Emails & Templates Archives

Why Email Open Rate Is Dead – and How Account Engagement Can Help

GDPR, CPRA, the end of third-party cookies: data privacy is a hot topic among digital marketers, but it’s not just advertisers who should be worried. If your marketing strategy’s success is founded on clicks and email open rates, the data privacy landscape of the future could be an unpleasant awakening.

Data privacy tools can impact your email strategy in a number of key ways:

User-controlled features like Apple Mail Privacy Protection make it look like an email has more opens that it actually does
Security bots may inflate click rates in email reports
Tools like DuckDuckGo’s email inbox may “hide” interactions from your marketing tools

The good news is that Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) offers out-of-the-box tools that can support email marketers through some of these changes. Let’s take a look at the options.

View Email Clients in a Send Report

If part of reporting on your email successes relies on email open rates, the first tool Account Engagement offers that you will want to utilize is the “Email Clients” report.

Found as a tab in a Sent Email report, this tool will give a breakdown of all email clients your recipients are using, including how many are using Apple Mail Privacy Protection and/or Outlook:

Viewing this report will give you a sense of how reliable your email open rate metrics actually are. For example, if you have a high percentage of recipients leveraging Apple Mail Privacy in your report, that is a signal that your email open rates will likely be artificially higher than they should be. That’s because Apple MPP is pre-opening every email sent and “hiding” true opens from marketing tools like Account Engagement — thus, a person could show as an open even if they have not actually opened your email.

Email Open Rate Considerations for Outlook Users

On the other side of this is Outlook. If you’re a B2B marketer, you likely have a sizable chunk of recipients opening your emails on Outlook.

This isn’t new, but you may not have known that an email “open” is recorded when a pixel is triggered — often in the form of an image pixel. This means that if a recipient doesn’t download images and doesn’t click on a link, their open will likely not be captured. If you’re sending long-form emails with lots of relevant information and few links to click through, you could be missing the actual impact of that email if you’re only looking at open rates.

Email Open Rate Considerations for DuckDuckGo Users

Not pictured here is the impact of something like DuckDuckGo’s inbox that, like its browser counterpart, is designed to “hide” things like email opens or link clicks from marketers.

As consumers continue to search for ways to keep their user data private from marketers, we can expect inbox providers to allow for greater user-based controls like this. Those tools are just one more reason to consider moving away from reporting on email opens at all.

Automations and Email Open Rates

If your email client reports are indicating a big impact in your open rate credibility, your next step needs to be an assessment of your Engagement Studios, Automation Rules, and Dynamic Lists that are using email opens. Fortunately, Account Engagement has an out-of-the-box tool for this as well!

In Account Engagement, navigate to “Reports,” then “Marketing Assets,” then “Automations.” You should see “Open Rules Audit” as a selection. Opening that report will pull a quick calculation of where your account is using email opens to trigger an action, like branching in an Engagement Studio, adding a person to a Dynamic List (see examples in this post), or triggering an Automation Rule if they “open” an email:

Keep in mind that not all of these will be active, so you will still have to do a bit of discovery on what needs to be edited and what should be simply archived. However, if you have multiple people creating assets and campaigns in your Account Engagement account, this report is a great resource for determining who should be involved in updating your automations with other engagement metrics (like clicks).

Taking Extra Steps: Evaluating Bot Clicks in Email Opens

If you’re also triggering automations off email clicks, this is a good opportunity to check your recipient lists for email security tools. These tools will pre-click every link in an email before delivering it to the recipient, who may then also click the links that are most interesting to them.

You may have noticed this show up in your email reports or in a prospect report, where it might look like a recipient clicked every link in your email — including your social media links and privacy policies — in under a minute. Impressive, if it were true!

Custom Redirect Solution for Catching Bot Clicks

Some industries appear to be more likely than others to use these, so the impact can be tricky to determine without a little bit of work on your end. Fortunately, using Account Engagement, you can use custom redirect links to lessen the impact.

First, be sure that you have Visitor Filters in place under Admin > Automation Settings > Visitor Filters. This is a great place to start, and it will filter out most engagement from a number of security tools.

Second, you can use a Custom Redirect link and hide it in your email templates. That way, if it gets clicked, you know that only a bot could click and and you know which recipients are impacted. Then you can filter them out of automations that use email clicks.

You can use something simple as your hidden link — just make sure the image is small (one pixel by one pixel is fine) and is the same color as your background.

You can also use this strategy to decrease your scores for anyone who clicks on the link or add a tag that helps you understand your account-wide impact:

Adapting What You Report on Email Marketing

So if you can’t leverage email opens to determine if your recipients are interested in your email content, what can you report on? This is where Account Engagement’s integration to Salesforce is so great.

You can report on website or landing page visits via Google Analytics, pull in interest from campaign members in Salesforce, or even look at your email report Interaction tab to see what percentage skimmed, read, or glanced at your emails.

Importantly, the time has come to look beyond opens as a success metric — and Account Engagement can help you get there.

Original article: Why Email Open Rate Is Dead – and How Account Engagement Can Help

The post Why Email Open Rate Is Dead – and How Account Engagement Can Help appeared first on The Spot.

By Natalie Jackson|2023-08-21T21:34:45+00:00August 21st, 2023|Categories: Emails & Templates, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|

Coding Basics: A Marketer’s Friendly Guide to HTML

Marketers often overlook code literacy, outsourcing anything code related to website or email developers. But understanding some coding basics, such as HTML, benefits the everyday marketer more than they realize.

By learning the fundamentals of HTML, you can:

Better communicate your vision to the web developers
Understand how web pages are designed and where pieces of code need to go
Create richer, more engaging email and website content
Improve their search engine rankings

“But I don’t need to know how to code. It’s scary.”

That’s where we come in!

HTML coding basics for marketers

Hypertext markup language, aka HTML, is the code that tells your web browser what it should show when you go to a website. When you go to a webpage, your browser reads through the HTML tags and then presents it visually. This blog page even uses HTML to display its design and content to you in a way that is easy to read and understand.

With even the most basic knowledge of HTML code, you can better break up your page’s content in a way that will better engage your audience.

Code formatting

Each HTML tag you add must have a matching set of open and close tags. Without a close tag, any code you write will cause errors in how the info is displayed.

If we were to use the standard paragraph code, <b>, we would need to add </b> after we’re done.

<b>This tag makes text bold!</b> becomes This tag makes text bold!

HTML page structure

These tags will be utilized on every webpage. While you may not need to write them yourself, they are important to know and understand.

<head>

Any additional code for a page will go inside of the tag. This covers everything from general page design, additional styling, or Javascript code. Most tracking codes will go here as well.

<body>

This will be the main content for your website page.

<link>

If your page needs to link to a Cascading Stylesheet Sheet (CSS), it will do so inside of a tag.

<title>

Each page needs a title. What you place in the title tag will appear in search engine results as well as the name of the browser tab.

<div>

This is a structural element that goes inside the tag. Web pages and emails can be broken down into a series of nested tables. Div tags act as a single cell inside of this high level structure.

Building richer, more readable content

A main way marketers effectively use HTML is breaking up walls of text into something that is easier for a reader to sift through.

Content is meant to be read — not just for search engines to crawl. The more readable your landing page or email, the better your customers will understand the message you’re trying to convey.

With HTML, you add rich text formatting to make key points stand out or build a list of reasons why your product is awesome.

Here are some important tags to spice up your copy!

Coding basics for stronger search engine optimization

SEO is the name of the online content game. Marketers are always on the lookout for ways to improve their search engine rankings. But HTML provides some simple ways to gain a boost – no hard thinking required.

The importance of alt tags

Google can do a lot of things except look at images. So how does it know what photos to show as relevant when I search for something online?

Alt text! Alt tags, also known as alt descriptions or alt text, describe the images you post to the search engine. They also allow customers who require certain accessibility tools to enjoy your more visual content.

And if an image is taking a while to load (or doesn’t load at all), the alt text will display.

To add an alt tag to an image in HTML, you would use the following format:

<img src=”(Image URL)” alt=”A meme with the text Hello… is it alt-tags you’re looking for? over a photo Lionel Richie’s face”>

Use HTML header hierarchies

Search engines like it when pages lay out what is most important. When you utilize H1, H2, etc. tags on your page, you are laying out a table of contents of what content is connected and how important each piece is.

By placing a keyword in an H1 tag, compared to an H4 tag, you tell Google that the keyword in the H1 tag is one of the most important pieces of context about what is on your landing page.

All header tags can be stylized to make the most important ones stand out visually, which assist with readability.

Let’s get meta with meta tags

Meta tags may not directly impact your SEO rankings, but by adding in appropriate meta descriptions, this tells search engines like Google know what to display on their search results page. The more accurate and correct the meta description on the results page, the higher the chance someone will click on your website’s link because your result looks more relevant to the searcher.

If you don’t set a meta description yourself, Google then gets to guess what content to put here based on what exists on your page. Also another reason why header hierarchy is vital.

These type of tags usually fall under the main <head> tag for a page and look like the following:

<head>

<title>Let’s Get Meta</title>

<meta name=”keywords” content=”HTML, Meta Tags, Meta Description, Metadata” />

<meta name =”description” content=”Answering all of your questions about meta tags!” />

</head>

Basic coding is not so scary, right?

Simple coding doesn’t have to be scary. Knowing the basics of HTML makes a difference when it comes to having stand out landing pages and email copy. And understanding how code works will help you communicate with your web developers.

If you want to learn more about code that helps marketers, check out Code School for Marketers, a 6-week interactive online course to give you the tools to improve your code literacy!

Original article: Coding Basics: A Marketer’s Friendly Guide to HTML

The post Coding Basics: A Marketer’s Friendly Guide to HTML appeared first on The Spot.

By Amanda Rhodes|2023-07-03T18:50:47+00:00July 3rd, 2023|Categories: Emails & Templates, Forms & Form Handlers, Getting Started, revive, Setup & Admin|

Playing with the AI-Powered Stensul Email Subject Line Tool

I saw an email pop in my inbox last week from our pals at Stensul. The subject line read “Simple and quick subject lines? The Stensul way it is.” Inside the email was a link to try out an AI-powered email subject line generator.

I had to check it out.

I spend lots of time in my role at Sercante writing and editing copy for marketing assets like emails, blog posts, landing pages, and social media posts. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten in an editing hole testing different variations of words for email subject lines until I find the perfect one.

That’s what got me so excited about the tool.

Email Subject Lines that Inspire Action and Curiosity

Each email you send through your marketing automation tool has such a small chance to get people to do the things you’re asking them to do. So, it’s especially important to write an impactful email subject line to get people curious about what your email has to offer. You also have to provide value by offering your reader clear expectations about what’s inside the email.

I’m thinking the Stensul email subject line generator will be helpful for achieving those goals. I’m also thinking we can use it to create subject line variations for A/B testing.

Trying the Stensul Subject Line Generator on Sercante Emails

I guess the best way to see how this thing works is to dive in. First, I went to the subject line generator landing page and traded my info for access to the tool. A few seconds later, I got an email with my magic link to use it.

Here’s what it looks like:

You’re prompted to enter the text of your email along with details like your company type, industry, and tone of voice along with word limit for the subject line.

The tone of voice options range from average to entertaining. Here are the options:

Enthusiastic
Funny
Informational
Casual
Professional
Pirate-Like
Yoda
Shakespearean

I tested it out using a few older Sercante emails to see what subject lines it produces.

Here are examples from my exploration:

Sercante 2022 Year in Review Email Example

Here’s what I got when copy-pasted the content from our 2022 year in review email and asked for 10-word subject lines.

Original subject line: Join Us In Celebrating Our Milestones

The email:

Results with Enthusiastic Tone:

Celebrating a Year of Growth & Opportunity with Sercante!
2022 Highlights: Sercante’s Unforgettable Journey
Sercante’s 2022 Milestones: Thanks for the Support!
Sercante’s Incredible Growth: Join our 2023 Adventure!
Cheers to Sercante’s Success: Let’s Make 2023 Even Better!

Results with Funny Tone:

Hold Our : Sercante’s Wild & Wonderful 2022 Recap!
Blast Off! Sercante’s Stellar 2022 Highlights Inside
Unleashing the Fury: Sercante’s -Filled 2022 Adventures
Sercante Turns 5: Our Side-Splitting, Record-Breaking Year!
Brace Yourself: Sercante’s 2022 Rollercoaster Ride Awaits!

Note: I love that it’s intuitive enough to throw a dragon emoji in there.

Results with Yoda Tone:

Growth & Opportunity, 2022 We Celebrate, Yoda Says
Memorable Year, Sercante’s Journey, Learn You Will
Gratitude and Success, 2022 Recap, Stronger Together
Salesforce Support, Sercante Achievements, Future Yoda Sees
Embark 2023, Marketers’ Galactic Adventures Await Us

The Spot & Jenna Molby Partnership Email Example

Here’s more email subject line generator exploration using an email we sent to announce Jenna Molby’s partnership with The Spot.

Original subject line: A shining Salesforce star is joining The Spot

The email:

Results with Informational Tone:

Discover Jenna Molby’s Salesforce Insights on The Spot
Elevate Your Marketing with Jenna Molby & The Spot
Master Pardot: Jenna Molby’s Tools & Tips Now Live
Unleash Your Salesforce Potential: Jenna Molby & The Spot
Jenna Molby’s Salesforce Expertise Joins The Spot Library

Results with Informational Tone:

Jenna Molby Joins The Spot: Upgrade Your Salesforce Game
The Spot + Jenna Molby: A Match Made in Salesforce Heaven
Jenna Molby’s Salesforce Secrets Now on The Spot!
Boost Your Salesforce Skills with Jenna Molby & The Spot
Unleash Your Marketing Superpowers with Jenna Molby & The Spot

Results with Pirate-Like Tone:

Ahoy Mateys! The Spot & Jenna Molby’s Treasure Trove Unveiled
Sail into Salesforce Success with Jenna Molby’s Insights
Chart Yer Course with Jenna Molby’s Ultimate Salesforce Guides
Discover the Hidden Gems of Salesforce with Jenna Molby
Jenna Molby’s Swashbuckling Salesforce Secrets Unleashed

Results with Shakespearean Tone:

Behold! Thee Spot & Jenna Molby: A Veritable Pairing
Pray, Joineth The Spot for Molby’s Salesforce Wisdom
Salesforce Mastery: Jenna & The Spot Unite in Harmony
Rejoice! Jenna Molby’s Tools Now Grace The Spot
Hark! Jenna Molby’s Top Guides, Now on The Spot

My thoughts overall on the email subject line generator

This tool is super handy for coming up with subject line variations for emails. I especially see it being helpful when my brain is done and I simply can’t write another word — let alone something that grabs people’s attention.

And that’s the thing about email subject lines. Writing them is often the last thing we do in the email copywriting process. But we should be paying closer attention so we have greater chances of getting clicks from our email recipients.

The more copy the better

I did learn one caveat while using the subject line generator tool. It works better on emails that have a higher volume of copy. My first example was a true newsletter with 667 words of copy, while the second example had about 415 words of copy.

The generator results were spot on in my opinion for the first email while I was underwhelmed by the results for the second email. That may be because the second example had significantly less copy and sections. It makes sense because the tool needs enough information to pull from so it can summarize into a short subject line. I’m also loving the emoji suggestions, but I didn’t get those with all of my results.

Where AI Tools Fit in Content Marketing

You’ve probably heard lots of talk lately about OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool and other AI-powered chatbots that we’re seeing in the content marketing world. The Stensul Email Subject Line generator belongs to the wave of tools that are powered by GPT4, which is the latest iteration of OpenAI’s chatbot.

I’ve seen blog and social posts from people who aren’t seeing the potential in these tools. But I think these tools are giving more power to individual content creators.

I was recently discussing how AI tools affect content marketers with my fellow dragon, Marcos Duran. He brought up a great point that he heard in conversations with people at a martech networking event.

Someone said something to the effect of “ChatGPT turns a content creator into an editor.” And I couldn’t agree more.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather fix a mediocre sentence than start from scratch. And that’s what these AI tools are all about. They create a starting point, and you still need highly skilled individuals to add the human touch.

What are your thoughts on the impact of AI chatbot tools on content marketing? Be sure to let us know your thoughts on the AI debate in the comments section. Or reach out to team Sercante if you’re looking to add a human touch to your marketing campaigns.

Original article: Playing with the AI-Powered Stensul Email Subject Line Tool

The post Playing with the AI-Powered Stensul Email Subject Line Tool appeared first on The Spot.

By Ambre Juryea-Amole|2023-03-24T15:47:49+00:00March 24th, 2023|Categories: Emails & Templates, Getting Started, Real Talk, revive|

Pardot Multivariate Testing Best Practices

Part of being a great marketer is to always evolve with your audience. Doing this intentionally is the key to an organization’s success. Luckily, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) offers its customers Multivariate Testing, which measures the landing page performance over a period of time to determine the best variation.

What is Multivariate Testing?

The answer to this question is in the name. Multivariate Testing looks at multiple variables applied to several variations of Pardot Landing Pages to determine which version performs best. Once you have created your variations, they are randomly assigned to visitors to assess and track performance.

How does Multivariate Testing Work?

To begin, you will want to determine which variables are most important to you and the team to measure. We recommend no more than three variables change per landing page. For example, some of the more popular variables may include the page layout, headline, call to action, form fields, colors, and logos.

Build Your Pages to Test

Once you determine the variations, you will want to build a minimum of two landing pages. Remember to name your Landing Pages in a way that will differ them from one another for reporting at a later date.

You will want to make your landing pages using the differing variations prior to enabling the Multivariate Test. Once you have created your Landing Pages, take the steps below to complete the Multivariate Testing process.

Navigate to Marketing > Landing Pages > Multivariate Testing
Name your test, including the purpose or end goal
Select your Salesforce Campaign
Provide a unique vanity URL
Select the Landing Pages you wish to use and their weight percent (50/50 for two, or 33/33/33 for three)
Click “Create Multivariate Test”
Use the link generated to direct users to the landing page

Check the Reporting

For reporting, you want to ensure that the multivariate test runs long enough to receive a measurable sample size. Once you have reached an optimal size, you can go to Reports > Landing Pages to see the multivariate statistics, including page views, conversions, conversion rate, and the winning page.

Don’t be surprised if you go through multiple variations and manipulations of the landing pages or specific elements on those landing pages in order to pinpoint the most ideal version.

Multivariate Testing is a highly effective tool at the disposal of all Pardot users, and should be used routinely to measure performance and improve your audience targeting. This will likely result in a higher conversion rate and will show that you can grow with your audience.

Original article: Pardot Multivariate Testing Best Practices

The post Pardot Multivariate Testing Best Practices appeared first on The Spot.

By Cara Weese|2023-01-13T20:22:20+00:00January 13th, 2023|Categories: Emails & Templates, Getting Started, Pardot, revive, Strategy|

Pardot WYSIWYG Editor Icon Glossary

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|

The Basics of A/B Testing in Pardot

Marketing A/B Testing is far from being anything new. In fact, it’s been around for quite some time.

A/B Testing as we know it today first came about in the 1990s and has been evolving ever since, while still staying true to the same core concepts — comparing two versions of something to figure out which has the best performance.

In this post, we’ll cover the basics of marketing A/B testing and how you can use it in your Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) instance to optimize your marketing assets.

What is Marketing A/B Testing?

As previously stated, A/B Testing compares one email to another and via algorithms, decides which version performed best. More specifically, you want to change a single variable between the two emails, keeping everything else the same.

For example, does “Learn More” or “Download Now” drive more traffic via your call-to-action? Or, perhaps you want to determine whether a subject line that reads “Urgent: Read Now” is more appealing to your audience or “Time is running out” is the better way to go.

How does A/B Testing Work in Pardot?

By testing your audience’s responses, you are able to customize your content based upon email performance as well as user preferences to personalize their experience.

Within Pardot, you can easily apply marketing A/B testing to your emails to configure a variety of variations based upon:

Imagery
Subject lines
Call-to-actions
Image placement
Image content
Email send time

The thing about A/B Testing is that you can always be using it because your audience is always evolving, and as a marketer, it is your responsibility to remain responsive to that customer base. Luckily, Pardot’s A/B Testing functionality is fully automated and easy to use.

Within the automation platform, you need to start by determining which variable you wish to test — headline, banner image, subject line, etc. From there, you need to choose your metric — opens or clicks. Finally, you decide what percent of your audience you want to test these emails on (up to 50% of the segmentation). Once these factors are decided, it is time to run the test.

For example, let’s go with subject line as our variable and opens as our metrics. Based upon which version had the most opens, Pardot will automatically deploy the “winning” email to the remaining audience — the email with the most opens.

You’ll find the checkbox to enable A/B testing in the Basic Info menu within your email draft.

How can your company use A/B Testing?

This simple automation innate to Pardot can help businesses of all sizes to better target their audience and increase actionability on their part. As our world becomes more and more digital, A/B Testing easily lends itself to marketing teams worldwide to evaluate marketing’s effort and effectiveness.

The important thing to note is that one test is never enough. Always keep testing and changing with your audience so you are not left behind.

A/B testing is one of the most powerful tools Pardot offers its users, and it should be taking full advantage of. With that said, be mindful that you are choosing only one criteria and one metric for each A/B test that you run to see the most effective results.

Let us know your thoughts on using marketing A/B testing in the comments section.

Original article: The Basics of A/B Testing in Pardot

The post The Basics of A/B Testing in Pardot appeared first on The Spot.

By Cara Weese|2023-01-11T22:17:33+00:00January 11th, 2023|Categories: Emails & Templates, Getting Started, Pardot, revive|

How to Add Calendar Links to Pardot Emails and Landing Pages

If you run virtual or in-person events, including an ‘add to calendar’ link in your emails and landing pages can be a great way to ensure your guests actually show up. While there is currently no feature in Pardot to create ‘add to calendar’ links within the editor, there are two options to add them yourself. The first option is to create the files manually and link to them within your Pardot assets. The second option is to use a tool to generate the links, files and buttons for you. In this post, I’ll show you how to use each one of these options to create ‘add to calendar’ functionality within your Pardot emails and landing pages.

Choose which calendars to target

There are two common calendar file types; a calendar link and a calendar (ICS) file. The first step is to figure out which calendars you want to target. That way, you know what files need to be generated to add them to your Pardot email or landing page.

Here’s the breakdown of which email client accepts which ‘add to calendar’ method.

Image source: Litmus

Option 1: Create calendar links & files manually

The first option is to create the calendar links and files manually. Upload the files into Pardot and link to them in your email or landing page.

Hot Tip: The easiest way to create calendar links is to use this handy tool.
• Google Calendar Link Generator
• Outlook & Apple Calendar (.ICS) Link Generator

Enter the information for your event, select the email client you want to target and add the link to your email or landing page.

Upload the calendar link to Pardot

If you want to target an email client that supports ICS files, you will need to generate the file and upload it into Pardot. Using the same generator, click on the download ICS button to download the file. Upload the file into Pardot (Marketing > Content > Files).

Link to the ICS file within your Pardot landing page or Pardot email.

Example

Here’s an example of a button that will work within an email and a landing page.

ADD TO CALENDAR

Outlook.com | Office 365 | Google

Option 2: Creating a calendar links with a tool

The second option is to use a tool that will create the files, links and buttons for you. My favourite tool is the AddEvent.com, which has a free ‘hobby plan’ that will allow you to generate up to 50 calendar links a month. With this method, the ICS file is hosted for you, so you don’t need to upload any files into Pardot.

Email example

Here’s an example of what an ‘add to calendar’ button looks like in an email.

Add event to calendar

Landing page example

Here’s an example of what an ‘add to calendar’ button looks like on a landing page.

Add to Calendar

Taking it a step further

If you are up for a challenge, you can try to show/hide different calendar links based on what email client the prospect is using. Find out more in this article by Litmus.

Questions?

Send me a tweet @jennamolby, or contact the Sercante team for help.

Original article: How to Add Calendar Links to Pardot Emails and Landing Pages

The post How to Add Calendar Links to Pardot Emails and Landing Pages appeared first on The Spot.

By Jenna Molby|2023-01-07T10:35:00+00:00January 7th, 2023|Categories: Emails & Templates, Getting Started, revive|

How to Add Calendar Links to Pardot Emails and Landing Pages

If you run virtual or in-person events, including an ‘add to calendar’ link in your emails and landing pages can be a great way to ensure your guests actually show up. While there is currently no feature in Pardot to create ‘add to calendar’ links within the editor, there are two options to add them yourself. The first option is to create the files manually and link to them within your Pardot assets. The second option is to use a tool to generate the links, files and buttons for you. In this post, I’ll show you how to use each one of these options to create ‘add to calendar’ functionality within your Pardot emails and landing pages.

Choose which calendars to target

There are two common calendar file types; a calendar link and a calendar (ICS) file. The first step is to figure out which calendars you want to target. That way, you know what files need to be generated to add them to your Pardot email or landing page.

Here’s the breakdown of which email client accepts which ‘add to calendar’ method.

Image source: Litmus

Option 1: Create calendar links & files manually

The first option is to create the calendar links and files manually. Upload the files into Pardot and link to them in your email or landing page.

Hot Tip: The easiest way to create calendar links is to use this handy tool.
• Google Calendar Link Generator
• Outlook & Apple Calendar (.ICS) Link Generator

Enter the information for your event, select the email client you want to target and add the link to your email or landing page.

Upload the calendar link to Pardot

If you want to target an email client that supports ICS files, you will need to generate the file and upload it into Pardot. Using the same generator, click on the download ICS button to download the file. Upload the file into Pardot (Marketing > Content > Files).

Link to the ICS file within your Pardot landing page or Pardot email.

Example

Here’s an example of a button that will work within an email and a landing page.

ADD TO CALENDAR

Outlook.com | Office 365 | Google

Option 2: Creating a calendar links with a tool

The second option is to use a tool that will create the files, links and buttons for you. My favourite tool is the AddEvent.com, which has a free ‘hobby plan’ that will allow you to generate up to 50 calendar links a month. With this method, the ICS file is hosted for you, so you don’t need to upload any files into Pardot.

Email example

Here’s an example of what an ‘add to calendar’ button looks like in an email.

Add event to calendar

Landing page example

Here’s an example of what an ‘add to calendar’ button looks like on a landing page.

Add to Calendar

Taking it a step further

If you are up for a challenge, you can try to show/hide different calendar links based on what email client the prospect is using. Find out more in this article by Litmus.

Questions?

Send me a tweet @jennamolby, or contact the Sercante team for help.

Original article: How to Add Calendar Links to Pardot Emails and Landing Pages

The post How to Add Calendar Links to Pardot Emails and Landing Pages appeared first on The Spot.

By Jenna Molby|2023-01-07T10:35:00+00:00January 7th, 2023|Categories: Emails & Templates, Getting Started, revive|

How to Integrate Your Blog With Pardot

Your website is one of your most important demand generation assets and a blog is a great way to increase your online presence by making you more visible on Google. It’s also a great way to bring prospects into your database to expand the top of your funnel.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to set up your blog with a Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) form, how to create a blog welcome email, and tips to automate blog digest emails.

How do you want your blog readers to subscribe?

There are many ways you can get your readers to subscribe to your blog. Some companies use a popup form when you visit a blog post, which has proven to be effective and other companies make it more subtle. Here are some different methods which will give you inspiration on how you should add the form to your blog.

Example 1: In a sidebar

Pardot lets you subscribe to their blog by entering in your email address in the sidebar.

Example 2: At the end of each blog

Hootsuite adds their blog subscription form to the bottom of each blog post. They also only ask for your email address and have some nice icons, so it’s clear what you’re signing up for.

Example 3: In the footer

Engagio has a “sticky footer” at the bottom of their blog page, as well as on each blog post to get readers to subscribe. The bold yellow color also draws your attention to the subscription form without being too invasive and they provide you with a close button to hide the form.

Example 4: With an automation

Asana uses a subscription form that slides out at the bottom when you scroll down about 80%. I like how the animation captures the attention of the readers and how they incorporate Facebook and Twitter buttons beneath the email sign up.

Example 5: In multiple spots

Shopify uses two slightly different methods for capturing their blog subscribers. When you visit their main blog page you can subscribe right from their header.

They also have a subscription form in the sidebar of each post. I like that they include some social proof in the subscription form in the sidebar and it’s clear what I can expect them to send me if I give them my email address.

What fields should you capture?

Standard fields

The shorter the form the more likely you will get your readers to subscribe to your blog. Most blogs only ask for an email address, but some also will ask you for your first and last name for more personalized blog digest emails.

Hidden fields

Your standard source fields should be on your blog subscription form, just like every Pardot form you create.

If you opt to have a subscription form on every blog post, I also like to add hidden fields for blog post title and blog post category. With my blog, for example, I have a subscription form at the bottom of each post and I use custom code in WordPress to automatically populate the hidden fields with the post title and post category. This way I can pull reports in Pardot to see what type of content is generating more blog subscribers and what posts have generated the most blog subscribers.

Here’s an example of populating hidden fields with WordPress blog information. Note: This method is only possible while using Pardot Form Handlers.

<input type="hidden" name="post-category" value="<?php the_category(); ?>" />

<input type="hidden" name="post-category" value="<?php single_post_title(); ?>" />

The Pardot implementation

Now that I’ve given you some examples of what form fields to include in your form and some methods for blog subscription forms, it’s time to show you how to build it out in Pardot.

Pardot Form Handlers vs. Pardot Form embed

There are some advantages and disadvantages for each form method. Embedded Pardot forms allow you to update the form directly in the Pardot form editor and the changes are live on your site as soon as you save the form. However, they also are embedded on your site using an iFrame, which means that certain functionality might not be available. Pardot form handlers are much more flexible and allow you to use your own HTML code to send data to Pardot.

When integrating your blog with Pardot the best form method to use, in my opinion, is Pardot form handlers, for a couple of reasons:

Changes don’t need to be made to the blog form regularly
It’s easier to have the form match your website/blog
Many blogging platforms have plugins you can use for blog subscription forms that will work well with Pardot form handlers

Create a campaign dedicated to blog subscribers

Create a campaign to attribute your blog as a lead source for any new subscribers. Your form and new subscribers should be assigned to the campaign in Pardot and/or Salesforce, depending on your lead attribution processes.

Create a Pardot Form or a Form Handler

In this tutorial, I will be using a Pardot form handler. You can also use a regular Pardot form if you prefer.

Create a Pardot form handler with a descriptive name. I called mine “Blog Subscription Form.” Select your new campaign, map the fields that you want to add to the form and click save. Note: Completion Actions and some other settings will be updated later on.

Add the form to your blog

There are many tools that allow you to add forms to your blog, but it depends what platform you use. Here’s a list of some popular plugins that will help you add your Pardot form to your blog.

PopUp Domination can be used to create a popup subscription form on your blog. You can use any HTML you want, which means it will work perfectly with your Pardot form handler.
Sumo is another option that will work on any type of blog platform. They also offer many different ways to display the subscription form on your blog.

While I’m a big fan of these tools, if you have a developer available the best option is to get them to implement your Pardot form on your blog using custom code. Depending on the method you choose it should be pretty easy for a developer to implement your form and it means you don’t have to pay a monthly subscription fee for using these tools.

Create a Thank You page

The next step is to create a Thank You page that the form will direct to when someone subscribes to the blog. I recommend that you create it on your website (instead of a Pardot landing page), to ensure it has the same look as your blog.

Once your Thank You page is created, copy and paste the URL into the Success location in the Pardot form handler.

Create a blog welcome email

A blog welcome email is a great way to promote more of your blog content. Choose a couple of your popular posts or create a digest of curated content your readers might be interested in.

When a reader subscribes to my blog, I send them a welcome email with some of my top Pardot blog posts. Click here to see what it looks like (and feel free to copy and paste the HTML to create your own welcome email).

Once you have your blog welcome email created add a completion action to your Pardot form to send an autoresponder email.

Emailing subscribers: Automated vs. Manual

Now that your form is set up on your site and your welcome email is ready, it’s time to figure out how you’re going to send notification emails when there’s a new blog post. There are two ways you can send out blog posts:

Automatically using a third-party application, or
Manually, since Pardot doesn’t have an RSS feed integration.

For my blog, I send out all my blog digest emails manually, since I like to have control over what’s sent. However, I only post about once or twice a week, so it’s pretty manageable.

Automated blog posts using Feed Otter

If you opt to go with the automated route, Feed Otter provides a full RSS integration with Pardot. You can quickly build, schedule, and email your blog subscribers notifying them of a new post, a weekly digest, or a monthly newsletter.

Manual blog post emails

Manual blog post emails require you to create an email each time there is a new blog post, or if you post a lot during the week, you can do a digest of all the new posts, once a week. It can be time-consuming, but if you have a good email template setup and a defined process the whole thing doesn’t take very long. If you’re going to go the manual route, here are some tips:

Create a simple, one-column email template, so you don’t have to spend time messing with formatting. This is the template I use for my blog posts.
Create an email that you can copy each time you need to send a blog email. This will contain all the settings (from address, list, etc.) you need to send the blog email.

Questions?

Send me a tweet @jennamolby or leave a comment below.

Note: This post was originally written in November 2016 and updated January 2023.

Original article: How to Integrate Your Blog With Pardot

The post How to Integrate Your Blog With Pardot appeared first on The Spot.

By Jenna Molby|2023-01-04T19:34:16+00:00January 4th, 2023|Categories: Emails & Templates, Forms & Form Handlers, Getting Started, Pardot, revive, Setup & Admin|

How to Integrate Your Blog With Pardot

Your website is one of your most important demand generation assets and a blog is a great way to increase your online presence by making you more visible on Google. It’s also a great way to bring prospects into your database to expand the top of your funnel.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to set up your blog with a Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) form, how to create a blog welcome email, and tips to automate blog digest emails.

How do you want your blog readers to subscribe?

There are many ways you can get your readers to subscribe to your blog. Some companies use a popup form when you visit a blog post, which has proven to be effective and other companies make it more subtle. Here are some different methods which will give you inspiration on how you should add the form to your blog.

Example 1: In a sidebar

Pardot lets you subscribe to their blog by entering in your email address in the sidebar.

Example 2: At the end of each blog

Hootsuite adds their blog subscription form to the bottom of each blog post. They also only ask for your email address and have some nice icons, so it’s clear what you’re signing up for.

Example 3: In the footer

Engagio has a “sticky footer” at the bottom of their blog page, as well as on each blog post to get readers to subscribe. The bold yellow color also draws your attention to the subscription form without being too invasive and they provide you with a close button to hide the form.

Example 4: With an automation

Asana uses a subscription form that slides out at the bottom when you scroll down about 80%. I like how the animation captures the attention of the readers and how they incorporate Facebook and Twitter buttons beneath the email sign up.

Example 5: In multiple spots

Shopify uses two slightly different methods for capturing their blog subscribers. When you visit their main blog page you can subscribe right from their header.

They also have a subscription form in the sidebar of each post. I like that they include some social proof in the subscription form in the sidebar and it’s clear what I can expect them to send me if I give them my email address.

What fields should you capture?

Standard fields

The shorter the form the more likely you will get your readers to subscribe to your blog. Most blogs only ask for an email address, but some also will ask you for your first and last name for more personalized blog digest emails.

Hidden fields

Your standard source fields should be on your blog subscription form, just like every Pardot form you create.

If you opt to have a subscription form on every blog post, I also like to add hidden fields for blog post title and blog post category. With my blog, for example, I have a subscription form at the bottom of each post and I use custom code in WordPress to automatically populate the hidden fields with the post title and post category. This way I can pull reports in Pardot to see what type of content is generating more blog subscribers and what posts have generated the most blog subscribers.

Here’s an example of populating hidden fields with WordPress blog information. Note: This method is only possible while using Pardot Form Handlers.

<input type="hidden" name="post-category" value="<?php the_category(); ?>" />

<input type="hidden" name="post-category" value="<?php single_post_title(); ?>" />

The Pardot implementation

Now that I’ve given you some examples of what form fields to include in your form and some methods for blog subscription forms, it’s time to show you how to build it out in Pardot.

Pardot Form Handlers vs. Pardot Form embed

There are some advantages and disadvantages for each form method. Embedded Pardot forms allow you to update the form directly in the Pardot form editor and the changes are live on your site as soon as you save the form. However, they also are embedded on your site using an iFrame, which means that certain functionality might not be available. Pardot form handlers are much more flexible and allow you to use your own HTML code to send data to Pardot.

When integrating your blog with Pardot the best form method to use, in my opinion, is Pardot form handlers, for a couple of reasons:

Changes don’t need to be made to the blog form regularly
It’s easier to have the form match your website/blog
Many blogging platforms have plugins you can use for blog subscription forms that will work well with Pardot form handlers

Create a campaign dedicated to blog subscribers

Create a campaign to attribute your blog as a lead source for any new subscribers. Your form and new subscribers should be assigned to the campaign in Pardot and/or Salesforce, depending on your lead attribution processes.

Create a Pardot Form or a Form Handler

In this tutorial, I will be using a Pardot form handler. You can also use a regular Pardot form if you prefer.

Create a Pardot form handler with a descriptive name. I called mine “Blog Subscription Form.” Select your new campaign, map the fields that you want to add to the form and click save. Note: Completion Actions and some other settings will be updated later on.

Add the form to your blog

There are many tools that allow you to add forms to your blog, but it depends what platform you use. Here’s a list of some popular plugins that will help you add your Pardot form to your blog.

PopUp Domination can be used to create a popup subscription form on your blog. You can use any HTML you want, which means it will work perfectly with your Pardot form handler.
Sumo is another option that will work on any type of blog platform. They also offer many different ways to display the subscription form on your blog.

While I’m a big fan of these tools, if you have a developer available the best option is to get them to implement your Pardot form on your blog using custom code. Depending on the method you choose it should be pretty easy for a developer to implement your form and it means you don’t have to pay a monthly subscription fee for using these tools.

Create a Thank You page

The next step is to create a Thank You page that the form will direct to when someone subscribes to the blog. I recommend that you create it on your website (instead of a Pardot landing page), to ensure it has the same look as your blog.

Once your Thank You page is created, copy and paste the URL into the Success location in the Pardot form handler.

Create a blog welcome email

A blog welcome email is a great way to promote more of your blog content. Choose a couple of your popular posts or create a digest of curated content your readers might be interested in.

When a reader subscribes to my blog, I send them a welcome email with some of my top Pardot blog posts. Click here to see what it looks like (and feel free to copy and paste the HTML to create your own welcome email).

Once you have your blog welcome email created add a completion action to your Pardot form to send an autoresponder email.

Emailing subscribers: Automated vs. Manual

Now that your form is set up on your site and your welcome email is ready, it’s time to figure out how you’re going to send notification emails when there’s a new blog post. There are two ways you can send out blog posts:

Automatically using a third-party application, or
Manually, since Pardot doesn’t have an RSS feed integration.

For my blog, I send out all my blog digest emails manually, since I like to have control over what’s sent. However, I only post about once or twice a week, so it’s pretty manageable.

Automated blog posts using Feed Otter

If you opt to go with the automated route, Feed Otter provides a full RSS integration with Pardot. You can quickly build, schedule, and email your blog subscribers notifying them of a new post, a weekly digest, or a monthly newsletter.

Manual blog post emails

Manual blog post emails require you to create an email each time there is a new blog post, or if you post a lot during the week, you can do a digest of all the new posts, once a week. It can be time-consuming, but if you have a good email template setup and a defined process the whole thing doesn’t take very long. If you’re going to go the manual route, here are some tips:

Create a simple, one-column email template, so you don’t have to spend time messing with formatting. This is the template I use for my blog posts.
Create an email that you can copy each time you need to send a blog email. This will contain all the settings (from address, list, etc.) you need to send the blog email.

Questions?

Send me a tweet @jennamolby or leave a comment below.

Note: This post was originally written in November 2016 and updated January 2023.

Original article: How to Integrate Your Blog With Pardot

The post How to Integrate Your Blog With Pardot appeared first on The Spot.

By Jenna Molby|2023-01-04T19:34:16+00:00January 4th, 2023|Categories: Emails & Templates, Forms & Form Handlers, Getting Started, Pardot, revive, Setup & Admin|

Tag	Write It	Show It
<a>	<a href=”(URL”)>Click me!</a>	Click me!
<img>	<img src=”(image URL)” />
<p>	<p>A separate paragraph</p>	A separate paragraph
<ul>	<ul> <li>A bullet point list!</li> <li>No numbers!</li> </ul>	A bullet point list! No numbers!
<ol>	<ol><li>A numbered list!</li> <li>No bullet points</li> </ol>	A numbered list No bullet points
<b>	<b>Bold</b>	Bold
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<h2>	<h2>Secondary Title</h2>	Secondary Title
<br />	A line break<br />for readability	A line break for readability