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.

Account Engagement Lightning Builders and Scoring Categories

Account Engagement (fka Pardot) Scoring Categories and Lightning Builders are two great features to amp up your marketing and segmentation efforts, but they don’t exactly connect like typical Account Engagement assets. This blog will walk you through what you can and cannot do when it comes to combining these two features.

Where we run into issues

Account Engagement Scoring Categories can be super impactful for orgs with multiple services, offerings, products etc. These categories allow you to break down a Prospect’s interest in your different offerings so you can better tailor your messaging and next steps.

However, Scoring Categories rely on Account Engagement folders, if an asset lives in a folder that is assigned to a Scoring Category then any engagement with that asset is attributed to the Scoring Category, but the Lightning Builders don’t use folders. So can Scoring Categories be used with Lightning Builder assets? The answer is yes, but it’s complicated.

Scoring Categories and the Lightning Email Builder

When List Emails or Email Templates are sent from Account Engagement, your default Scoring model will adjust the Prospect’s score as the Prospect engages with the email. If this List Email or Email Template is saved in a Scoring Category folder, then the resulting Score would be associated with that category.

When Lightning Builder Email Content is sent to Prospects as a List Email or “activated for automation” and used as a template, there is no association with folders and therefore Scoring Categories. However, you can still adjust the Scoring Category in three ways:

1. Email Content Completion Actions

When sending Email Content you have the option to add completion actions for email opens, email clicks, and unsubscribes. Any of these options can be used to add or remove points from a Scoring Category.

2. Engagement Studio Program Actions

Lightning Builder Email Content can also be used within Engagement Studio programs. Just make sure you’ve selected “activate for automation” to push the Email Content down to Account Engagement:

In your Engagement Studio program, select the Email Content in your “Send Email” Action, add the relevant trigger (Email Click, Email Open, etc.), and then adjust the Prospect’s Scoring Category if they take said action.

3. Custom Redirect used in the Email Content

If you have an especially important link in your email, such as a button to register for an event, you can also create a Custom Redirect for the link.

Custom Redirects are associated with Folders, so any engagement with the link will update the Prospect’s Score within the category. You can also add a Completion Action to the Custom Redirect to add additional points above your default Scoring model.

Scoring Categories and the Lightning Landing Page Builder

When Landing Pages are built within Account Engagement, Page Views, Landing Page Successes, and Landing Page Errors will automatically update the Prospect’s Score in accordance with your default Scoring model. If that Landing Page is stored in a folder associated with a Scoring Category then the default scores will go to the Scoring Category rather than the overall score.

When the Landing Page is built in the Lightning Landing Page Builder, there is no association with folders and therefore Scoring Categories. However, you can still adjust the Scoring Category in two ways:

1. Form Completion Actions

The Form the Lightning Landing Page is using will be stored within Account Engagement and associated with a folder, but form fills completed via a Landing Page are associated with the Landing Page only. However, if your Form has a Completion Action to update a Scoring Category when it is filled out, this will be fired when the Prospect fills out the Form via a Lightning Landing Page.

2. Automation Rules

You can also create an Automation Rule to adjust a Prospect’s score if they have filled out a Lightning Landing Page. However, keep in mind this would only fire on the initial Landing Page completion. You can have the Automation Rule repeat, but it would keep giving the Prospect points each repeat even if they did not fill out the Landing Page again.

Go Use Scoring Categories with the Lightning Builder

So there you have it! Yes, you can use Scoring Categories with Lightning Builder assets, but it’s not in the ways you’d expect.

What other questions do you have about the Lightning Builders? Let us know in the comments!

Original article: Account Engagement Lightning Builders and Scoring Categories

The post Account Engagement Lightning Builders and Scoring Categories appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2023-08-23T11:25:21+00:00August 23rd, 2023|Categories: Emails & Forms, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|

Salesforce winter ‘24 release notes are out! Here are the most important features coming to Account Engagement that marketers should know about.

Winter ’24 Highlights for Marketers

Highlight #1 – Engagement Studio Program wait times less than 1 day!

Marketers have been keeping their fingers crossed for this feature for a long time, and it received over 8k points in the IdeaExchange.

With the Winter ‘24 release, you’ll be able to set Engagement Studio Program wait steps to 2-8 hours. This will be especially helpful if you’d like to give other processes time to run before moving onto next steps or before syncing the Prospect to Salesforce. This feature will be available to all Account Engagement Editions.

Highlight #2 – Sandbox to Production Flow

Details are sparse on this new feature, but it appears orgs will be provided with an example flow that can be copied and used to push Account Engagement Sandbox assets to Account Engagement Production. No details on which aspects of Sandbox will be able to be pushed to Production, but I have a feeling it will be somewhat similar to the Bulk Assets Copy Flow for multiple Business Units.

Highlight #3 – Review Email Templates with Invalid Senders

New Domain restrictions took effect in the Spring ‘23 release. As a result, you will now be prevented from sending an Account Engagement email with a sender from an unverified email domain. This is aimed to help protect your sender reputation.

This new feature will allow you to identify which email templates currently have an unverified sender so you can easily update them and keep using the email template. These notifications are already showing up in Optimizer, so may be able to proactively check for this issue rather than waiting until the release is out. To check, navigate to Account Engagement Settings > Optimizer and look for any Configuration Issues with “Sender email address with an unverified domain.”

Highlight #4 – Change Monitor Histogram

Account Engagement Optimizer is also getting a new feature that will allow you to review Prospect changes. Details on this new feature are a little sparse. Optimizer already has a way to view Prospect Changes (discussed in our Everything You Need to Know About the Account Engagement Optimizer blog post), so my guess is this view is going to have new and improved ways to filter and chart the data.

Highlight #5 – Restrict which domains can iframe Account Engagement Assets

With the Winter ‘24 release you can now restrict which domains Account Engagement assets, such as forms and landing pages, can be iframed on, or restrict iframing assets all together. This helps you ensure your assets can’t be used on websites you don’t own, such as competitors or partners, as well as ensure assets are only iframed on the domains belonging to that particular Business Unit.

Business Units created after the Winter ‘24 release will have iframing restricted by default.

A Few Other Salesforce Winter ‘24 Updates

Restore Paused Prospects
Free up system bandwidth by deleting unconverted visitor activity records
Copy Marketing Assets Using API Version 5 for Flow
- This feature is available now. Read all about it in our “How to Copy Assets Between Account Engagement Business Units” blog post.

Which Salesforce Winter ‘24 features are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments!

Original article: Salesforce Winter ‘24 Release: Account Engagement New Features

The post Salesforce Winter ‘24 Release: Account Engagement New Features appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2023-08-18T21:12:10+00:00August 18th, 2023|Categories: New Features, Release Notes|

Adobe’s Marketo and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (f.k.a. Pardot) are two of the most common marketing automation platforms I’ve worked with in my career as a marketer. When migrating from Marketo to Account Engagement, there is a lot to keep in mind to make sure you:

Transform marketing processes to properly work in the new system.
Are aware of how features differ between the systems.
Keep the migration running smoothly.

Now, both Account Engagement and Marketo have their pros and cons. And this blog isn’t to convince you one is better than the other (I’d probably be a little too biased in the matter). This post is designed to guide those who are migrating from Marketo to Account Engagement to ensure your migration goes as smoothly as possible.

Things to be mindful of when migrating from Marketo to Account Engagement

These are the main considerations to make during a Marketo to Account Engagement migration.

Difference in the Email field

One big difference between Marketo and Account Engagement is how each platform treats the “Email” field.

In Marketo, the email field can be blank and it can also be an invalid value (i.e. “[email protected] – only send newsletters”).

In Account Engagement, the email field is required, always, there are no workarounds that I have found. The email value also needs to have the correct format, so you can’t enter spaces or just text without an “@” and “.”. These restrictions help protect your deliverability rate and ensure only accurately formatted data is entered.

Account Engagement also restricts role based emails from being imported or emailed to protect your account’s sending reputation. These are emails that may go to a distribution group rather than one person, so it makes opt-in consent murky (i.e. Sales@, Marketing@, info@ etc.). Account Engagement does allow you to lift this restriction, but you will need to open a support ticket to do so.

Firing when a Field Is Changed

Marketo automations have the ability to fire when a prospect’s field is changed. So, if a prospect’s job title is updated, you might run them through a process that sets the correct Job Role. Account Engagement only works with what the field value is at any current moment.

You can see a field’s previous value in the Audit table, but you can’t fire an automation off of this activity. Within Account Engagement, you can work around this by having your automations repeat on a regular basis or by creating a date field and using a Salesforce flow to stamp the date everytime the field changes.

Program Statuses versus Campaign Member Statuses

Marketo has ‘Programs’ for marketing initiatives such as events, nurtures, emails, etc. These programs have statues that designate where the prospect is within the program. This mirrors how Account Engagement uses campaigns and campaign member statuses.

Campaign member statuses can be used in the same way as Marketo program statuses, you’ll just want to make sure your users understand this change in process.

Lead Qualification

Marketo focuses solely on scores in three different scoring categories:

Behavior Scoring is implicit, it’s based off of the person’s interactions with your marketing resources or your website.
- This is equivalent to Account Engagement Scoring.
- Account Engagement also has Scoring Categories that allow you to gain insight into which solution, service, or topic the prospect is most interested in.
Demographic Scoring is explicit, it’s based on other observable information such as Job Title/ Role, Company Size, and Industry.
- This is equivalent to Account Engagement Grading.
Negative Scoring is also implicit, it’s based on what the person doesn’t do and reduces their score based on inactivity.
- This can be replicated in Account Engagement with Score decay.

When migrating your Prospects from Marketo to Account Engagement, you may want them to start with their Marketo Behavior Score as their Account Engagement Score. If so, make sure you include the score in your import file for Account Engagement.

Forms

Marketo has a variety of built in options to support advanced operations, such as inserting text in the middle of the form, in form calculations, or multiple redirects depending on form values. Account Engagement relies on Javascript for these advanced configurations.

Custom JavaScript can be placed within your Account Engagement forms under the Look and Feel tab, in the Below Form section.

Our blog posts on Using JavaScript to Enhance Your Forms and Creating Multi-Language Forms, as well as Karin Tracy’s MarDreamin’ presentation on Customizing Pardot Form Behavior with JavaScript will help you get started.

Marketo and Account Engagement Terminology Differences

Below is a quick guide to the terminology differences between the two systems. Make sure your users have this guide early to avoid confusion and frustration during your migration!

Marketo and Account Engagement Field Types

Account Engagement and Marketo field types are a bit different, but the below table will guide you when creating your new fields in Account Engagement.

Marketo and Account Engagement User Roles

User Roles also differ between the two systems. Account Engagement’s Premium and Advanced editions provide the ability to use default user roles or create Custom User Roles so you can create a role with the exact permission needed.

Additional Tips

Marketo has restrictions on exports, typically 500MB per day. So plan accordingly, and keep in mind that you may not be able to export all your Marketo prospects in one day!

Account Engagement Automation Rule and Dynamic List criteria is limited to about 250 characters per rule (factoring in separator and spaces), while Marketo is limited to 5,000 characters. Creuz Your Data can help you split up your rule criteria into 250 character chunks, or Prospect Updater can help you circumvent this limitation entirely.

Time to dig into your migration

Now you’re ready to tackle your Marketo to Account Engagement migration with confidence! For even more tips for your migration, check out our Getting Real About Marketing Automation Platform Migration Projects blog post. And reach out to the team at Sercante to start a conversation about your platform migration and how it fits into your overall marketing strategy.

Original article: Migrating From Marketo to Account Engagement: Key Things to Know

The post Migrating From Marketo to Account Engagement: Key Things to Know appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2023-07-18T11:44:35+00:00July 18th, 2023|Categories: Pro Tips, revive, Setup & Admin, Strategy|

It’s here! It’s finally here! It’s the Account Engagement Business Unit Bulk Asset Copy Flow.

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (f.k.a. Pardot) Business Units have become my niche over the past few years. I love setting them up and standardizing them, but I don’t love copying over assets when configuring a new Business Unit(BU).

With the Summer ‘23 release, we can now use Salesforce Flow to copy custom fields, engagement studio programs, files, custom redirects, and email templates between Account Engagement Business Units!

Access the Account Engagement Business Unit Bulk Asset Copy Flow

During the Summer ‘23 release, your org should have received a new flow called “Account Engagement Bulk Asset Copy Flow.”

To find this Flow:

In Salesforce, navigate to Setup > Flow
Select the Account Engagement Bulk Asset Copy Flow
From the Flow Builder, select Run

Note: The documentation currently states that you have to add this flow to the Campaign page before you begin. However, I did not find any way to select this flow from the Lightning Page Flow Component, I could only run it in the Flow Builder.

Set up the Flow

The flow itself is pretty straightforward. It will walk you through selecting your assets and setting the new asset details.

Select your Source and Destination Business Units, select Next

Select the assets to copy, select Next

Note: Keep in mind, all assets selected here will be copied to the same Folder, will be assigned the same Campaign, and use the same tracker domain. You may want to run the Flow multiple times if your new assets need to have different settings.

Confirm the Assets, select Next
Select your Folder, Campaign, and Tracker Domain for your new assets

Select Copy Assets

Bulk Asset Copy Confirmation Screen

If your action was successful, you will see the list of assets created on the Confirmation screen.

You don’t get an error message if your action was unsuccessful, but your confirmation screen won’t have any/all assets listed.

Considerations for Using Business Unit the Bulk Asset Copy Flow

Since this is a brand new capability for Account Engagement, there are some details and settings that do not come over when copied. I thoroughly tested each asset type and below are the considerations that I found.

Custom Fields

When you copy custom fields from one Business Unit to another, only the following information comes over

Field Name
Field API Name
Field Type

The field’s mapping to Salesforce, Salesforce sync behavior, predetermined values (for dropdowns, radio buttons, etc.), and optional settings will not be configured.

Email Templates

When copied, the email sender will be replaced by a General User with the email [email protected]. This applies even if you have a sender hierarchy specified using “Assigned User” and ‘Account Owner.”

Email Templates containing Dynamic Content will not copy over. This is because dynamic content is unique to the Business Unit. Even if you have the same Dynamic Content in each Business Unit, they will have a different asset ID and merge tag.
Watch for email template nuances between BUs. If you copy an email template from Business Unit A to Business Unit B, make changes to Business Unit A’s template, then copy the template from Business Unit A to Business Unit B again, the flow will not update the existing template in Business Unit B. Instead it will create a brand new email template with the updated changes.

Files

During my testing, I was only able to get image files to copy over view the flow. I tested .pdf, .ics, and .css files with and without Completion actions and was unable to get anything but images to successfully copy.

Engagement Studio Programs

When you copy an Engagement Studio Program (ESP) to a new Business Unit, only the ESP structure is copied. The Recipient List, Suppression lists, Send days/times, and “Allow prospects to enter more than once” settings do not come over and will need to be reconfigured in the new Business Unit.
The assets specified in a Trigger or Action node, such as email templates, landing pages, and forms, will need to be reselected in the new ESP. However, the number of wait days specified in the node will copy over.

If an Action node looks at a Prospect field (i.e. Prospect default field “Job Title” is not blank) and that field is in both business units, then the node will be copied to the new ESP with the field and value/settings specified. If the field does not exist in both business units, then the Action node will still be in the ESP but the field and value/settings will need to be reconfigured.

Custom Redirects

When a Custom Redirect is copied from one Business Unit to another, the redirect’s Completion Actions will not copy over, however, the Google Analytics Parameter values do.

Now it’s even easier to work with Account Engagement Business Units

This new Flow is a huge step toward making Business Units easier to set up and manage. My hope is that the capabilities of this Flow will continue to grow until we can make a near identical copy of an entire Business Unit.

What other capabilities would you like to see in this Flow? Let us know in the comments!

Original article: How to Copy Assets Between Account Engagement Business Units

The post How to Copy Assets Between Account Engagement Business Units appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2023-07-12T12:09:50+00:00July 12th, 2023|Categories: Emails & Forms, Marketing Automations, Pardot, Pro Tips, Release Notes, revive|

Account Engagement (Pardot) Optimizer BETA was released with the Spring ‘23 new features, but it has become “Generally Available” as of the Summer ‘23 release. This new feature promises to help you identify and correct issues that may be negatively affecting your Business Unit’s processing power. In this blog, we’ll dive into everything you need to know to access and use the new Account Engagement Optimizer feature.

Accessing the Account Engagement Optimizer

To access the Optimizer, go to your Account Engagement Settings tab, “Optimizer” will appear as an option on the left-hand menu.

If you are using Default User Roles, only Administrators will have access to the Optimizer. If you are using Custom User Roles, make sure your custom role has the following permissions selected (edit Custom User Roles by going to Account Engagement Settings > User Management > Roles > then selecting the role you’d like to edit).

Admin > View Optimizer
Admin > View and Edit Pending Table Actions
Marketing > View and Delete Automation Rules
Marketing > View and Delete Lists

If you opted into the Beta before the Summer ‘23 release, there is nothing you need to do to continue using the Optimizer. If you did not opt into the Beta, the Optimizer should have auto-enabled when your org was upgraded to Summer ‘23.

Analyzing Your Optimizer Report Results

The Optimizer, with the help of Brandy, will provide one of three statuses for your business unit:

Looking Good: No critical issues to address
Pay Attention: There are a few recommended actions to improve your business unit
Action Needed: There are critical issues and you should resolve them right away.

Prospect Change Monitor By Feature Chart

Next to Brandy and your Optimizer Status, you’ll see your Prospect Change Monitor By Feature chart.

This feature shows you which type of automations have made a change to Prospects in the last 24 hours. You can double click on each slice of the pie to drill into exactly which assets are making changes.

Account Engagement Optimizer - prospect change monitor

Changing Filter Views

In this view, you can also change your filters to show different date ranges and different views. I like to change my view to “All Processes” and Date Range to “Last 30 Days” to better keep an eye on which automations are running at least every month.

This view can be especially helpful in finding automations that may not have been set up in the most efficient way possible, such as an automation rule that is set to repeat every single day.

Configuration Issues

Next in the Optimizer report is your Configuration Issues. This table will show setup problems that are stopping you from full access to Account Engagement’s features. This can be issues like your sending domain not being verified or prospects being paused for bot-like behavior.

I tried to see if turning off Connected Campaigns would also trigger an issue here, but no dice. Hopefully, Salesforce will provide a list of all configuration issues that are checked in a future release, but in the meantime you can use our implementation checklist to ensure your Business Unit is configured correctly.

Performance Improvement Measures

Next is Performance Improvement Measures, this table shows you recommendations that will improve your Business Unit’s processing power. This table defaults to “Actionable Measures,” but you can change this view to “All” to see what else is being monitored.

This table is broken down into five columns:

Measure: What exactly Optimizer is reviewing.
Status: Whether the measure is in Good, Concerning, or Critical standing or if there are actions that can be taken. “Good” statuses will not show when this table is filtered to only show “Actionable Measures.”
Feature Area: Which Account Engagement Features are involved in this measure.
Recommendation: What next steps, if any, should you take. Most insights will also include links to documentation, which I personally love.
History: If there is enough data for this measure, you can select the chart icon to see the measures for the last 8 days. These charts also shed light on what the Optimizer considers good, concerning, or critical.

Maintenance Resources

Finally, you have Maintenance Resources. This section links to a few views and reports that can help your Business Unit run in tip-top shape. This includes 2 views we’re already used to: Inactive Automation Rules and Inactive Dynamic Lists, but also 2 new super useful views:

Table Action Manager: This view allows you to pause, prioritize, and cancel actions currently running in the Business Unit. For example, say you recently kicked off an Automation Rule that will update 3,000 prospects, but you are also running a Dynamic List that is needed for an email send going out in 5 minutes. Now you can prioritize that Dynamic List over the Automation Rule rather than panicking if your Dynamic List is going to complete in time.
Unused Dynamic Lists: This view shows you which Dynamic Lists have a blank Usage table. Now you no longer have to click into each Dynamic List to check if any assets are listed on the “Usage” tab, YAY!

Account Engagement Optimizer is Available Now

Now that Optimizer is available for all orgs, I would highly recommend you check the report at least monthly to keep an eye out for any potential issues. If you have any questions or neat tips about the Optimizer, let us know in the comments! Also, if you’re looking for other ways to improve your Business Unit’s processing power, check out our blog post, “4 Things to Clean in MCAE (Pardot) for Faster Processing Times.”

Original article: Everything You Need to Know About the Account Engagement Optimizer

The post Everything You Need to Know About the Account Engagement Optimizer appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2023-06-19T19:23:15+00:00June 19th, 2023|Categories: Analytics & Reporting, Pardot, Pro Tips, Release Notes, revive|

The Salesforce Summer ’23 Release Notes are out and we’ve been combing through them to see how these changes will affect our clients and readers. This post includes what you’ll need to know as a Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) admin or user.

Salesforce Summer ‘23 Release Feature #1

Data Cloud and Account Engagement

Probably the new release feature I am most excited about, an Account Engagement Connector for Data Cloud! This connector will allow you to pull in Data Cloud segments via Account Engagement Dynamic Lists, allowing you to not only market directly to your Data Cloud customers, but also reap the benefits of Data Cloud’s unified view of customer data to help support your ABM initiatives.

Salesforce Summer ‘23 Release Feature #2

Copy Assets Across Business Units

If you have multiple Account Engagement Business Units (BUs), then you probably know the pain of keeping universal assets exactly the same across all of your BUs. The Summer ‘23 release is hoping to make that pain point a thing of the past by enabling Salesforce Flow to replicate assets across BUs. This new feature will allow for replication of custom fields, email templates, engagement studio programs, files, and custom redirects! Keep an eye out for a follow up post on this, I can’t wait to try it and share some tips and tricks with all of you.

Salesforce Summer ‘23 Release Feature #3

Opt Out can again be set to “Most Recently Updated”

Back in the Winter ‘23 release, Salesforce announced they were doing away with the “Most Recently Updated” sync behavior option for Account Engagement’s “Opt Out” field. However, after hearing from the community, this change is being rolled back. So, if you didn’t prepare for this change, your procrastination has paid off! Just keep in mind new business units created after October 18th, 2023 will have the Opt Out sync behavior set to “Use Account Engagement” by default.

Salesforce Summer ‘23 Release Feature #4

External Actions are coming to Completion Actions

External Actions, which allow Account Engagement to send data to 3rd Party Applications, will now be available in Completion Actions. Now you can easily register a prospect for an event in a 3rd Party system upon form fill, or even send them a text as a completion action.

Salesforce Summer ‘23 Release Feature #5

Account Engagement Optimizer is Generally Available

Account Engagement Optimizer is moving from Beta to Generally Available! Optimizer provides easy ways to clean up your Account Engagement org but pinpointing potential issues. With the move to Generally Available, Optimizer has a couple of additional metrics, including:

Configuration Issues: diagnose problems that are blocking access to features
Performance Improvement Measures: display good measures so you can see what is working well in the Business Unit
Prospect Change Monitor: understand which features result in the most prospect changes for your Business Unit

A Few Other Summer ‘23 Updates

Which Salesforce Summer ‘23 new release feature are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments!

Original article: Salesforce Summer ‘23 Release: Account Engagement New Features

The post Salesforce Summer ‘23 Release: Account Engagement New Features appeared first on The Spot.

By Erin Duncan|2023-06-09T12:22:03+00:00June 9th, 2023|Categories: New Features, Pardot, Release Notes|

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|

12 Next