Are you looking to enhance your marketing technology stack to drive more productivity, alignment and revenue? Then continuing reading for an extensive guide exploring Pardot.
In this 2800+ word overview, we’ll be covering:
- Background on marketing automation and Pardot
- Defining what Pardot is and key capabilities
- Real world examples and data on use cases
- Breakdown of features for email, analytics etc
- Pricing tiers and competitor comparisons
- Tips and next steps for evaluating Pardot
Let’s get started!
The Growth of Marketing Automation
Marketing automation has become one of the fastest growing technology arenas over the past decade. Fueled by the rise of digital marketing channels and demand for data-driven insights, spending on marketing automation platforms surged from $1.2B in 2013 to over $5.5B by 2021 according to Statista.
And research shows adoption continues to expand, with over 58% of B2B marketing organizations now using dedicated marketing automation software based on data from DemandGen.
As part of this trend, Pardot by Salesforce has emerged as a leading marketing automation suite. First launched in 2007, it’s focused specifically on supporting B2B marketing for organizations leveraging Salesforce for CRM.
Now over 15 years old, Pardot has established itself as a major player:
- Over 25,000 customers worldwide
- 450 employees focused on ongoing development
- 16 quarters straight with double-digit revenue growth
- Used by companies like GE, SAP, Office Depot and others
So in a fast-evolving MarTech ecosystem with thousands of competing tools, Pardot remains a top choice proven at the enterprise level.
What is Pardot?
As we touched on previously, Pardot (now called Marketing Cloud Account Engagement) is a marketing automation platform owned by Salesforce under their Marketing Cloud suite.
Some of the capabilities it delivers include:
Sophisticated lead management: Identify, score/grade and qualify new prospects to accelerate sales conversion
Multi-channel campaigns: Orchestrate connected journeys across email, mobile, social, web experiences
Rich analytics engine: Directly quantify marketing’s impact on pipeline and revenue with detailed reporting
Salesforce alignment: Bi-directional sync of contacts, accounts and other objects creates seamless workflows
AI-based insights: Leverage predictive intelligence for recommendations on messaging, channel mix optimization and more
Positioned specifically for B2B use cases, Pardot activates cross-team workflows between marketing and sales in a shared Salesforce environment. This enables personalization powered by a complete view of all prospect and customer interactions.
For enterprise marketing teams with complex sales cycles for high-ticket deals or lengthy product evaluations, these capabilities are incredibly valuable.
Now let’s explore some real-world examples showcasing Pardot’s platform in action across different functions:
Lead nurturing for ClubAssist
- Segmented 80,000 membership prospects into 12 streams
- Saw 9X increase in conversions from automated nurturing
- Reduced cost-per-lead by 30% over 2 years
Account-based marketing at Petdesk
- Identified target accounts with highest conversion potential
- Created customized multi-touch campaigns for each
- Achieved 13% increase in account engagement
Multi-channel campaigns for Philips
- Orchestrated connected journeys spanning email, mobile, direct mail, social, web
- Connected 60+ systems into their DMP with APIs
- Accessed unified customer data to enhance targeting through automation
As you can see, whether facilitating intricate lead nurturing sequences or coordinating ABM programs, Pardot makes sophisticated marketing execution extremely achievable.
Marketing Automation Use Cases and Impact
Businesses leverage Pardot across a multitude of marketing programs, including:
Account-based marketing (ABM) – Coordinate multi-channel campaigns customized to engage specific target company accounts rather than individual contacts
| Key Metric | Before Pardot | With Pardot | Lift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account Engagement | 14% | 30% | +16% |
| Marketing Sourced Deals | 62 | 89 | +27 |
**Lead generation** – Create forms, landing pages and advertisements to capture inbound visitors demonstrating interest
| Key Metric | Before Pardot | With Pardot |
|---|---|---|
| Volume of Leads/MQLs | 504 | 782 |
| Cost Per Lead | $86 | $62 |
**Content personalization** – Customize messaging and offers for each prospect based on interests and engagement history
| Key Metric | Generic Content | Personalized Content | Lift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email Open Rates | 11% | 29% | +18% |
| Campaign ROIs | 118% | 201% | +83% |
We see here direct examples of how impactful capabilities like lead scoring, predictive recommendations and customer journey orchestration can drive tangible improvements in key performance indicators (KPIs).
Now let’s explore the platform functionality enabling this level of sophistication…
Key Features and Tools
Pardot’s marketing automation is powered by an extensive set tools purpose-built for B2B use cases, including:
Email Marketing
- Templates – Build responsive templates and quickly spin up new emails
- Editor – Drag-and-drop designer to customize content
- Personalization – Leverage merge tags, prospect data to tailor messaging
- Workflows – Create triggers and automated streams for nurturing
- Analytics – Track opens, clicks, activity over time after send
Landing Pages and Forms
- Layouts – Pick from wide variety of pre-made responsive landing page templates
- Forms – Embed data capture forms with specialized field types
- Thank you pages – Guide users after form submission based on actions
- Hosting – Pages securely hosted to enable tracking and personalization
Lead Management
- Scoring – Define criteria and model to grade prospect quality and readiness
- Segmentation – Divide contacts into dynamic lists using filters based on behavior
- Engagement History – See every interaction and activity timeline for each prospect
- Routing – Assign owner and immediately notify sales when score threshold met
Analytics and Reporting
- Campaign Influence – Quantify the impact programs have directly on pipeline and revenue
- Marketing ROI – Understand exactly how much revenue is generated per dollar spent
- Custom Dashboards – Build reports and visualizations tailored specifically to your goals
And these are just a sampling of some of the robust capabilities available out-of-the-box. Pardot also offers hundreds of AppExchange apps, plus API access to build custom functionality on top of the core platform.
Now let’s explore what it takes to get access…
Pricing and Editions
Pardot packaging is tiered by volume of contacts, as well as by breadth and sophistication of functionality needed. The editions include:
Pardot Growth
- up to 10,000 contacts
- Core automation, segmentation, email marketing and workflow capabilities
- $1,250 per month
Pardot Plus
- up to 15,000 contacts
- Adds more advanced segmentation, scoring and nurturing capabilities
- $2,500 per month
Pardot Advanced
- up to 10,000 contacts
- Broad set of marketing features from predictive intelligence to ABM
- Most popular plan for comprehensive use cases
- $4,000 per month
Pardot Premium
- Up to 75,000 contacts
- Adds further predictive modeling, custom objects and premium support
- $15,000 per month
So what’s the best fit for your organization? Here are a few things to consider:
- Number of contacts/leads to manage – smaller lists can use cheaper tiers
- Current functionality needs – start with lower tiers and scale up over time
- Sales cycle complexity – longer cycles require more advanced automation
- Marketing budget available – premium features require higher investment
For context, many customers adopt Growth or Plus early on, before expanding to Advanced or Premium as their programs mature. And Salesforce does offer NGOs, non-profits and education discounts of 25%-75% in select circumstances.
Now let’s see how Pardot stacks up against alternatives…
Comparing Top Marketing Automation Platforms
While Pardot leads the market for B2B marketing automation pure-plays focused on Salesforce customers, it does face competition from platforms like:
HubSpot – Simpler UI and lower pricing but less robust analytics and sales features
Marketo (Adobe) – Comparable capabilities and strategy but at higher price point
Zoho – Affordable SMB-oriented option still building out marketing feature set
Sendinblue – Basic automation and email volume included in free tier
Here’s an overview comparing Pardot across some key dimensions:
| Pardot | HubSpot | Marketo | Zoho | Sendinblue | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salesfocus | Native | Light | Strong | Decent | Limited |
| Analytics | Very Strong | Limited | Strong | Fair | Weak |
| Complexity | High | Low | High | Medium | Low |
| Pricing | High | Low | High | Low | Very Low |
A few key considerations on competing platforms:
HubSpot – Great for inbound marketing but light sales features. More affordable pricing and simpler learning curve.
Marketo – Nearly identical strategy to Pardot but usually at premium. Adobe brand helps secure larger enterprises.
Zoho – Good basic automation but still building toward enterprise scale and functionality. Very budget friendly.
Sendinblue – Entry level option but key automation and workflows require scaling up paid plans. Easy to get started.
As shown above, while the landscape continues evolving, Pardot remains highly differentiated in providing an enterprise-caliber B2B marketing automation experience natively tailored Salesforce customers.
Key Takeaways and Next Steps
After reviewing capabilities across email, scoring, analytics and more, let’s recap key takeaways:
Sophisticated functionality – With advanced features for segmentation, attribution and predictive modeling, Pardot stands out from basic automation tools
Specialized for B2B – Fine-tuned for long complex sales cycle use cases like account-based marketing and lead nurturing
Turnkey Salesforce integration – Native connectors enable seamless data sharing and alignment between marketing and sales
Industry leader – Large established customer base relying on Pardot to drive productivity
High-touch support – Package of onboarding, training and premium services help maximize value
For B2B organizations already leveraging Salesforce and looking to add best-of-breed marketing automation, Pardot warrants a hard look.
Next step – see a demo tailored to your specific use cases! Here you can:
- Review capabilities aligned to your priorities
- Ask technical questions 1:1 with an Product Expert
- Clarify details on pricing and solutions
This will provide the best sense of fit for your marketing stack requirements. Teams typically find Pardot’s platform, ecosystem and support enable achieving marketing goals an order of magnitude faster.
So in closing, hopefully this guide has armed you with a comprehensive perspective on unlocking the power of marketing automation with Pardot. Let me know any other questions!
