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Audience Segmentation Strategies for Salesforce Marketers

As a marketing administrator within Salesforce, it is essential to understand your audiences and create a winning audience segmentation strategy. Without segmenting your audience, you will target the same group of people each time. That can lead to increasing opt-outs, spam, and a direct impact on your sending reputation.

The goal of sending mass emails is to target the right audience so you provide value to the people who are likely to interact with your brand. And that’s exactly what audience segmentation accomplishes.

Use these strategies to segment your audience so you can deliver the right marketing messages to the right groups of people every time — no matter if you’re a Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement or Account Engagement user.

Audience Segmentation Strategies for Marketers Who Use Salesforce

Whether you are a Marketing Cloud Engagement (A.K.A. SFMC) Administrator or an Account Engagement (Pardot) Administrator, fundamental principles apply across the board when it comes to audience segmentation.

Below are tactics you can use within Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement and Account Engagement.

Who is actively engaging with your brand?

Use web tracking, social, and ads to learn how visitors interact with your brand. You can compile a group of individuals to target based on clicks, form completions, and pages visited.

For example, if you have a visitor who clicks an ad on social media and is taken to your website, where they download the content that you promised them with your ad, you can make the assumption that the visitor is interested in that product.

What preferences do your customers share?

Let’s say you are sending an invitation for an upcoming webinar. Segment your target audience based on previous ad clicks, webinar attendees, or downloaded resources. By building an audience list based on shared preferences, you will see an increase in webinar registrations and attendance.

For example, look at the specific campaigns you’ve launched in the past. Think about how you can categorize the products or services that were the main focus. Maybe you had a marketing campaign to drive awareness about a product that would result in a one-time and low-cost purchase. And you had another campaign advertising a product that requires a high-cost ongoing purchase. The people who engaged with the high-cost product but didn’t necessarily purchase the item may be good candidates for a segmentation list that includes people with bigger budgets to potentially spend.

Who are you actively targeting to attain as a new customer?

If you could create a map of ideal customers, what attributes would they share? Is it a specific set of companies? Perhaps, it’s a specific product or service you can provide them?

Decide on those attributes and build your segmentation strategy and buyer personas. Target this audience and help sales close the deals on your ideal customer.

Which individuals have expressly subscribed to what topics?

Take advantage of your Email Preference Center. You can create targeted campaigns that run on an ongoing basis and continue to nurture your target audience based on their expressed interests.

Ensure that your Email Preference Center offers a variety of targets, including product interests and types of communication. For example, the Sercante Email Preference Center allows email subscribers to sign up for only emails related to the services that interest them, like Salesforce consulting, integrations, or training.

Suppress individuals based on a subset of criteria

Counterintuitive to who you want to target with your email marketing, who do you want to ignore? Considering who you don’t want to receive a message from is as important as who should receive it. There will likely be a default suppression list, including competitors, employees, spam, etc., but you may also want to create specific one-off suppression lists too, such as email frequency or inactive customers.

Account Engagement (Pardot) Audience Segmentation Best Practices

Now that you have a few ideas on strategy, let’s talk about building segmentation within Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) . Let’s review the list creation options and the different ways to add Prospects. Keep in mind, there may be times when you use multiple list types for a single send.

Static Prospect Lists

Static lists are controlled by you, the administrator. You set the rules and criteria for who joins and comes off the list. There are several ways to add to a static list, both manual and automated.

Imports

The most common way for building a static list is via prospect imports. When importing, you have the option to import via CRM ID or Email. If the list has existing prospects, you want to import via CRM ID. If they are brand new prospects, use the import via email option.

Within the import wizard, you will be given the option to add to a list via an existing list or by creating a new list. Once complete, review the import report for the total number of prospects created or updated.

Table Actions

Adding a subset of prospects that already exist within Pardot can be done via Table Actions.

To add a subset using Table Actions, follow these steps:

Navigate to your prospect table.
Set your filters, such as view and creation time frame.
Check the boxes of those you want to add to the static list.
Use the table action at the bottom of the table and “Add to List.”

Public Lists

Public Lists can be created as dynamic or static, but most default to static and are controlled by the Email Preference Center. These lists are subscribed to directly by the Prospect. Individual Prospects are able to subscribe and unsubscribe as they see fit based on their preferences.

Completion Actions

The “Add to List” completion action exists on most Pardot assets, including forms, form handlers, files, custom redirects, emails, and page actions. Completion Actions include both standard and conditional and allow you to set specific parameters when adding to a list.

Automation Rules

An automation rule is criteria-based. You can set multiple criteria pertaining to a Prospect by using “Match All” and/or “Match Any” statements. Based on this criteria, you then set an action, such as “Add to list,” which will populate a static list.

The good thing about using an automation rule to populate your static lists is that they are retroactive, so they will collect past and present matches and take action on them.

Dynamic Prospect Lists

Similar to automation rules, dynamic lists are criteria-based. Unlike static lists, these are outside of your control.

Once you set the criteria, the list will automatically add or remove prospects based on that criteria. These lists cannot be manually manipulated.

Campaign Membership

While there are several settings and criteria you can use to create dynamic lists, one of the most popular strategies is to build lists based upon campaign membership. This is especially beneficial when collaborating with sales teams.

If your sales team is adding Leads and Contacts to Salesforce Campaigns, perhaps based on a recent trade show, you can build a dynamic list in Pardot based on that campaign membership.

Marketing Cloud Engagement Segmentation Best Practices

Lastly, let’s look at how to best create segments in Marketing Cloud Engagement. Subscriber data can come from many different sources into Marketing Cloud and can be stored in two ways:

Lists
Data Extensions

Lists

A List is a collection of your subscribers. Lists are best used when you have a small dataset (500,000 or fewer subscribers) that you need to manage quickly and efficiently.

Lists share a format with your All Subscribers table and typically include Email Address, Subscriber Key, Status and any profile attributes you have created in your account.

Creating a List

To create a List:

Navigate to the Subscribers tab within Email Studio.
Within the My Lists folder structure, you can click ‘Create’ at the top right of the page to create a new List, assigning a name, external key, description, and placing the list in any folder you have created.

Once the list is created, it can be populated by manual or automated import.

Groups

A Group is a filtered list. Creating a Group allows you to build a subset of subscribers from a list based on rules or by splitting list subscribers by count or percentage of the total list being filtered.

The rules used to build a Group can be saved as a Data Filter, which can be used to automate the process to refresh membership in your group.

Creating a Group

To create a Group:

Navigate to the Subscribers tab within Email Studio.
Within the My Groups folder structure, you can click ‘Create’ at the top right of the page to create a new group.
Select whether the group you are creating is a Filtered Group or Random Group, then select the source List.

When creating a Filtered Group, drag any attributes or measures from the left side panel to the canvas and define the filter criteria.
To create a Random Group, after selecting Random Group and your source list, click ‘Add Group’ to add as many random splits as needed to get the desired number of random segments.

Once your filters or splits have been properly configured, click ‘Save & Build’ to create and populate your groups.

Once created, unless automated using a data filter, Groups need to be refreshed manually to be up-to-date.

Data Extensions

Data Extensions are more complex than lists and offer greater flexibility in managing contact data. While lists can only contain Subscriber information, Data Extensions are more flexible and can contain relational data.

Data Extensions data can be filtered in a similar fashion to Groups, and can also be combined with or filtered by data in other Data Extensions using SQL activities in Automation Studio.

Creating a Data Extension

Follow these steps to create a data extension:

On the Subscribers tab in Email Studio, select a folder within the Data Extensions folder and then click ‘Create’ at the top right.
Here, you select which type of Data Extension you want to create. Standard Data Extensions require you to define the fields of your Data Extension.
After defining the name and data retention policy for your data extension, you must define the fields in the table, choosing from several data types, including Text, Date, Number, and Boolean. You can also set the length and default value for each field.
Once you have defined all fields needed in your Data Extension, click ‘Create’ to finalize your Data Extension.

This Data Extension can now be populated by manual or automated file imports, API calls, SQL Query activities, or AMPScript.

Filtered and Random data extensions function in much the same way as Groups. Filtered Data Extensions require selection of a source Data Extension, then definition of any filter criteria. Random Data Extensions will produce a number of data extensions of randomly split rows based on the number of splits defined in the setup.

Go forth and segment your audience like a Salesforce marketing pro

Marketing Cloud offers multiple routes to implementing segmentation and audience targeting, regardless of platform. By taking into consideration your audience personas, incorporating key email marketing segmentation strategies, and applying the correct segmentation tools, you will be able to spread brand awareness swiftly.
Have any cool stories of marketing segmentation success? Tell us in the comments. Or reach out to the team at Sercante to get help with your audience segmentation strategy.

Thank you to Zachary Norman for contributing to this post!

Original article: Audience Segmentation Strategies for Salesforce Marketers

The post Audience Segmentation Strategies for Salesforce Marketers appeared first on The Spot.

By Cara Weese|2023-06-06T15:33:16+00:00June 6th, 2023|Categories: Data Management, Emails & Forms, Marketing Cloud, Pardot, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|

In our wonderful digital world, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to track offline events and interactions with marketing and sales efforts. People still love sending gifts in the mail to foster relationships and interacting face to face at networking events to generate sales. But how do we prove it to our marketing and sales bosses?

Luckily, an easy-to-create visual barcode had a huge comeback over the last couple years, and we can use that to our advantage to help track events and offline campaigns.

Enter — The humble QR code.

Let’s Check Out Some QR Code Use Cases for Tracking Offline Events!

Here are use case examples for times when you’ll want traditional marketing tactics to lead your prospects to your digital marketing assets:

Tabletop cards at your event that lead to a landing page with an interest form
Postcards included with mailed swag gifts customers get when they set up their next quarterly planning call
- Plus, we can track the mailed package without worrying about implementing a third-party tool by reviewing the custom redirect access.
Flyers distributed to prospective clients with product specific landing pages
- Plus, we can measure that the effectiveness of the flyer copy through the custom redirect accesses and page views.
Company business cards or badges with your email address or LinkedIn URL
- Trust us, this works! We create custom badges for our teams at events like Connections and Dreamforce so they don’t have to carry around a bunch of business cards. Instead, they have the printed badge with the QR code and a digital image of the badge in their phone photos for quick scanning.

Let’s Get Building!

But first, here is some background on how the process works and the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) tool we are going to use.

Custom Redirects

This is how we connect the QR code scan to our Salesforce campaigns. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) custom redirects are a base functionality to help track link clicks.

They allow you to track any link on your website or a third-party site
- A/B design testing, social posts, partner content, etc.
Clicks show up as an Activity on the Prospect record
Google Analytics can be integrated easily
Completion Actions can be added to link clicks
- Note: Completion Actions will only fire for known prospects

Additional Resources on Custom Redirects

Choosing the Right Automation Tool in Pardot

And of Course, QR Generators

The main consideration for your QR code generator is if you want built-in historical tracking of which codes were created, for what, and when or if you want to stay organized on your own. In most cases, the free generators will meet your needs — just make sure you write down what you’ve activated for your campaigns or save the QR code image to your campaign asset folder.

Easy
Advanced
- Google Developers QR Codes
- How to Generate and Use QR Code in Salesforce

Steps to Track QR Codes in Account Engagement (Pardot)

Create a Salesforce campaign for each tactic/event you want to track.
- Keep a parent/child hierarchy for reporting.

Set up applicable member statuses.
- Examples – clicked, attended, scanned, form fill, booth visit, ad view, etc.
- Try to stay in the same tense and across your campaigns for reporting.

Create a Pardot/Account Engagement custom redirect for each of the pages.
- Lightning: Content > Custom Redirects
- Classic: Marketing > Content > Custom Redirects

Add the UTM values to the Google Analytics Parameters at the bottom of the custom redirects page.
- Be consistent with this setup for reporting.
- See more about UTM parameters and how you can use them in your marketing efforts in the section below.

Add completion actions at the bottom of the custom redirects page.

Create an automation rule to run based on custom redirect and/or campaign/form fill criteria.

Keep in mind – if the device scanning the QR code isn’t cookied as a known Pardot/Account Engagement prospect, your custom redirect completion actions will not fire. Using an automation rule will solve this problem, as it will run once the criteria is met as soon as the cookied device becomes a ‘known’ prospect.

Add to list
Add to campaign with member status
Increase score/grade
Notify marketing/sales
Send autoresponder email

Create a vanity URL for your custom redirect to use near the QR code in print/digital.
- Keep it short or memorable so people can type it easily.
Use the new custom redirect URL in the QR code generator
- Depending on the generator you use, you can pre-fill form information/variables from the scan
Add the QR code image the print/digital flyer
Test, test, and more testing before you go live

Note: You can make adjustments to the custom redirect destination URL post creation without impacting the live custom redirect vanity, long URL, or QR code.

Let’s Take Offline Event Tracking To The Next Level!

Salesforce Flows & Pardot

With Flow Actions for Pardot! A free app on the Salesforce AppExchange.

Instead of creating your custom redirects one at a time for each channel and event, you can speed up that process considerably by using this tool plus the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) API. Flow Actions for Pardot brings the power of Pardot custom redirects into a screenflow on the campaign object in Salesforce. This enables you to create them all at once per campaign, making for a more streamlined and efficient process that follows the same structure across the marketing and sales teams.

Watch this video to learn more about how Flow Actions for Pardot works:

Consider UTM Parameters

If you already have a UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameter strategy in place, custom redirects can be a great complement to your campaign tracking abilities.

The Google Analytics Parameter section of the custom redirect acts as an built-in UTM builder. Instead of supplementing the end of your URL with the UTM parameters manually, the custom redirect tracked URL will have it already built in if filled out.

We recommend using Pardot custom redirects and UTM parameters together if you are trying to track engagement, while automating the triggered responses and flows.

Using traditional UTMs on their own will capture useful data in Google Analytics, but it can be difficult to sync that valuable data back to Salesforce and Pardot. For those who are more advanced when it comes to Salesforce flows, you can automate the capture of UTM data to custom fields or an object and the completion action sections of the process. Otherwise, it is probably easiest to automate within Pardot using customer redirects and automation rules.

Additional Resources on UTMs

Ready to Start QR Code-ing to Track Offline Events?

QR codes have been around for quite some time and we’re seeing a big resurgence of them recently. That’s because it’s a great way for anyone with a mobile device to interact with your company’s digital marketing. And you can take it a step further by tracking all of your efforts through custom redirects in Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) and campaigns in Salesforce.

How do you use custom redirects or QR codes in your business? And what other methods are you using to track offline events? Let us know in the comments or reach out to team Sercante for help with your marketing attribution strategy.

Original article: How Digital Marketers Track Offline Events and In-Person Interactions

The post How Digital Marketers Track Offline Events and In-Person Interactions appeared first on The Spot.

By Kelly Ryan|2023-04-14T15:27:54+00:00April 14th, 2023|Categories: Analytics & Reporting, Pardot, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|

Imagine this — your marketing team is generating more leads than ever before. And at the same time, you’re facing a reduction in sales team staff.

Sounds impossible to overcome, right?

With the best tools, like Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), and a winning lead prioritization strategy, you can tackle these obstacles head-on and turn them into opportunities for success.

As a marketing consultant who has worked with numerous sales teams, I understand the challenges that can arise with lead prioritization and management. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more exhilarating than overcoming those challenges!

Here are five lead prioritization strategies lean sales teams can follow to maximize their impact.

Lead Prioritization Strategy #1. Rank Your Leads with Scoring and Grading

One of the most effective ways to prioritize your leads is through scoring and grading criteria. By setting up a system that assigns points based on the level of engagement demonstrated by each lead, you can quickly identify those with the highest potential for conversion.

For example, a lead who has visited your website multiple times, downloaded whitepapers, and attended webinars may be given a higher score than one who has only filled out a form. In addition to assigning scores, you can also use grading criteria to evaluate the overall quality of a lead based on factors such as company size, industry, and location.

Lead Prioritization Strategy #2. Fast-Track Urgent Leads with Qualifying Questions

Another strategy to prioritize your leads is by adding a qualifying question to your lead capture forms. This can help fast track leads that are urgent or ready to close, while the remaining leads can be put into a lead nurture campaign that includes emails from your sales staff to keep them engaged and interested.

For example, a qualifying question could ask whether the lead is actively seeking a solution for their problem or if they are just researching their options. By segmenting your leads based on their level of intent, you can ensure that your sales team is focusing their efforts on those with the greatest potential for conversion.

Lead Prioritization Strategy #3. Automate Lead Follow-Up with Autoresponders

Setting up autoresponders is another strategy to keep your leads engaged and ensure that they don’t fall through the cracks. Autoresponders are automated emails that are triggered by specific actions, such as filling out a form or downloading a whitepaper.

Layer in a custom redirect behind a CTA button to track which converts the most. These emails can acknowledge and thank leads for their interest, and provide them with additional information and resources to keep them engaged.

Lead Prioritization Strategy #4. Qualify and Prioritize Leads with Chatbot Technology

Another tool to consider when managing the influx of leads is through chatbot technology. Chatbots are automated messaging platforms that can be integrated into your website or messaging apps to provide immediate responses to leads and qualify them before transferring them to your sales team.

By using chatbots, you can provide a personalized experience for your leads, answering their questions and guiding them through the sales process, all while gathering important information about their needs and preferences.

This can help reduce the workload on your sales team by providing a pre-qualified lead before they even reach out. Furthermore, chatbots can operate 24/7, allowing you to capture leads even when your sales team is not available. With the help of chatbot technology, you can improve your lead generation efforts and ensure that your sales team is focusing on the most promising opportunities.

Lead Prioritization Strategy #5. Maximize Lead Contact with a BDR Agency

If your sales team is still struggling to keep up with the volume of leads, you may want to consider using a Business Development Representative (BDR) agency to handle initial contact with leads and prioritize the most promising ones to send to your sales team. A BDR agency can help ensure that each lead is contacted promptly and that priority ones are directed to your sales team for follow-up.

Use Strategies That Focus on the Hottest Leads

We all know managing the influx of leads can be a challenge, but with the right strategies and tools, you can streamline your team’s efforts and focus on the most promising leads. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) offers several features that can help you score and grade leads, add qualifying questions to form and set up autoresponders. You might even consider outsourcing a BDR agency if necessary.

By prioritizing and automating effectively, you can maximize your sales team’s productivity, convert more leads, and save money by cutting out ineffective practices.
Need help building your lead prioritization strategy? Drop us a line to chat about it.

Original article: 5 Lead Prioritization Strategies For Lean Sales Teams

The post 5 Lead Prioritization Strategies For Lean Sales Teams appeared first on The Spot.

By Catherine Williams|2023-04-12T15:49:32+00:00April 12th, 2023|Categories: Pardot, Pro Tips, revive, Scoring & Grading, Strategy|

A score in Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) is a numerical figure that is assigned to prospects once they engage with a tracked marketing activity. This could be anything from an email open, link click, page view, form conversion or content download — providing you have the correct lead scoring rules or completion actions applied.

Luckily, Account Engagement (Pardot) offers an out-the-box lead scoring system that is completely customizable.

Customizing your Pardot scoring rules and categories is a great way to float your hottest prospects to the top of your priority list. You can get a better understanding of how likely your prospects are to buy from you. And that picture will be even clearer because you’ll differentiate your prospects from those who are simply fans of your company from those who are ready to make purchasing decisions.

An Introduction to Pardot Scoring and Grading

You can get a complete introduction to Pardot scoring and grading in this blog post, but here’s a review if you’re already familiar with the concept.

In a nutshell:

Account Engagement (Pardot) Scoring = prospect engagement
Account Engagement (Pardot) Grading = prospect profile

Pardot Scoring

The Pardot score itself shows implicit interest in a product, solution or service offered by your business. This is information used to assume or suggest a prospects’ level of interest — (the score does not show direct interest expressed by the prospect). Meaning the higher the prospects score, the more likely they are to be interested in purchasing from your business.

Now depending on your account setup, a prospect’s score can increase and/or decrease throughout their lifecycle. For instance, to improve the quality of your leads you may wish to reduce the score of prospects who frequently visit career type pages on your website.

Pardot Grading

A grade is a letter that is assigned to a prospect based on their profile — and it matches your business’s ideal customer profile. The measurement itself is used to show explicit information provided by the prospect, usually captured through form submissions (don’t forget to use progressive profiling to capture more data).

These could be data points such as:

Job title
Location
Company size
Industry

Now, depending on how well the prospect profile matches the criteria you’ve set, these data points will determine the prospect’s grade. The closer the match, the higher the grade. The lower the match, the lower the grade will be.

Pardot grades run from F to A and increase and/ or decrease in increments of thirds (C, C+, -B, B, B+, etc.). By default, any new prospects are assigned with a grade of D.

The score will then adjust to reflect their closeness with your ideal customer profile. The grade itself should be used to show the quality of the prospect — meaning how valuable they could be to your business.

So, to summarize, when developing your lead strategy, you are looking to create a process that identifies highly interested prospects (prospect score) who are highly valuable to your business (prospect grade). These are then the type of prospects or potential leads you want to be pushing to sales for conversion.

Optimizing scoring rules and categories

Here’s how to optimize your scoring rules and categories for your specific business needs.

Pardot Scoring Rules

Pardot scoring rules are essentially touchpoints you want to track and score across your marketing funnel or customer journey. They are the marketing interactions mentioned at the start of the article (email click, open, content download, event registration). Scoring rules aggregate toward an overall score or scoring category — more on this later.

To optimize scoring rules, you really need to conduct a scoring rule or touchpoint audit by asking yourself… what are we currently tracking, what aren’t we tracking, and what should we be tracking?

Remember, quality over quantity. A few high-quality tracked touchpoints will provide far more value than hundreds of poor touchpoints.

The key is to identify touchpoints that are the most influential and generate the most engagement from your customers. In short, the marketing touchpoints that will affect the buyer’s decision-making process. The more influential the touchpoint the higher the score should be. For instance, a prospect downloading a technical white paper should receive a higher score than a prospect opening an email.

How to organize lead scoring touchpoints

Map all the touchpoints you want to track (can any be grouped?).
Rank the touchpoints – based on influence and volume of engagement
- Utilize audits, reports, and prospect activity data.
- If you have activated Engagement history in Salesforce, you can view activity on the lead and contact level.
Apply an appropriate score for each touchpoint.
Establish a set marketing qualified lead (MQL) threshold to identify interested prospects.
Optimize this based on your customer journey and decision-making process (high or low involvement).

Lead Scoring Categories

Now that you have mapped the touchpoints to track, you may wish to have them aggregate toward a specific product group via a scoring category. Scoring categories can provide your business with very powerful scoring segmentation, thus allowing you to direct scoring rules toward different categories depending on the product type that is being promoted.

This allows you to score prospects on more than one product, making it easier to identify and determine the level of interest per category or product group. This in turn opens opportunities for cross-selling and upselling. You’ll also have more granularity when analyzing prospect activity for lead qualification/ conversion, thus reducing the amount of time sales require to prepare customer briefs.

To start, look at your current business structure and product/ service portfolio. Let’s say you work for a footwear brand selling casual sneakers, boots and running shoes, etc. These would form your specific product groups, meaning you would have a separate scoring category for each type of footwear.

Technical Setup: How to optimize your lead generation strategy via Automation rules or Engagement Studio Programs

Now that you have scoring rules, grading and categories implemented, you can start to think about developing an automated process that will look for ideal customers and push them to sales for qualification.

The two most powerful tools in this instance are automation rules and Engagement Studio Programs.

This article will focus on automation rules, but the same logic can be applied with an Engagement Studio Program, and a dynamic list to feed potential leads into the program.

Key considerations before setup:

Automation rules start in a paused state for the user to review before turning on.
Depending on what tier of Account Engagement you have purchased, you will have a limited number of automation rules (50-150).
It is advisable to have one automation rule per scoring category to reduce complexity (less to go wrong!)
You’ll need to specify if these actions are to repeat. And if so, how often?
Remember, actions are executed from top to bottom in automation rules — so structure them in the order you intend them to apply.
Finish previewing before starting!!

Lead scoring criteria

Before the automation rule can start, you will need to specify or select the kind of prospect who meets your lead scoring criteria.

To do this ask yourself these following questions:

What is the minimum score a prospect should have? (Scoring threshold before conversion)
What grade should the prospect have?
Who shouldn’t be considered a lead? (Competitors, job seekers, suppliers, etc.)
How often should a prospect repeat the action? (Customer lifecycle – FMCG vs SMCG)
Who in your organization is going to handle the leads? (a queue or a specific user)
How is your Pardot org synced with Salesforce?
Is contact and lead creation enabled?
Or is task creation the only option? (Does a new lead need to be created or should a task be assigned)
Should the prospect’s score be reset?
Where should this information be stored after the action has been completed? (a list, campaign, or both)

Once you have answered these questions, you can create an automation rule that looks something like the below version.

Remember this is only an example. Personalize your automation rule to suit your buyer’s journey and business needs.

Reviewing and improving your lead scoring strategy

Once your lead strategy has been in circulation for some time, you can start to review it and look for improvements.

Here are some areas to consider:

How many leads are converting per category, and is this as high as expected?
What’s your opportunity ‘lost vs won’ rate? Are the leads of good quality?
Are certain categories performing better than others? Should the lead threshold be changed per category?
Do any touchpoints need to be reviewed or adjusted? Are some overinflated?
Is the repeat time sufficient? Should this be shortened or extended?

If all targets are being met but you wish to improve your lead process further still, you may want to ask yourself…

How can we shorten the customer journey/ prospect lifecycle?
How can we increase the share of existing customers (cross-selling or upselling)?
How can we win new customers (improve data acquisition)?

MarDreamin’ 2022 Presentation Replay

This blog post is adapted from a 2022 MarDreamin’ session. Check out the recording below.

Field Types and Compatibility

Field types between Salesforce and Account Engagement don’t always behave the same way. Before we address how to work with multi-select picklists, we first need to understand field types and compatibility.

Account Engagement

Checkbox – Allows a prospect to select multiple options from a list of values.
Dropdown – Prospects can select a single value from a picklist.
Multi-Select – Prospects can select multiple values from a picklist.
Radio Button – Allows a prospect to select a single option from a list of values.

For more information, see the complete list of Account Engagement Prospect Field Types.

Salesforce

Checkbox – A single select field that is used to indicate true or false.
Picklist – Allows users to select a single value from a defined list.
Picklist (Multi-select) – Allows users to select multiple values from a defined list.

For more information, see the complete list of Salesforce Custom Field Types.

The first thing to note is that checkboxes are multi-select in Account Engagement, but not Salesforce. This can lead to issues when syncing to a checkbox field in Salesforce. To avoid issues, set your field type to radio button in Account Engagement when syncing to a Salesforce checkbox (for more information see – Mapping Pardot checkbox fields to Salesforce checkbox fields).

The next thing that you’ll notice is that Account Engagement has two fields that allow users to select multiple values – checkbox and multi-select. So what’s the difference and how should each be used? I’m glad you asked.

Checkbox – Select this option if you are creating a form in Account Engagement and you would like all values to be shown as individual boxes where prospects can check one or many.
Multi-Select – Select this option if you are creating a form in Account Engagement and would like the values displayed in a picklist where the user can select one or many options.

Salesforce and Account Engagement Field Compatibility

Account Engagement Custom Fields

Now that we are all on the same page related to fields and compatibility, it’s now time to create our custom fields in Account Engagement to hold the data. You have options when creating custom fields, so it’s important to consider the data in Salesforce and how you would like the information displayed on your Account Engagement forms before creating your field.

Option #1 – Checkbox

If the multi-select picklist in Salesforce has a small number of values (less than 5) and you would like all options visible to prospects when they view your form, checkbox is the field type for you.

Example Form with Checkbox Field Type

Option #2 – Multi-Select

If the multi-select picklist in Salesforce has a large number of values and displaying all on a form would not be practical, multi-select is the way to go.

Example Form with Multi-Select Field Type

Additional Field Options & Considerations

Regardless of the field type selected, there are a few options that I would highly encourage you to consider.

Options that Should Always be Selected

Keep this field’s type and possible values (for dropdowns, radio buttons, checkboxes) in sync with the CRM.
Use pre-defined values (for checkboxes, radio buttons, drop downs, and multi-selects).

Record and Display Multiple Responses

The “Record and display multiple responses (useful for fields that are set to always be displayed like reporting issues)” box is not as clear cut as the other options mentioned above. Its use is really tied to how you are using the field and what data should be retained.

Selected
- Initial selections will be recorded in Account Engagement upon initial form completion and synced to Salesforce.
- If form is completed again and new values are selected, they will be added to the prospect record in Account Engagement (and will sync to Salesforce).
- Values that were deselected during the second submission will still be included in the prospect record in Account Engagement and would also be visible in Salesforce. Essentially, the original selections from the initial form submission will be retained – even if they are not selected during the second form submission.
Not Selected
- Initial selections will be recorded in Pardot.
- If form is completed again and new values are selected, they will be added to the prospect record in Account Engagement (and will sync to Salesforce).
- Values that were deselected during the second submission will be REMOVED from the prospect record in Account Engagement and would NOT be visible in Salesforce after the records sync.

Account Engagement Forms

We’re getting there! Now that we have decided how we want the multi-select picklist options to display on our form and we’ve created the custom field in Account Engagement, it’s time to build our form. For this exercise, I’m going to assume that you are familiar with creating a form. If you need a quick refresher, check out the Create a Form article from Salesforce.

Forms with Checkboxes

The process of adding a checkbox field to a form is pretty straightforward. Simply click the +Add New Field button once you reach the “Fields” tab and configure the field. Be sure to set the type to Checkbox and make sure to click the Load Default Data button.

Check the “required” box if you would like the field to be required. You can also select the “Always display even if previously completed” option on the “Advanced” tab, if you would like the field to always display.

After configuring, your form preview will look like the example below. Finish the form wizard for completing the additional tabs (Look and Feel, Completion Actions, Confirm & Save) and your form will be ready for use.

form fields preview multi-select picklist

Form with Multi-Select Picklists

The process for creating a form using a multi-select field is very similar to the process for creating one for a checkbox. The only real difference is the “Type” of field that you’ll select.

Very quickly, you’ll notice that there is not a multi-select option in the “Type” list. This can be confusing, but is not an issue. When configuring the form, set the checkbox type.

The magic will happen when you click the Load Default Data button. This will pull in the data from the multi-select field that you previously created and update the type selection to Multi-Select.

Importing Multi-Select Picklist Values

When importing data into a multi-select field in Account Engagement, you must first decide on the desired action. Do you want to overwrite the current selections or do you want to add new selections to the existing data? This is a big one as it will determine if you should select the Record and display multiple responses (useful for fields that are set to always be displayed like reporting issues) option when creating your field.

Import – Record and Display Multiple Responses NOT Selected

After completing both forms, my initial selections were recorded in Account Engagement and synced to Salesforce.

The data below was then imported into Pardot. The “overwrite existing data” option was selected for the MAP field, but not not the Mascot field upon import.

The result is that the MAP field was updated to Marketing Cloud Engagement, but no changes were made to the Mascot field. This makes sense as we opted to overwrite the data in the MAP field when we imported. Since we did not overwrite the Mascot data, the initial values were retained.

Import – Record and Display Multiple Responses Selected

In this scenario, the Record and display multiple responses (useful for fields that are set to always be displayed like reporting issues) IS selected for both of my custom fields in Account Engagement.

After completing both forms, my initial selections were recorded in Account Engagement and synced to Salesforce.

The data below was then imported into Pardot. The “overwrite existing data” option was selected for the MAP field, but not not the Mascot field upon import.

The result is that the MAP field was updated to Marketing Cloud Engagement and that the additional values of Flo and Brandy were added into the Mascot field. This is exactly what we would expect. We told Account Engagement to overwrite the data in the MAP field so it did. Since we did not select “overwrite” for the Mascot field and the field was configured to record and display multiple responses, the new values were appended to the existing.

salesforce mascots - multi-select picklist values

Updating Multi-Select Picklist Values

When using automation rules to change data in multi-select picklist fields, you must first decide on the desired action – just like you did for list imports. Checking (or not checking) the Record and display multiple responses (useful for fields that are set to always be displayed like reporting issues) option when creating the field will impact the results in Account Engagement and Salesforce.

Automation Rule – Record and Display Multiple Responses NOT Selected

In this scenario, the Record and display multiple responses (useful for fields that are set to always be displayed like reporting issues) is not selected for either of my custom fields in Account Engagement. The values have also been reset to the values below as the starting point. We will now create automation rules to update the values.

Salesforce mascots multi-select picklist

For this exercise, I’m going to assume that you are familiar with creating automation rules. If you need a quick refresher, check out the Create an Automation Rule article from Salesforce. The automation rule below contains actions to update the MAP field to “Marketing Cloud Engagement” and the Mascot field to “Astro” and “Flo”. Let’s run and record our results.

The result is that both fields were updated based on the actions included in the automation rule. This is the expected behavior based on the field configuration. The automation rule told Account Engagement to change the field values and that’s exactly what it did.

Automation Rule – Record and Display Multiple Responses Selected

The values have also been reset to the default values below.

We’re now going to recreate the exact same automation rule as we did earlier. As a reminder, the rule contains actions to update the MAP field to “Marketing Cloud Engagement” and the Mascot field to “Astro” and “Flo”. What do you think will happen this time?

If you said that both MAP fields would be selected and that the Mascot field would contain all four of our fiends (Astro, Codey, Flo, and Max), you would be correct. Since our fields are now configured to record multiple responses, the new values were added and the original values were retained.

Parting Words

In this guide, we tested a lot of situations that can result when working with multi-select picklists in Account Engagement to help add clarity to how these fields work. The decisions that you make related to how data should display on forms and the data that you would like to retain are two critical questions that must be addressed at the beginning of your project. These decisions will determine how your fields are created in Account Engagement and the data that will ultimately end up in Salesforce.

What is B2B Marketing Analytics?

B2B Marketing Analytics (B2BMA) is a CRM Analytics App designed specially for B2B Marketers. It uses your Salesforce-Account Engagement connector to package up and display your Account Engagement data and enables several datasets to help you assess your sales and marketing performance. B2BMA comes out-of-the-box with default dashboards intended for various stakeholders on your team.

If you’re trying to view Account Engagement data within Salesforce, B2BMA should be your primary tool. It offers a wide range of data that can significantly improve your visibility into the ROI of your marketing campaigns, combining both marketing and sales pipeline data.

Key terminology within B2BMA

Dataset

Datasets are simply sets of source data (like an Excel table). These datasets are formatted and optimized for interactive exploration.

Note: With B2BMA Plus (a feature available with an upgrade) you can actually control how frequently the data syncs between Account Engagement and Salesforce.

One example of a dataset may be your Account Engagement Prospects (see screenshot below).

Lens

A particular view into a dataset’s data (like a query). Use a lens to visualize your data and perform exploratory analysis.

You’ll get these four lenses out-of-the-box:

Pipeline Deals
Campaigns (Pardot Campaigns)
Lead Sources
Lifecycle Snapshot

Navigation: CRM Analytics App > All Items > Lenses

Example: Revenue by Campaign Type (see screenshot below)

Filter

Filters are used to narrow down results. Standard filters vary by dashboard. Keep in mind, you can add filters to a dashboard, but they may not filter all lenses within the dashboard. Some filters may also require customization.

Example: See all email engagement in a fiscal year

Dashboard

A Dashboard in B2BMA is a curated set of charts, metrics, and tables based on the filtered data from one or more lenses. These are typically designed to be used by a specific audience (e.g. Marketing & Sales Leadership). You’ll get these five dashboards out-of-the-box:

Navigation: CRM Analytics App > All Items > Dashboards

Pipeline Dashboard

Offers you a view of your sales funnel from Visitor to Prospect to Opportunity (Won/Lost). You’ll see the following metrics:

Visitors
Prospects
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
Opportunities (Open and Closed)
Velocity metrics

Engagement Dashboard

Offers a comprehensive view of your Account Engagement assets (think: forms, landing pages, emails, etc.) and how they’re performing and influencing your pipeline. You’ll see engagement metrics (opens, clicks, CTR, submissions, submission rate, etc.)

Marketing Manager

This is a combination of the previous two dashboards (Pipeline + Engagement) allowing you to see the overall performance and influence of your campaigns. You’ll see the following metrics:

Marketing Asset Engagement
Pipeline Deals
Revenue per Campaign

Account-Based Marketing

You’ve likely heard of ABM before — but did you know there was a B2BMA dashboard built specifically for that purpose?

This dashboard monitors your ABM campaign performance and helps you take a deeper look at how Contacts and Opportunities from a specific Account are engaging with your marketing assets. You’ll see the following metrics:

Account details
Pipeline by Account
Revenue win percentage
Stage value by Account

Multi-Touch Attribution Dashboard

This dashboard shows you how influential each of your marketing campaigns are during each stage of the sales lifecycle. It offers you three different attribution models to choose from: First Touch, Last Touch, and Even Distribution.

Within this dashboard, you’ll see these metrics:

Revenue
Total Value
Cost
ROI
Top Campaigns
Revenue by Channel

Example: Multi-Touch Attribution Dashboard with Even Distribution (see screenshot below)

App

A CRM Analytics (B2BMA) App contains dashboards, lenses, and datasets in any combination that makes sense for sharing your data analysis with colleagues. Apps are like folders — they let you organize your data projects and control sharing across your team.

The included apps depend on your specific licenses.

Navigation: CRM Analytics App > All Items > Apps

Template

A Template is a framework for analytics apps that comes preset with KPIs and data visualizations.

Navigation: CRM Analytics > “Create” > “App”

Functional terminology

Faceting

When Faceting within a dashboard, you can select part of a graphic, and the rest of the metrics on the dashboard filter by that selection.

Example: In “Revenue Share by Campaign Type”, click on “Web Marketing”

The dashboard will update to show to “Web Marketing” Salesforce Campaigns

Data Flow

A Data Flow is a process that combines and summarizes several objects into datasets.

Examples:

Connecting your Opportunities to your Accounts
Modifying or creating datasets requires customization

Navigation: CRM Analytics > Data Manager > Data Flows & Recipes > Data Flows

Metric

A Metric is a quantitative value, such as revenue or exchange rate. You can “do math” on measures.

Example: Calculating total revenue

Dimension

A Dimension is a qualitative value that’s useful for grouping and filtering your data.

Example: Region, product name, model number, or Opportunity Status

Group

A Group is a collection of data based on a specific dimension.

Example: Product name or account.

Access and navigation within B2BMA

How do I get a license?

Access to B2B Marketing Analytics is dictated by the number of licenses you have. To check your licenses, go to Setup > “Company Information” via the Quick Find box > Scroll down to “Permission Set Licenses” and look for “B2B Marketing Analytics”.

Where do I find it?

Access the Analytics Studio App by clicking the App Launcher and typing in “Analytics Studio.” Select “All Items” in the sidebar under “Browse,” then click “B2BMA Analytics” under “Apps.” Open the default dashboards and start exploring them

How to navigate B2BMA

Considerations for default B2BMA dashboards

The default dashboards are designed for a general audience, so they may need to be customized to suit your organization

We don’t recommend editing or saving over the default dashboards. Instead, make a copy of the dashboard by clicking the “Clone in New Tab” option. Salesforce makes regular updates to the default dashboards, which will overwrite any changes you have made (only when you choose to “reconfigure” the app).

Reach out to Sercante with any questions regarding B2BMA customization capabilities.

Exploring and sharing B2BMA dashboards and datasets

Within B2BMA, you can dive deep into the data using “Explore” functionality, viewing different lenses and reviewing the datasets, fields and filters. You can also share dashboards, giving access to critical team members, post the dashboards to feeds, export them or download them.

Exploring

Want to know more about the data behind the chart? Click “Explore” to open a copy of the lens and review the datasets, fields, and filters. You can switch the visualization to a table view

Note: Not all filters will be shown here – click the “query mode” button to see all details

Sharing

Clicking the “Share” button at the dashboard level gives you:

Give access – Showing who has access to the dashboard
Post to a Chatter feed
Export to quip
Get URL – only users with access to the dashboard can view the link
Download – download an image of the full dashboard

Clicking the “Share” button at the lens level gives you:

Post to a Chatter feed
Export to quip
Download – download an image of the full dashboard or a CSV/Excel file

Adding to Lightning Pages:

You can embed your B2BMA dashboards in Lightning Record Pages in SFDC
- Use the “Tableau CRM Dashboard” component
Only users with the B2B Marketing Analytics permission set assigned will be able to view the embedded dashboard

Ok – I understand everything else. Now how do I make updates to B2BMA?

B2BMA updates become available on the regular SFDC release schedule.

How do I know if there’s an update?

If an update is available, you’ll see the “Reconfigure app” option when you open the B2B Marketing Analytics app
- Click “Reconfigure app” and go through the steps to update
The updates aren’t required – you don’t have to do them if you don’t want to
- Click the info icon to see what new features are available so you can determine if it’s worth upgrading

Engagement History Dashboards

Engagement History Dashboards looks at your various marketing assets (forms, landing pages, emails, etc.) and how they are performing. They also look at how they contribute to your opportunity and sales pipeline.

Engagement History Dashboards are powered by CRM Analytics.

They allow you to:

Visualize engagement data on a variety of records
Show slightly different data based on the object (e.g. Opportunities, etc.)
Filter to show data relevant to the specific record that’s being viewed

What does this look like on the Account object?

On a given Account, click the “Engagement” tab to see the most active Contacts and the Campaigns they’re engaging with. Use the filters to apply a date range, choose an asset type, etc.

Engagement History Dashboards on Page Layouts

At this point, you’ve probably added Engagement History Dashboards to these Page Layouts:

Campaigns
Accounts
Contacts
Opportunities

Only users that have been assigned the “Analytics View Only Embedded App” permission set can see these dashboards. Your Account Engagement edition determines how many licenses are available.

Considerations for Engagement History Dashboards

Here are a few things you should keep in mind about these dashboards:

The “Analytics View Only Embedded App” gives users access to Engagement History Dashboards, but not Analytics Studio/B2B Marketing Analytics
- We recommend assigning this permission set to your Sales & Marketing leads
Engagement History Dashboards aren’t supported in Internet Explorer 11
Dashboards embedded on Leads, Contacts, or Person Accounts can only show data for one Business Unit at a time (delete if your client doesn’t have multiple MCAE BUs)
The Opportunity dashboard relies on Opportunity Contact Roles and dates
- If data is missing from the Opportunity dashboard, it’s usually because no Opportunity Contact Roles are assigned
For emails sent through Engagement Studio, the Account Engagement Engagement History dataset includes send data only for programs that were created after December 14, 2018

Learn more about B2B Marketing Analytics

B2BMA is an incredibly valuable CRM analytics tool to help improve your visibility into your marketing and sales data, including many out-of-the-box dashboards built for a variety of stakeholders in your business.

Here at Sercante, we’re a huge fan of the Salesforce Trailblazer community. We highly recommend bookmarking the B2B Marketing Analytics Implementation Guide – a comprehensive resource that includes dataset information, field definitions, etc.

You should also check out these blog posts to learn more about B2BMA and what it can do for you:

Have any B2BMA roadblocks you’re looking to solve? Reach out to the team at Sercante or tell us about it in the comments.

Original article: The Essential Guide to B2BMA Dashboards (with Screenshots)

The post The Essential Guide to B2BMA Dashboards (with Screenshots) appeared first on The Spot.

By Grey Idol|2023-02-21T14:00:36+00:00February 21st, 2023|Categories: Analytics & Reporting, Getting Started, Pardot, revive, Setup & Admin|

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|

A form on a landing page or your website is often the final step in a nurturing process and represents the crucial point of conversion. According to Manifest, 81% of people will abandon a form after beginning to fill it out. And of that 81%, more than half (67%) will not return to complete the form.

So how do we, as marketers, improve our game and increase conversions while decreasing form abandonment? By using five native tools at your disposal within the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) forms tool.

Five Ways to Increase Pardot Form Submissions and Decrease Form Abandonment

When marketers first start using forms within Pardot, they’re probably inclined to keep things simple and have a primary focus on collecting information they see as required or important to their sales process. However, you can leverage a few things within Pardot to decrease form abandonment and up your marketing game.

Use Dependent Fields

Keep the form simple and limit the number of fields using dependent fields. When you are seeking relatable information based on specific field values, dependent fields are the best way to capture that additional insight.

For example, if you are a global company, you can ask for the user’s country. And if they respond with the United States, then you can ask for their state. Or if they respond with Canada, you can ask which province they are from. Whereas, if they respond with the United Kingdom, no additional information is required.

Dependent fields eliminate unnecessary questions, shorten the form, and personalize the experience for each Prospect.

Set Up Progressive Profiling

Another great way to help shorten your forms, but still collect the required information is through progressive profiling. This tool enables you to ask new questions based on each return to a form, eliminating previously completed questions from prior form fills.

For example, if you already know their company, the next time they return to the form, you can now ask for a job title to dig in further. This is one of the best tools at your disposal as a marketer because it ensures a positive user experience for the Prospect and helps keep the sales team happy by collecting details for lead assignment, segmentation, and increased nurturing via targeted Engagement Studio Programs.

Have Clear Calls to Action

Calls to action are the short persuasive text used on the form button to close the deal. You want to be straightforward while keeping it short and simple. I would recommend starting with a verb and following up with an adverb or subject thereafter.

For example, a clear call to action could say: “Download Your e-book Now” or “Subscribe Today.”

Ultimately, use language that promises them the delivery of something your reader wants.

Use Autoresponders

Creating an experience for Prospects is crucial in seeing them return to want more. This can be accomplished by ensuring that you follow through on your delivery when a form is completed through autoresponders and/or thank you pages.

Take advantage of the redirect and follow-up by creating a personalized experience by offering them a thank you message, a downloaded asset, and/or highlighting similar content they may be interested in.

By directing them to additional content, you can use your Progressive Profiling and they can gain additional insight into your organization and how you can help solve their issues.

Enable Completion Actions

Completion Actions are similar to your Autoresponders, as they are unseen heroes of the form experience but play a critical role in delivering what was promised. A Completion Action is an action that Pardot will automatically make on your behalf as soon as the form is completed.

Actions could include:

Delivering gated content
Adding to subscription lists
Notifying users
Adding prospects to nurture programs
Creating a task to follow up with the prospect

It’s the final touch to the entire experience and will keep your prospects returning for more.

Create Better Pardot Forms to Get More Conversions

With these out-of-the-box Pardot tools at your disposal, you can easily decrease form abandonment and increase Prospect engagement, growing your pipeline and improving your nurture game.
Interested in learning more about how to get started or how to expand your Pardot form game? Contact us today!

Original article: 5 Easy Ways to Increase Pardot Form Submissions

The post 5 Easy Ways to Increase Pardot Form Submissions appeared first on The Spot.

By Cara Weese|2023-01-23T21:06:51+00:00January 23rd, 2023|Categories: Forms & Form Handlers, Getting Started, Pardot, revive, Setup & Admin|

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|

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.