Erin Duncan, Author at Sercante

About Erin Duncan

CRM and Marketing Automation Strategist. Erin Duncan is 3x Salesforce certified and has 9+ years of experience as a Salesforce and Pardot Admin. Erin is the leader of the Atlanta B2B Marketers User Group, a Salesforce Marketing Champion, and a former Dreamforce, SE Dreamin, and NE Dreamin speaker.

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Spring ‘23: New Release Features

The Salesforce Spring ’23 Release Notes are out and we’ve been combing through them to see how these changes will affect our clients and readers.

In this blog post, we’ll share the Salesforce Spring ’23 Release things you should know if you’re a Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) admin or user.

Engagement Optimizer BETA

An easier way to monitor and clean up your org? Yes, please! This new feature helps you:

Improve email send times
Keep visitor tracking running smoothly
Keep an eye on the overall status for your business unit
Pause and prioritize actions

This feature is in BETA for all editions of Account Engagement, so if you want to go ahead and start using it, opt in by going to Account Engagement Settings and selecting Optimizer (Beta) from the left menu.

Once you enable the Optimizer, you’ll instantly see areas of your instance that can be cleaned up. The listed actions will include:

Reason for Alert
Priority
Feature Area
Recommendation

Domain Validation Changes

Account Engagement is also making some changes to sending domain validation. This only affects domains validated after the Spring ‘23 release, so don’t worry about your existing Domains!

Validating a new domain now requires proof of ownership via a validation key that you’ll need your IT team to paste into the DNS. The DomainKey Policy section of the Domain page has also been retired as this is no longer required.

These changes should make validating new sending domains a bit easier going forward!

Old View

New View

New Pardot Org Defaults

If you create a new Account Engagement Business Unit after the Spring ‘23 release there are new defaults that you’ll want to take note of.

First Party Tracking is enabled
Force HTTPS is enabled
The Honor Do Not Track (DNT Header) option is enabled
Request opt-in from all visitors is enabled
The Max Tracking Cookie Duration setting is set to 365 days

These defaults aim to protect your Prospect’s privacy, but they can be overwritten by an Account Engagement Administrator, if desired. These settings can be found under Account Engagement Settings > Edit.

External Actions Monitoring

With the Spring ‘23 release, you can now keep an eye on External Actions.

External Action Errors will now be available in a new report under Account Engagement Settings > External Action Errors and you can monitor External Action usage under your Account’s Usage and Limits report.

Retirements

Several connectors and one feature were retired this release:

Not in the new release, but…

These two changes were not in the new release notes but they’re important to point out.

Opt Out Field Changes

This is happening on February 26th so make sure you’ve chosen your syncing system of record or your Opt Out field will stop syncing with Salesforce!

Check out the Preparing for Pardot Opt Out Field Sync Changes blog for guidance on this change.

Pardot Files Now Open in a New Tab

I don’t know why Salesforce didn’t shout this one from the rooftops, this is a long needed feature that will make a lot of marketers happy.

As of January 23rd, files stored in Account Engagement will open in a new tab when clicked rather than automatically download (hello white paper and case study hosting!).

This only affects files uploaded on/after January 23rd. But you can reupload your file over your existing one to get the new behavior.

Keep it Going

Spring ‘23 Salesforce Release: Platform Highlights
Brian Roff shared all the things that caught his attention from a Salesforce platform perspective in this blog post. Read it here.

Reach out to the team at Sercante to get help implementing these enhancements in your Salesforce org. And leave us a comment below to let us know what you think about the Spring ‘23 Release.

Original article: Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Spring ‘23: New Release Features

The post Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Spring ‘23: New Release Features appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2023-02-17T18:16:12+00:00February 17th, 2023|Categories: New Features, Pardot, Release Notes|

The Pardot WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Editor Icon Glossary saved me SO much time and energy when I was first learning how to build email in Pardot. Recently, I noticed this page had been archived and no good replacement could be found, so I thought I’d recreate this asset so new and experienced users can still reference it as much as needed.

The Icon Glossary

These buttons and icons are universal across Pardot, wherever you may add content (classic email builder, forms, landing pages, etc.). These buttons and icons are available to help you style your copy.

Icon	Function
	Bold text.
	Italicize text.
	Underline text.
	Strikethrough text.
	Additional formatting options such as font size and line height.
	Remove existing formatting.
	Insert a link.
	Remove a link. This icon is grayed out unless an existing link is selected.
	Insert an Anchor. This is a hyperlink that will take you to another section of the email.
	View the source code. This button is helpful when manually entering or editing HTML.
	Insert an image.
	Insert a merge field to personalize the content for the recipient.
	Set your text color.
	Set your background color.
	Insert a numbered list.
	Insert a bulleted list.
	Left align content.
	Center align content.
	Right align content.
	Justify content.
	Paste as plain text. This strips all formatting from the text.
	Paste from Word. This retains some formatting from Microsoft Word, but strips out superfluous code. See Copying Content from Word for more info.
	Insert an HTML table.
	Insert a horizontal line.
	Insert a special character.
	Insert AddThis to allow recipients to share your email.
	Insert Dynamic Content to personalize the content for the recipient.
	Insert emojis.
	Change or set your font name.
	Change or set your font size.

I hope this makes building emails go a little more smoothly for you! If I missed any icons or if you have any questions, let us know in the comments!

Original article: Pardot WYSIWYG Editor Icon Glossary

The post Pardot WYSIWYG Editor Icon Glossary appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2023-01-13T20:09:09+00:00January 13th, 2023|Categories: Emails & Templates, Getting Started, Pardot, revive, Setup & Admin|

Pardot automation rules are a great way to set repeatable processes in motion and save yourself from repetitive admin tasks. Most Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) users employ automation rules to assign prospects when they are sales ready, send prospects to relevant Salesforce campaigns, assign grading profiles, etc. But there are endless ways to get creative with Pardot automation rules and really take your marketing efforts to the next level.

Creative Uses for Pardot Automation Rules

Below are some of my favorite creative uses for automation rules, as well as some amazing use cases from the Pardot community!

Tip 1. Take action if a prospect performs a specific combination of activities

Completion actions are a great way to automate based on an activity a prospect does take, but what about automating when a prospect fills out a form but doesn’t request a demo? Or, a favorite for non-profits, visits the donate page but doesn’t make a donation? This is a great opportunity to use an automation rule to find those prospects and send them to an Engagement Studio Program so you can nurture them towards the next step in their journey!

Tip 2. Ensure only invited prospects can register for an event

Courtesy of Martin Farrell, Pardot Administrator

“We use automation rules to ensure only invited prospects are able to register for an event. In this case, if someone completes the registration landing page but is not on our invitee list, they are dropped into an uninvited list, which alerts our Events Coordinator to reach out. Since the landing page completion action added them to the registration list, the automation rule also removes these prospects from said list.”

Tip 3. Split lists for A/B testing

Courtesy of Bill Fetter, Principal and Founder of UnFettered Marketing

“I use 2 automation rules to assign random numbers to prospects based on the first letter of their last name. This gives me an approximate 50/50 split of US last names based on A-K and L-Z. This is especially useful for throttling sends and/or A/B testing.”

Read more about how Bill accomplishes this in his blog post.

Tip 4. Use tags to customize prospect activity digests

Courtesy of Rebecca Sweetman, Snr Manager, Global Systems & Sales Operations

“We use automation to tag a prospect’s country and then use those tags to be excluded from prospect activity digests (as you can only exclude not include) so teams only have to see their own region’s activity.”

To expand on this great idea a bit, if you are not using prospect activity digests you can customize these for each of your Pardot users. Just navigate to one of your Pardot users and select Edit Preferences.

Select the “Send daily prospect activity emails (for my prospects)” checkbox and then exclude prospects based on tag, as shown here:

Tip 5. Review active, “CRM Deleted” prospects

Courtesy of Bill Fetter, Principal and Founder of UnFettered Marketing

“Use an automation rule to find prospects who have taken an action within the last 1 day and are marked as “CRM deleted,” then notify someone to review the prospect for possible restoration.

Normally, what happens here is a lead was deleted in Salesforce and was sent to the Pardot recycle bin. A form fill restores the prospect, but the prior delete action does not allow the prospect to be re-created in Salesforce. This action is normally paired with a second automation rule that uses the “allow deleted lead or contact to re-create in salesforce” action when a tag is added to a record such as “allow CRM recreate.”

You can of course use the “allow deleted lead or contact to re-create in salesforce” action in a single automation rule, but this action will automatically create a new lead. And sometimes the reason the lead was deleted in the first place is it’s a habitual form spammer that you don’t want continuously re-creating in your org. So the 2-part action with a manual check is more conservative.”

Tip 6. Lower prospect score based on inactivity

A great use of repeating automation rules is to gradually lower the score of prospects who have been inactive for a period of time. This will keep your prospects from looking “sales ready” when they really aren’t engaging with your marketing and sales activities (or may have since left their company). I like to max out this rule at 10x in order to keep any prospects from going into the negatives.

How do you use Pardot automation rules?

What other creative uses for automation rules do you employ in your org? Let us know in the comments!

Original article: 6 Creative Ways to Use Pardot Automation Rules

The post 6 Creative Ways to Use Pardot Automation Rules appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2022-12-15T16:31:52+00:00December 15th, 2022|Categories: Marketing Automations, Pro Tips, revive|

When it comes to email marketing, creating beautiful emails with riveting content is only half the battle. Sending emails to the right prospects at the right time is just as critical as crafting the right message. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement’s (Pardot) segmentation tools take the guesswork out of finding the right prospects at the right time, but there are infinite ways to go about segmenting your database.

First, Why is Pardot List Segmentation Important?

Segmenting your database can help you identify prospects based on interest, activities, lifecycle stage, etc., so you can send them relevant, personalized information right when they need it. This kind of personalized experience not only helps build brand loyalty between you and your prospects, but it also increases email engagement because your prospects will actually use the information you are sending them.

When done correctly, Pardot list segmentation is a win for all parties involved. Read this blog post about creating a Pardot Email Preference Center for an example of segmentation done right.

Winning Pardot Segmentation Strategies

Below are just some of the ways you can segment your prospects for personalized emails. Make sure you share your other segmentation strategies in the comments!

Tip 1. Follow up with event registrants

Segmentation should be used both before and after events. Before events, you can thank prospects for registering, send them related content to the event, and send them reminders of where/when the event will be held. After the event, send them recap information, direct them to next steps, or introduce them to their Account team.

Tip 2. Nurture based on product interest

If you’re using Scoring Categories to gauge prospect interest in your different offerings, nurturing them based on their interest is a great way to speak to their needs. For these types of nurtures, I like to use a dynamic list to locate prospects who have a score over 100 in a scoring category, but do not have an open opportunity and have not yet scheduled a demo.

Tip 3. Send region-specific content

If your org regularly hosts events or webinars, segmenting your prospects by region is a great way to invite prospects to events in their area or webinars in their time zone. If your sales team is also divided by region, sales users can use these lists to zero in on their prospects. For these segmentation lists, I typically focus on the prospect’s Country and State fields and use the free Creuz Your Data tool to easily compile my lists of states/countries in each region.

Tip 4. Keep your partners up to date

Segmenting your partners into their own list is a great way to easily send them special newsletters and updates. But the best part is that this list can be used to suppress partners from prospect-specific marketing efforts, such as product nurtures.

Tip 5. Stay in touch with lost opportunities

Just because your prospect didn’t buy right now doesn’t mean they won’t become a customer in the future! Creating a Pardot segmentation list for prospects with lost opportunities is a great strategy to nurture them. That’s because they already know about your company and product offerings. They’re also more likely to already be subscribed to your marketing materials.

For prospects with lost opportunities, I like to use a more lengthy nurture that highlights new product offerings and customer use cases. These nurtures ensure our company stays top-of-mind so the prospect can reach out when they are ready to re-enter the sales funnel.

Tip 6. Exclude non-prospects from marketing efforts

Finally, another great way to segment your database is to build a primary suppression list that collects all the prospects you want to exclude from marketing emails, nurtures, “hot lead” lists etc. Building one list that all your Pardot users can reference takes the guesswork out of which prospects to suppress. Read more about Primary Suppression lists in this blog post.

Original article: 6 Ways to Use Segmentation Like a Pardot Pro

The post 6 Ways to Use Segmentation Like a Pardot Pro appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2022-12-09T21:19:40+00:00December 9th, 2022|Categories: Emails & Templates, Getting Started, revive, Setup & Admin|

With the holidays coming up, I can bet all of our inboxes are overflowing with marketing emails letting us know about can’t-miss deals, the best gifts, order before X date to get your gifts in time or you will disappoint your entire family (ok maybe not that aggressive, but you get it).

I can also bet that you’ve received so many emails from one company in such a short time that you have just opted out or blocked them entirely. This is called marketing fatigue, and it is a great way to lose your subscribers. But with the help of Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) Recency and Frequency dynamic lists, we can target prospects that have reached their email maximum for a time period and suppress them from future sends.

Building a Pardot Recency and Frequency Dynamic List

In Pardot:

Navigate to Automations, then Segmentation Lists
Select + Add List
Name your list and select the Dynamic List checkbox

Note: You have to select the Dynamic List checkbox when your list is created. If you create a static list, you cannot later go back and make the list dynamic.

Select Set Rules
Select Prospect has been emailed
Next you can specify the number of times the prospect has been emailed (frequency) and the window of time (recency).

You can combine the “Prospect has been emailed” rule with “Prospect Time” to apply different rules to different prospects. For example, if I want to limit never active prospects to 2 emails in 10 days, and current active prospects to 4 emails in 10 days, I could use the rules below:

Once created, I can use this list as a Suppression List on any of my email sends in order to exclude prospects who have been emailed too much in one time frame.

Can I use this in my Email Preference Center?

Yes! You can absolutely use this in your email preference center (EPC) to give Prospects the option to only receive, say, 1 email a week. First, you’ll want to create a new public list that prospects can opt into.

Here are the steps to create a new public list:

Navigate to Automations > Segmentation Lists
Select + Add List
Name your list (this name is internal facing only) and make sure you select the public checkbox
When the public checkbox is selected, the Label and Description fields will appear. These fields are external facing and should describe what the prospect is opting into.

Select Create List
- Make sure you add this new public list to any EPCs where you want it to appear. It will be added to the default EPC as soon as it is created.

Note: Since prospects who subscribe to this list can only receive one email per week, you’ll want to prioritize your email sends so these prospects only get the most important email in the 7 day window. To prevent these prospects from receiving less important emails, use the above list as a suppression list on those email sends.

Next, you’ll need to create a dynamic list that looks for prospects on the list above who have already been emailed 1 time in the past 7 days.

Navigate to Automations > Segmentation Lists
Select + Add List
Name your list and select the dynamic list checkbox
Select Set Rules
Set up your first rule to look for prospects who have subscribed to the list we create above
Use the recency and frequency option to set up your second rule and see who has already been emailed 1 time in the past 7 days

Select Run Rules

Use this new dynamic list as a suppression list on all email sends going forward. You can also add it to your Primary Suppression List to make sure this list is not left out!

Which Email Sends Count?

The “Prospect has been emailed” dynamic list rule counts list emails and emails sent via Engagement Studio Programs. It does not count one-to-one emails, emails sent via Salesforce Engage, emails sent with an email plug-in, or emails sent by automation rules or completion actions (i.e. Autoresponders).

What other ways are you planning on using recency and frequency dynamic lists in your org? Tell us in the comments!

Original article: Fight Email Marketing Fatigue: Pardot Recency and Frequency Dynamic Lists

The post Fight Email Marketing Fatigue: Pardot Recency and Frequency Dynamic Lists appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2022-11-30T22:20:00+00:00November 30th, 2022|Categories: Emails & Forms, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|

The Salesforce Winter ’23 release is bringing some changes to the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) “Opted Out” field. After this release, the sync options will change and “Use most recently updated” will no longer be an option for this field.

Pardot Admins must choose between “Use Salesforce’s Value” or “Use Pardot’s Value” before February 26th, 2023 or this field will stop syncing with Salesforce. All Pardot Orgs created after August 26th, 2022 will default to use Pardot’s Value.

So, how do you keep Pardot and Salesforce Opt Outs in sync between the two systems after this change? Well, it all depends on where your emails are coming from.

If you are only sending emails from Pardot

If you are only sending emails from Pardot, then Pardot being the system of record should not cause any issues.

Before you change your Opt Out sync behavior in Pardot, check the permissions of your “Email Opt Out” field on the Lead and Contact Objects. You will want to ensure only the Pardot to Salesforce connector user’s profile can edit this field so Salesforce users don’t incorrectly think they can opt out Leads/Contacts from the Salesforce side.

In Salesforce navigate to Setup > Object Manager > Lead > Fields & Relationships
Locate and open the Email Opt Out field
Select Set Field-Level Security
Ensure Read-Only is selected for any profiles who have visibility to this field except for the connector user’s profile (this will be the “B2BMA Integration User” profile if you are using the B2BMA integration user as your connector user)

Select Save
Repeat steps 1-5 for the Contact Object

Next, change your Pardot Opted Out field to use Pardot’s Value and voila! You are ready for this update.

But Salesforce Users want to be able to Opt Out Leads/Contacts

If your Salesforce users need to maintain the ability to opt Leads/Contacts out of Pardot Email from the Salesforce side, they can use the “Do Not Email” field going forward. Make sure you go through the “If you are only sending emails from Pardot” steps above, as well as:

#1 – Create a “Do Not Email” field for Leads/Contacts

In Salesforce navigate to Setup > Object Manager > Lead > Fields & Relationships
Select New
Select the field type Checkbox, then Next
Name the field “Pardot: Do Not Email”
In the Help Text field, enter “Prevents this Lead/Contact from receive Marketing emails in Pardot”

Select Next
On the Establish field-level security screen, ensure all profiles that will need update this field have visibility to it especially the Connector user’s profile (this will be the “B2BMA Integration User” profile if you are using the B2BMA integration user as your connector user)
Select Next
Select the page layouts you’d like to add this field to, select Save
Repeat steps 1-9 for the Contact Object

# 2 – Map the “Pardot: Email Opt Out” field upon Conversion

In Salesforce navigate to Setup > Object Manager > Lead > Fields & Relationships
Select Map Lead Fields
Select the Contact tab
Locate the Pardot: Do Not Email field in the Lead Fields column and select the Pardot: Do Not Email field under the Contact Fields Column

Select Save

# 3 – Map the Pardot “Do Not Email” field to Salesforce

In the Pardot Lightning app, navigate to Pardot Settings > Prospect Fields > Default Fields > Do Not Email
Select Edit default Prospect field
In the salesforce.com Field Name drop down, select Pardot: Do Not Email
In the Sync Behavior field, select Use the most recently updated value

Select Save default field

If you’re sending email out of multiple systems

If you’re sending emails out of Pardot and Salesforce, Marketing Cloud, or various other systems, my recommendation would be to create an Opt Out field for each system then use a Salesforce flow to keep these checkboxes in line.

For instance, if a Lead/Contact opts out of Pardot emails, you likely want to also opt them out of Salesforce and Marketing Cloud emails coming from the same company or email domain, otherwise you’re likely to get some SPAM complaints.

Tell us how Pardot Opt Out Field Sync changes affect you

How are you handling the Pardot Opt Out field sync changes? Do you have any scenarios that are more complex than the examples above? Let us know in the comments!

Original article: Preparing for Pardot Opt Out Field Sync Changes

The post Preparing for Pardot Opt Out Field Sync Changes appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2022-10-05T14:06:00+00:00October 5th, 2022|Categories: Data Management, New Features, Release Notes|

Queue Sarah McLachlan’s “I will remember you,” because the Pardot Classic App in Salesforce is officially retiring on Monday, October 17, 2022.

Remain calm! The retirement of the Pardot Classic App is unrelated to the recent Pardot rebrand to “Marketing Cloud Account Engagement.”

The retiring of the Classic app was announced almost a year ago, in October 2021. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) will still be accessible at pi.pardot.com and through the Lightning App.

Check out this FAQ article for more information on what is changing with the retirement of the Pardot Classic App.

Pardot Classic App Retirement Implications

What does this mean? If you’re using the Pardot Classic App in Salesforce today, then you’re accessing the classic user interface (UI) via the “Pardot tab” in either your Salesforce Classic or Lightning experience.

On October 17, 2022, you’ll have two options to access Pardot moving forward:

Logging in at pi.pardot.com: This is Pardot’s legacy application with the same classic UI experience shared by the Pardot Classic App.
Enabling the Pardot Lightning App: This is the recommended application to continue using Pardot in Salesforce Lightning. The Pardot Lightning App also grants you access to the latest and greatest features not available in the Classic App or at pi.pardot.com.

Getting Salesforce Access for Pardot Users

But my Pardot users don’t have access to Salesforce!

That’s OK!

With the Winter ’23 release, users who do not require full access to Salesforce can now access the Pardot Lightning app with a new permission set. Read more about the Winter’ ’23 new release updates here.

Start Using the Pardot Lightning App

What’s the Pardot Lightning App?

I’m so glad you asked!

This app gives you access to all your favorite Pardot marketing automation features in an updated UI built on the Salesforce Platform. Check out this blog post on the benefits of using the Pardot Lightning App and the additions that come with it.

It’s Time to Switch to Pardot Lightning

Are you ready to make the switch? Check out The Salesforce Pardot Lightning Implementation Guide. Or get in touch with us for help.

Let us know how you feel about making the switch to Pardot Lightning in the comments!

Original article: Get Ready for Pardot Classic App Retirement

The post Get Ready for Pardot Classic App Retirement appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2022-10-03T13:44:00+00:00October 3rd, 2022|Categories: New Features, Release Notes|

The Salesforce Winter ’23 Release Notes are out, and they include important features for marketers who are on the Salesforce platform.

We get three major releases from Salesforce each year — Spring, Summer and Winter. Each Salesforce release includes upgrades and enhancements that affect Salesforce orgs in different ways.

So, if you’re using and managing marketing operations for your company or organization and want to know more about Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), then you’re in the right place. We’re going to cover everything you need to know about the Salesforce Winter ‘23 Release for Pardot Admins.

Salesforce Winter ’23 Release: Pardot Highlights

Marketers who use the Salesforce platform are getting lots of attention from the Salesforce Winter ‘23 Release.

Some updates are changing the way we work to meet evolving technology demands. Others are saving us time by connecting the dots in a logical way. All we know is, this release includes big updates for people in the marketing world!

Highlight #1: Send data to third-party systems with External Actions

New External Actions allow you to send data to third-party systems from within an Engagement Studio Program. For example, you may want to send a prospect a survey, send them a text message, or even log a case based off of an action they took with your marketing materials.

External Actions, as well as External Activities, allow marketers to automate across platforms for a more unified experience. This feature is available to Plus, Advanced, and Premium editions of Pardot.

Highlight #2: Perform full database syncs

Gone are the days of adding a new prospect field just to trigger a full sync! The Winter ‘23 release is adding a new option to the Salesforce Connector to allow for a full sync of Prospect records.

Image Source: Salesforce

This feature is available to all Pardot editions, but it can only be performed in Pardot Business Units with fewer than 500k prospects. A full sync can be performed once every seven days.

Highlight #3: Pardot’s “Opt Out” Field Syncing is Changing

Starting February 26th, 2023, the Pardot “Opt Out” field’s sync behavior can no longer be set to “use most recently updated.”

This field will be limited to “Use Pardot’s Value” or “Use Salesforce” value. If your “Opt Out” field is currently set to “use most recently updated” you likely already seeing this banner in your org:

If Pardot is the only system you are sending emails out of, you should be okay to change the syncing behavior to “Use Pardot’s Value.”

However, if you are sending emails out of Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, or any other system, you’ll likely need separate Opt Out fields for each platform and then automations to keep them in line.

This update affects all Pardot Editions. New Pardot orgs created after August 26th, 2022, will default to “Use Pardot’s Value.”

Highlight #4: Pause activity tracking for individual prospects

Do you have an onslaught of bots or prospects who are performing a massive amount of activities in a short window?

With the Winter ‘23 release you can now pause tracking for individual prospects to keep that overactivity from being tracked.

When a prospect’s activity tracking is paused, the following will happen:

An icon will appear on the prospect’s list view
An error will appear on the prospect record
The prospect will still receive marketing emails

Highlight #5: New permission sets!

When Salesforce changed over to SSO, your marketers who needed access to Pardot but not Salesforce, likely became Identity Users. However, Identity User licenses do not grant marketers access to the Pardot Lightning app. That means they were missing out on cool new features, such as the Lightning Landing Page and Email Builders.

The Winter ‘23 release aims to fix this with a new permission set and permission set license that grants users access to these features.

These new permissions will be available to all Pardot Editions purchased or upgraded after February 12th, 2019. These new permissions do not grant users full access to Salesforce Campaigns though. That means users will still need full Salesforce licenses to create and manage Salesforce Campaigns.

Highlight #6: Running Automation Rules in real time is being retired

Being able to execute your Automation Rules in real time is being retired.

If you are not currently using this feature, this option will be removed from your org during the Winter ‘23 release. If you are using this feature, you’ll have until the Summer ‘23 release before this option is removed.

Highlight #7: The Pardot Classic App is being retired

And finally, the Pardot Classic App is officially being retired on October 17th. This retirement only affects the Classic App within Salesforce, you will still be able to access Pardot at pi.pardot.com or via the Lightning App.

If you haven’t made the switch to the Pardot Lightning App yet, check out Salesforce’s Pardot Lightning Implementation Guide or get in touch with us for help!

Pardot is getting bigger and better all the time

B2B marketers who come to Salesforce are usually looking to scale their efforts and grow in a way that makes sense. These latest enhancements from the Salesforce Winter ‘23 Release get marketers closer to those goals by saving them time and resources. Contact the team at Sercante to get help implementing these enhancements in your Salesforce org. And leave us a comment below to let us know what you think about the Winter ‘23 Release.

Original article: Salesforce Winter ‘23 Release: Pardot Highlights

The post Salesforce Winter ‘23 Release: Pardot Highlights appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2022-09-23T13:50:00+00:00September 23rd, 2022|Categories: New Features, Release Notes|

Nothing is more frustrating than when you experience a slowdown in your Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) org.

I just need this one Dynamic List to run, why is it taking so long!?!

These slow downs are frustrating. But they’re typically a sign that you need to archive old, continuously running, processes and/or optimize how you are using the platform.

The following best practices will help keep your Pardot org running efficiently. Many of these strategies are going to be more relevant to large orgs with 1 million+ prospects. But this information can be used to help increase processing times in Pardot orgs of any size.

1. Clean your Dynamic Lists

Dynamic lists are constantly running, matching and unmatching prospects as they fit or do not fit criteria. Old Dynamic Lists that are no longer matching prospects, or Dynamic Lists that are not actively being used can be a big strain on your system.

Salesforce recommends a limit of 1,000 Dynamic Lists per Pardot org. Also, if you have millions of Prospects, consider reviewing Dynamic Lists matching over 5 million prospects to see if these lists can be broken into smaller pieces.

I like to CSV export my Dynamic Lists so I can sort them by Updated Date and look at the oldest ones first. You can also sort by number of Prospects to tackle your biggest Dynamic Lists.

2. Check those Automation Rules

To keep things running smoothly, limit your automation rules to 5 million actions per day. This is a lot more than I see most Pardot orgs needing or using, but it doesn’t hurt to review your repeating automation rules and ensure the “Repeat Rule” settings are set appropriately to your needs.

I also recommend reviewing which Automation Rules are set to run in real time. Although Pardot can handle this, it is still not recommended to use this for every rule. I find most of the time a Real Time Automation Rule can instead be replaced by a Completion Action.

3. Only keep the best Prospects

The more Prospects you have in your Pardot Org, the more processing your org needs to do. Cleaning up unwanted or unneeded Prospects is a great way to cut down the number of processing requests quickly and our Junk Data in Your Pardot Org and 7 Ways to Clean Your Mailable List in Pardot blog posts have some great tips on how to do so.

Dynamic Lists and Automation Rules are also going to look at every Prospect in your org to see if they match criteria. If you can’t cut down on the number of Prospects in your org, consider adding criteria that will exclude Prospects from recurring automations.

For example, if I am creating a dynamic list for an email send, I don’t have to include the criteria “Prospect email status isn’t Opted Out” because any Prospects who have Opted Out won’t be sent the email anyway. However, including this in my Dynamic List criteria means Pardot can rule out that chunk of Prospects and process by request faster.

If you exclude the same set of Prospects from most of your emails and/or automations, consider creating a “Master Suppression List” that can easily be referenced.

4. Optimize your Engagement Studio Programs (ESPs)

Spread out your wait steps

ESPs can perform a ton of actions on a ton of prospects. Keep in mind that an ESP performs an action per node per prospect. For example, if my ESP starts with

Send Email
Apply Tag
Check if Grade is B- or above

And I’m sending 5,000 Prospects through this ESP, that is 15,000 processing requests right off the bat. Wait steps can be used to space out the amount of processing one ESP needs to do per day.

For example, going from this:

To this:

There are still 7 days between the 1st and 2nd email sends, but the processing requests are spread out over the wait period rather than happening all at once.

Use Complex Rules

Complex Rules are another great way to streamline your ESPs. Rather than have multiple Rule nodes

Combine your rules into one Complex Rule node to simplify your ESP.

Consolidate Branches

Consolidating ESP branches is another great way to cut down on the number of nodes an ESP has and therefore the number of requests it has to process. I find a lot of times users forget that ESPs can branch out, then back in, then back out again etc. When you don’t consolidate branches, your ESP will get very wide and updating them can be a big headache.

For example, moving from this:

To this:

A little Pardot org cleanup goes a long way

These are just some of the strategies you can employ to keep your Pardot org running smoothly, especially if you have a large org that is tackling numerous processes everyday.

Regularly auditing your org and Pardot processes is not only going to improve processing times, but it will make the system easier to use overall.

What other tactics do you use to keep your org clean? Tell us in the comments!

Original article: 4 Things to Clean in Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) for Faster Processing Times

The post 4 Things to Clean in Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) for Faster Processing Times appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2022-05-10T14:54:08+00:00May 10th, 2022|Categories: Engagement Studio, Getting Started, Marketing Automations, revive, Setup & Admin|

Balancing all the emails your teams want to send to Prospects versus how many emails the Prospects want to receive is difficult.

Email your Prospects too often and they may opt out. Email them too little and they may miss the important updates they subscribed for.

Also, determining when to email your Prospects is always a struggle. Should you split your sends by time zones? Is there a sweet spot that covers most time zones? Does anyone actually read emails on Mondays?!

Up until now, the best way to tackle these decisions is Dynamic Frequency and Recency lists coupled with the numerous studies concerning which days and times are the best to send emails. However, with Pardot and Einstein, you can let machine learning do this analysis for you and have one less thing to think about.

Note: The 2 Einstein Solutions below are only available to Advanced and Premium Editions of Pardot.

Optimize your email send times

Einstein Send Time Optimization analyzes the timestamp of sends, opens, clicks, unsubscribes, and spam complaints to determine the optimal time to send a Prospect an email.

Keep in mind, Einstein Send Time Optimization includes List emails, Engagement Studio Program emails, and Salesforce Engage sends in its analysis. It does not include Operational emails or Autoresponders.

How Send Time Optimization works in the abstract is a little confusing, but this example from Salesforce’s help doc is great:

Send Time Optimization is only available in emails sent from the new MCAE (Pardot) Lightning Email Builder.

When sending a list email from the Lightning Builder, three Send Time options appear:

Einstein Optimized (choose this option)
Send Now
Send Later

For “Start Date” enter the earliest day you want the emails to go out.
For “Time,” it takes about an hour for Einstein to analyze the prospects, so set this one hour before the earliest time your email should go out (i.e. If I want the emails to start sending at 9AM, I’ll select 8AM).
Then set your “Send Emails Within” value (up to 168 hours which is 7 days). The gray box at the bottom of the Send Time section will show the latest time your email can go out and will update as you change your “Send Emails Within” value.

Once your email starts sending, you can monitor how many emails have gone out anytime during the Send Time window by going to Pardot Email > Scheduled > All Scheduled Emails.

What data do you need?

Each Prospect needs to have engaged with an email in the last 90 days. If a Prospect is new or has not engaged within this window, Einstein will recommend an aggregate of your email engagement data.

Enabling Einstein Send Time Optimization

You’ll enable Einstein Send Time Optimization by going to Setup > Einstein Pardot > Send Time Optimization.

Once enabled, it will take up to 72 hours to analyze your data and create your custom model.

Use Einstein Send Time Optimization to customize email frequency

Einstein Engagement Frequency (EEF) analyzes Prospect’s email engagement over the last 90 days plus their overall engagement data in the past 28 days to determine if the Prospect is Undersaturated, On Target, or Saturated.

Similar to Einstein Send Time Optimization, EEF analyses List emails, Engagement Studio Program emails, and Salesforce Engage sends. It does not include Operational emails or Autoresponders.

So, say for example you have a list of 100 Prospects who all received an email two days ago. You need to send all 100 another email, but you are worried about over emailing them. With EEF, you can run a dynamic list looking at your Recipient list from your first email and see which Prospects are Undersaturated or On Target and could be emailed again.

Or, even better, you could set up an Engagement Studio Program for the second email, and any future communications, to wait for the Prospect’s EEF status to change from Saturated.

What data do you need?

Each Prospect needs to have engaged in at least the last 28 days, but 90 days is recommended. EEF also requires 5+ variations of emails be sent to at least 10 Prospects within the last 28 days.

Enabling EEF

You’ll enable Einstein Send Time Optimization by going to Setup > Einstein Pardot > Einstein Engagement Frequency.

Once enabled, it will take up to 72 hours to analyze your data and create your custom model, a new Prospect default field, Einstein Engagement Frequency, will also be created.

Lean on the machines with Einstein Send Time Optimization

With Einstein Send Time Optimization and Einstein Email Frequency, we can begin leaning on machine learning to make some of the email sending decisions for us.

If you’ve already started using these two Einstein tools with Pardot, please share your tips, tricks, and findings in the comments!

Original article: Einstein Send Time Optimization: A How-To Guide

The post Einstein Send Time Optimization: A How-To Guide appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2022-05-06T16:00:00+00:00May 6th, 2022|Categories: Analytics & Reporting, Emails & Forms, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|

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