that initiate a sync between the two systems here.

You can use segmentation rules to create a list of prospects and apply a segmentation action based on specific criteria. Unlike automation rules, segmentation rules don’t run continuously. Segmentation rules run once and match only the prospects that meet the rule’s criteria when the rule runs.

Automation rules are repeatable, criteria-based rules that find matching prospects and apply actions to them.

Scores are automatically assigned to prospects when they convert. Scores constantly change based on activities and interactions and show how engaged your prospects are with your marketing materials. This article covers the basics of prospect scoring.

Scoring Categories allow you to score prospects on more than one product or business unit. You'll still have an overall prospect score, but Scoring Categories offer additional scores based on which assets your prospects are engaging with.

Page actions are completion actions that are triggered by of a prospect’s page views. You can apply page actions to any page that contains your Pardot tracking code.

Keep these considerations in mind when using page actions.

• For page actions to work, including wildcards, the page must have Pardot tracking code or tracking code implemented via a tag manager.
• Pardot matches the most specific page action first. If a page action for a specific URL doesn’t exist, Pardot matches wildcards. For example, you have a page action set up to execute for www.example.com/products/form and a wildcard page action for www.example.com/products/*. If a prospect visits www.example.com/products/form, the specific page action is triggered, not the wildcard action.
• Completion actions are applied only to prospects. Anonymous visitors browsing your site don’t trigger the actions.
• Page actions are not applied retroactively. They execute when the page is accessed. If an anonymous visitor who previously accessed the page later converts to a prospect, the visitor session is tied to the prospect record. The prospect appears in the page action report, but the completion actions aren’t applied. In this scenario, the page action also appears in the prospect audits, but doesn’t appear in prospect activities.
• Page actions can be made from non-visible pages and pages that require the user to log in.
• One page action notification is triggered per prospect per page per hour. If one prospect visits a page with a page action, a notification is sent to the designated user. If the prospect returns to the same page within the one-hour time frame, it doesn’t trigger a second notification. However, if the same prospect visits a different page with a page action, that page action notification executes.
• Page actions match only exact URLs. If you create a page action for http://company.com, the page action doesn’t execute for http://www.company.com. In this case, you need two separate page actions.

Grading Simplified: The Basics

Below are a few key points to understanding grading:

• The grading scale is from A+ to F-
• All prospects will be associated with the Default profile unless they are re-assigned a different one. For more information about how to assign prospects to a different profile, see the article: http://www.pardot.com/faqs/segmentation/profiles/
• You can set the profile criteria within a prospect record to Match (thumbs up), or NotMatch (thumbs down).
• Matching a profile criterion within a prospect record will cause an increase in grade by the amount (1/3, 2/3, or 3/3 of a letter grade) specified in the profile associated with the prospect.
• Selecting Not Match on a profile criterion within a prospect record will cause a decrease in grade by the amount (1/3, 2/3, or 3/3 of a letter grade) specified in the profile associated with the prospect.
• You can use automation rules to Match or Not Match criteria to grade all prospects appropriately.

Other Resources:

• Advanced topic: Three-tiered Grading
• Grading Worksheet

The recommended process steps for sending your first list email.

1. Email Authentication - Have your IT department add both SPF and DomainKeys records to your DNS for the email domain(s) you'll be sending emails from (the domain in the email you select as the "from" address). Doing so will improve the deliverability of emails sent through Pardot to improve the chances of getting through to your prospects' inboxes rather than your message going to their spam/junk folder. More details on how to obtain these records and add them are available in Email Authentication.
2. Tracker Domains - Have your IT department set up CNAME records for any tracker domains you want to serve content from, and choose one as your primary tracker domain. Your primary tracker domain is used to rewrite and track links in the emails you send out (anything starting with http:// or https:// is rewritten to include the CNAME rather than go.pardot.com), and in the URLs for your landing pages and hosted files in Pardot. See Setting up Tracker Domain for instructions.
3. Tracking Code - In order to track your prospects' activities on your website once they click on links in your email, you will want to add the Pardot tracking code to every page (just before the close body tag is usually best). Adding the tracking code to your site will also allow you to track the page views of anonymous visitors that have not yet converted to prospects. Details on obtaining and adding the code to your site are available in Tracking Code.
4. Creating/Updating Your List - In order to send a list email to more than one prospect, you will need to ensure your prospects are on a list in Pardot. There are several options for adding prospects to a list including importing a CSV file, creating an automation or segmentation rule, and adding prospects to the list manually. These options and steps are described in more detail in Lists.
5. Creating a Campaign - Every list email must be tagged with a campaign — it can be an existing campaign or you can create a new one specific for this email marketing effort. For step by step instructions on creating a campaign, visit Campaigns.
6. Creating Your Email - We recommend creating a new email template for each list email you send so that you have the option to easily copy and/or resend the same content later if you need to. The email can be created in the Pardot interface from scratch, by using one of our many pre-formatted templates, or you can import HTML source code if you created your email content outside of Pardot. More details on these options and the steps for creating an email template are available in Email Templates.
7. Testing Your Email - You will want to test out your email before sending it to your prospect list in several email clients and browsers to ensure the links in the message are correct and there aren't any formatting or styling issues. You can do this within the email wizard. During the test step, select your internal test list from the dropdown field to send a test email before finalizing your email. Click Send Test Email. For more information, please see Send Emails to a Test List. The Advanced Analytics Email Package is also a great tool for previewing your email in several email clients and browsers and provides a spam analysis of your email content. It is included in the Ultimate and Pro Edition and is available as an add-on for Standard Edition accounts. If you have any issues with deliverability, you will want to review Steps To Avoid the Junk Filter.
8. Sending Your Email - Once you have completed the steps above, you are ready to send your email out using the template you created. Detailed instructions are available in Sending Email. If you have added a dedicated IP address to your Pardot Account or are a new Pardot client, you will also need to follow the steps for warming up your IP address to build your email sending reputation and improve delivery performance.
9. Email Report - After your email has been sent to your prospect list, you will want to view the email report to see the numbers of clicks, opens, bounces, etc. The reporting metrics are explained in List Email Report.

Create text and HTML email designs and reuse them for engagement programs, autoresponders, one-to-one emails, and list emails.

1. Navigate to Marketing | Emails | New Email Template.
2. Enter a name. Prospects don’t see the name—it’s used in Pardot to organize assets.
3. Choose a folder.
4. Select a campaign.
5. Select the email type.
6. From Available for, select the kinds of emails the template can be used with.
7. Click Save.
8. Choose a layout to start your template and click Apply, or click Skip to design a template from scratch.

After you've set up your basic information, use the email editor to edit, test, and set up sending for your template. To make your template available for use, click Publish to Template when you’re done designing it.

After you create an email template and recipient list, you can customize the email content, do a test run, and then send it. This process involves these high-level steps.

Navigate to Marketing | Emails | New List Email.

1. Click + Send New List Email.
2. In the Basic Email Information window, complete all the fields and then click Save.
3. Choose an email template and click Apply.
4. To edit your email’s content, use the editor in the Building tab.
5. When you’re done editing your email content, click the Testing tab to test your email.
6. To send your email, click the Sending tab. Here, select the lists you want to send to, choose a sender, enter the email subject, and add completion actions.
7. Choose whether to send the email immediately or schedule for a later time.

You can find your Email Preference Page from your Dashboard by navigating to Marketing > Emails > Preference Pages. By default, your primary Email Preference Page is named 'Default Email Preferences Page,' is titled 'Email Preference Center,' and is placed on a 'Pardot-Generated Default Email Preferences' layout template.

If left untouched, the email preference center pages will only include the required email field for your prospects. Pardot layout templates can be used to style these pages in the same way you would with other landing pages. We recommend that you update the default preference center page to mimic the look and feel of your website before sending your first emails.

Engagement Studio is Pardot's next-generation lead nurturing product, and is the true intelligence engine of the marketing automation platform. Engagement Studio lets you build, test, and report on powerful engagement programs that let you send targeted emails based on prospect behavior and critical qualifying values. Engagement programs provide a personalized experience for your prospects, and turn your prospects into marketing-qualified leads.

• Engagement Program Considerations Before using or changing Engagement Programs, keep these considerations in mind.
• How Does Time Work in Engagement Studio? Wait periods let you hold prospects on a step until a specified time has elapsed, or a specific action occurs within a period. The way wait periods function in a program depends on whether the step is a trigger, action, or rule type, and whether a prospect is removed and readded to recipient lists.
• Edit Engagement Programs Pause and edit engagement programs to adjust step settings, delete or add steps, update recipient lists, and more.
• Create Engagement Programs After you've created the content that drives your program and segmented your audience, you're ready to create an engagement program.
• Test Engagement Programs Engagement Studio’s interactive testing experience takes you through your program steps, and helps you make sure that your program works as you intended. We recommend testing your programs before you start them. Adjust any steps that don't work the way you expected, and be sure that your program is perfect before you send the first email.
• Engagement Program Actions In engagement programs, action steps let you do something to prospects, like sending them an email or changing a field value.
• Engagement Program Rules In Engagement Programs, use rule steps to define criteria-based paths for prospects.
• Engagement Program Triggers In Engagement Programs, use trigger steps to define paths based on prospect actions.
• Engagement Program Reporting To gauge how well your engagement program is nurturing your prospects, view program metrics in the Report tab of any running or paused program.
• Engagement Program Suppression List Example Occasionally, a prospect is on several lists that you use to feed engagement programs. To make sure that the prospect receives only the most important emails, use suppression lists to keep them from going through lower-priority programs.
• Engagement Program Versions When an engagement program is paused and restarted, Pardot creates a version of the engagement program. Each version has a unique name, and you can add comments about it.
• Locked Engagement Programs When a user is editing an engagement program, the program becomes locked, and no one else can work in it.

Use forms or form handlers on your website and landing pages to collect information about visitors and turn anonymous visitors into identified prospects. Pardot forms and form handlers are different, and you might need help deciding which to use. Pardot forms are designed and managed completely in Pardot. Form handlers connect Pardot to your external forms so you can funnel prospect information into Pardot. Use Pardot’s Form Wizard to create a customized form in seconds. Or you can use your existing forms, by using form handlers.

Layout templates are used to format landing pages, forms, and site search results. Layout templates do not support server-side scripting languages.

The outermost containing element controls a form’s styling.

• If a form is by itself, the layout template for that form is used.
• If a form is on a landing page, the landing page layout template is used, and the form’s layout template is ignored.
• If a form is on a landing page built using the landing page builder, no layout template is used.

1. Navigate to Marketing | Forms | Layout Templates.
2. Click + Add Layout Template.
3. Name the template.
4. Create or import styling using one of these methods.
   • On the Layout tab, add HTML and CSS. Don’t remove the %%title%%, %%content%%, and %%description%%variable tags because they populate content for your forms and landing pages.
   • Import styling from a website by clicking Import layout from URL. You must add the %%title%%, %%content%%, and %%description%% variable tags.
5. (Optional) Edit the Form and Site Search tabs. The default code is best for most cases.
6. Save your layout template.

A landing page is a specific web page that a visitor typically reaches after clicking a link or advertisement. This page generally displays content that is specific to the advertisement, search keyword, or link clicked. Simply driving visitors directly to your home page can be an ineffective method of converting prospects, because they aren't presented with tailored content. A landing page presents a streamlined path designed to elicit a specific action by the visitor.

Learn tips and tricks on how to structure folders, use dynamic content and the benefits of custom redirects within Pardot. 

With Competitor Monitoring, you can track how well your site stacks up against your competitors in general SEO terms. The data includes the number of inbound links, page and domain authority, links to the root domain, root domain external links, and the Alexa Rating.

If a Pardot user goes to the Search Marketing screen without having any competitors added in their account, the system will be triggered to automatically generate the Pardot user's company as a competitor entry for comparison purposes. The competitor creation will be attributed to the first user that visits the Search Marketing module.

Connectors allow Pardot accounts to sync with third party applications such as a CRM system or Google AdWords. With a connector, data can be passed back and forth between the two applications allowing you to manage many formerly disparate marketing channels from within Pardot interface.