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Category: Pardot 101

How to Create Responsive Landing Pages in Pardot – Without Code!

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As we enter 2019, customers are more and more likely to view your website from a mobile device than from a computer browser. That’s right: it’s time to start imagining your content in the palm of someone’s hand. This means it’s more important than ever to use responsive design so your site to renders well on any device — computer, tablet, phone, etc.

For a while, it’s been possible to create responsive landing pages in Pardot, but you needed developer-level knowledge of code. No longer!! Now you can create a responsive landing page in Pardot with just a few quick clicks – even if you’re not familiar with HTML or CSS.

I’m talking about the Layout Template feature that allows you to import a premade responsive template! This helpful secret has hiding in plain sight for months, but for some reason I can’t find any documentation about it. Let’s see how it’s done in 3 easy steps.

 

1.     Create Layout Template

The first thing you’ll want to do is navigate to Marketing > Landing Pages > Layout Templates. Give your template a name, and remember that Layout Templates for landing pages and forms are all stored in the same place, so make your name as specific as possible for future reference. Choose a Folder and Tags if you want.

Next, scroll down to Import Layout. You can still import ‘From a URL’, which is handy if you want to use existing HTML from your website to create a frame for your landing page. However, this option requires coding knowledge, so we’ll skip past that.

Below that option, you’ll see several Responsive Templates to choose from! Choose one, then click Preview Responsive Template to get an idea of what your landing page will look like. Remember it’s responsive, so stretch and shrink the preview window to see how the page will react on different devices.

Once you’ve decided on a layout, click the blue Import Now button and click “OK” on the pop-up. You should see your responsive code populated by Pardot! Be sure to Save before leaving the page.

This code is editable of course, but you’ll be able to edit the content (without code!) in upcoming steps.

landing page template preview

 

2.     Create Landing Page

Now we’ll create the landing page! Once your layout template code is saved, go to Marketing > Landing Pages > New Landing Page. Fill out all the necessary fields. If you need guidance, check out Pardot’s helpful documentation.

On Step 3, Content Layout, choose My Layout Templates and find and select the layout template you just made. This will automatically move you to Step 4, where you can edit your new landing page. All you need to do is point and click! If you chose a form, you should see that populated on the landing page too.

When you’re happy with your landing page, move to Step 5 where you can confirm your Landing Page Details and, more importantly, click the button to Confirm and Save. If you miss this step, your landing page might not be saved, and your coworkers won’t be able to access the landing page for edits.

 

3.     Go Live

There you have it! Once you save your landing page, you’ll go to the overview page where you can view all the details and access your landing page link. You can edit the landing page and layout template as much as you want, and when you’re ready, it’s time to go live. Share your landing page link far and wide. Consider offering exclusive gated content. Hopefully you can score some new leads!

 

Have you made a responsive landing page in Pardot? How was your experience? Let us know in the comments!

 

Interested in a Pardot or Salesforce onboarding so you can take full advantage of your CRM or marketing platform? Fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch.

Nurture in the New Year with Engagement Studio

By now, you probably know about Engagement Studio – Pardot’s latest tool to engage clients with your brand. Customers journey down a path customized just for them, with personalized messages along the way. Once the program is created, you don’t need to lift a finger! Your prospects will receive scheduled emails without the effort of individual sends.

The beautiful thing about engagement programs is that they’re actually a breeze to create! At Cloud on Tap, we like to tell our clients the hardest part about the process is creating the content. Remember in Pardot you’ll need to make Email Templates for anything automated.

 

Here are five tips to help you nurture your prospects in the New Year:

1. Copy your templates
Save time and keep your design consistent by copying your email templates. First, create a beautiful email template, then copy and edit it for the rest of the emails in the program. This way, you’ll save a lot of time and effort. Plus, you’ll get consistent branding and style your customers recognize.

 

2. Consider your logic
Tackling this step early on will make the rest of the process easy as pie. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish: Are you creating a re-engagement program? Want to welcome new customers? Maybe you want to introduce them to a new product or service.

There are all sorts of paths you can take with triggers, actions and rules. Or you could keep things simple. One of our Cloud on Tap engagement programs sends an email every week, regardless of the prospect. We love this uncomplicated program because our prospects are nurtured automatically. All we had to do was create the content!

 

3. Make multiple programs
Jumping off the last point, you might decide that it’s easier or more impactful to make several programs. For instance, let’s say you’re creating an upsell program. You could use a trigger to check if the prospect clicks a link in your email. The follow-up action might be to add that prospect to a list.

In Pardot, lists are directly tied to email sends and engagement programs. So adding someone to a list could get them started on another engagement program! This is a handy way to hop a prospect from one program to another, or have them in multiple programs at once.

 

4. Target your lists
Lists of course depend on the type of engagement program you’re creating. You can use static lists or dynamic lists, and don’t forget to designate suppression lists if there are prospects you don’t want to include.

It’s also a good idea to make sure all these prospects are opted in and up-to-date, so cleaning your database is a good idea before you start your program.

 

5. Test!
Last but certainly not least, test your program! This is an important step to ensure your logic is entered correctly. Head to the Test tab in the Engagement Studio builder and follow the prompts.

 

Get Started

Hopefully these tips will help you get started on your next marketing push. Engagement Studio is a wonderful way to stay top of mind with your clients.

Your program won’t begin until you click the “Start” button in the upper right corner. So get into Pardot and create your next lead nurturing solution!

Pardot Form Styling [Webinar and Guide]

This month we had the opportunity to present a Pardot Form Styling webinar for Pardot’s Advocate Hours.

In case you missed it: Pardot Form Styling Webinar and Pardot Form Styling Guide

The webinar and guide will walk you through how to use HTML, CSS, and Javascript to style a Pardot form from scratch. The best part is- you don’t have to know code to do this! Seriously!

The webinar and guide will enable a beginner-expert to copy/paste the code like you’re a pro. 🙂

 

The webinar received  4.6/5 stars from Pardot clients! Here are some comments from the live attendees:

“Definitely, information that I can use.  Thank you.”

“The presenter was awesome!”

“This was awesome.  Super helpful.  Having these CSS classes will really speed up development.”

Pardot Form Styling Guide

 

Keep up with our Pardot and Salesforce magic:

Pardot Recycle Bin

Using Your Pardot Recycle Bin in Unexpected Ways

Pardot’s Recycle Bin is unique – almost everything you delete will stay in the bin forever, just in case you need to restore items in the future.

The content in your Pardot Recycle Bin doesn’t count toward your usage limit, either!

With these facts in mind, we thought of three reasons the Pardot Recycle Bin is the BEST:

1.     Delete your landing pages

This really applies to any marketing elements in Pardot. Maybe you’ve created a beautiful form – one you spent hours on, making sure the fields were just right – a form with custom CSS in the layout template. Don’t run the risk of someone editing and possibly ruining your hard work!

Whenever we create custom elements for our clients, let’s say it’s a landing page, we copy the content (and the aforementioned layout template) and DELETE IT immediately. This way there is always a copy of your landing page in the Recycle Bin.

2.     Prospects will continue to be tracked in Recycle Bin

Running out of room for your prospects? Depending on your account type, you might not have enough storage space to keep every single potential customer in your database. Luckily, you can delete prospects without actually losing them! The Pardot Recycle Bin will still keep track of deleted prospects and their actions. Later on, if you undelete the prospect or if they complete a form, they’ll automatically be restored.

It’s still a best practice to clean your lists regularly and use Pardot’s automated tools to make sure you’re reaching out to the best audience. But if you’re running out of space, don’t worry about deleting prospects. They’re still in the Recycle Bin if you need them!

3.     Peace of Mind

Which brings us to our last point. The greatest feature of the Pardot Recycle Bin is the peace of mind it offers. You no longer need to worry about accidentally deleting an important email template – you can just restore it! There are only a few items that will delete forever: tags, advanced dynamic content, empty folders, and content files (including images). Otherwise, you can rest easy knowing your marketing material is still available, even in the depths of your Pardot Recycle Bin.

 

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Pardot Campaign Pardot List

Difference Between a Pardot Campaign and a Pardot List

The difference between a Pardot Campaign and a Pardot List is a common confusion new clients ask about when first setting up their Pardot account.

“We want to build a campaign…”

“What are lists?”

“How do I put my prospects in a campaign?”

“How can I segment my recipients?”

Most people familiar with the business world are used to talking about “marketing campaigns” and “to-do lists,” but Pardot’s use of these terms can be different.

So, what is a Pardot Campaign and a Pardot List then?

Pardot Campaign

Marketing> Campaigns

A Pardot Campaign is, most importantly, a thematic touchpoint for your prospects (similar to a lead source) and an umbrella for your marketing materials.

Let’s break that down. When you create marketing content in Pardot, usually you will provide a Campaign. This helps you stay organized because all your related emails, templates, forms and landing pages will be in the same place!

Campaigns also tell you where your Prospects came from. When a new Prospect is added to your account, they’ll filter into a corresponding Campaign. Each prospect is associated with only one Pardot Campaign – this can technically be changed but will affect your Reports.

Pardot List

Marketing> Segmentation> Lists

Lists in Pardot are used for segmentation. They’re connected to Email sends, Drip Programs and Engagement Studio. You can create all sorts of Lists and choose which demographic to include on each. Also, any List can be a Suppression List – you’ll always have that option when sending communication through Pardot.

You can even automate your list-making process by using Dynamic Lists. Set rules and Prospects will automatically filter onto the Dynamic List if they match your chosen criteria. Alternately, you can create a simple Static List. It’s important to note Static Lists can be altered by Completion Actions and other Pardot automation tools but Dynamic Lists are totally dependent on the rules/criteria selected when creating it.

The More You Know! Hopefully now you’re more prepared to work on your Pardot Campaigns and Pardot Lists. If you need more assistance, send us an email anytime – we’d love to help! Also, you might like: Is this a Pardot Campaign or Program?

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Pardot Campaign Program Header

Is this a Pardot Campaign or Program?

You may not be aware of this but Pardot is a house divided. There are 2 separate camps – Camp 1 feels their heart ache every time someone erroneously calls a Pardot Program a Pardot Campaign and Camp 2 has no idea what Camp 1 is talking about or that a separation ever occurred.

We’re here to set the record straight- There is a difference between a Pardot Campaign and a Pardot Program and that one word really does matter.

It’s like nails on a chalkboard when we see an “expert” use the wrong terminology. We feel a duty to keep these terms straight and hope this quick guide helps.

(yes, we’re being a little hyperbolic but we swear there is a difference you should know…)

Pardot Campaign:

  • marketing elements are associated to it
  • used for reporting
  • thematic touchpoints
  • the first piece of marketing collateral, which the prospect interacted with ( Google Ad, banner, webpage, etc…)
  • each prospect is associated with only one
  • not the same as lead source
  • not the same as a segmentation list
  • not the same as a Salesforce Campaign, although they can overlap

Pardot Program:

  • Drip Program or Engagement Studio Program
  • also commonly referred to as a lead nurturing program
  • send emails at specific intervals based on time or prospect activities
  • send targeted emails based on real-time buyer behavior and rules

In many ways they seem similar. A Campaign may include emails but it doesn’t always. A Program is actually built using Email Templates set under a Campaign and the name of the Campaign and Program could match, but often don’t.

If all of that sounds confusing and pointless to you, that’s okay. The important part is that your Pardot expert knows the difference and uses the correct terminology. If they can’t correctly identify a Pardot Campaign vs a Pardot Program, they are not a Pardot expert. We hope you keep that in mind when choosing who to partner with for your next onboarding or Pardot tune-up. 😉

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Pardot 101: Pardot or Pardeux? A History of Pardot

If you are a Pardot user, you’re probably privy to the Par-DOT/Par-deux joke. We can pick up on whether a client is from the North very quickly, based upon how they pronounce the marketing automation service’s name (they tend to say Pardeux).

Fun fact: Pardot’s name isn’t random. According to Pardot’s co-founder, David Cummings:

Pardot is the Latvian (not Latin!) verb meaning “to market” or “to sell.” I liked that it was easy to pronounce and spell, so I headed over to BustAName to see if it was unregistered, and, much to my surprise, it was available. I registered it immediately for $8 and the rest is history.

(source: davidcummings.org)

Here are some other key events in Pardot history:

  • December 2006: Bought the domain name Pardot.com for $8
  • March 2007 : Co-founders started working full-time on the business with the original model being a pay per click bid arbitrage platform to generate leads from potential technology buyers and then sell them to technology vendors (like LendingTree for technology leads)
  • May 2007: Pivoted into marketing automation software using most of the code already written for the original product (they were already 60% of the way to a minimum respectable product) and built the product focused on serving the needs of a 25 person software company
  • December 2007: Signed the first customer, via a partner introduction
  • April 2008: Raised prices from $65/user/month to $325/account/month to encourage more user adoption in the organization and to capture value based on other usage params (number and types of modules)
  • October 2008: Signed 100th customer and knew the business was going to be successful (roughly 1.5 years after starting)
  • January 2009: Added email marketing to the native product functionality after religiously staying away from it (previously would connect with third-party email marketing tools to do email but were too limited in functionality)
  • July 2009: Passed $1M in annual recurring revenue and decided it was time to raise venture capital to significantly accelerate growth (took 2.3 years to get to a $1M run rate)
  • March 2010: Raised prices to $1,000/account/month
  • April 2010: Atlanta Business Chronicle named Pardot the #1 fastest growing technology company in Metro Atlanta with a 42,000% growth rate
  • December 2010: Launched London office through a joint venture
  • December 2010: Passed $5M in annual recurring revenue
  • January 2012: Passed $10M in annual recurring revenue
  • August 2012: Inc. magazine named Pardot to the Inc. 500 as the 172nd fastest growing company in the United States
  • October 2012: ExactTarget acquired Pardot

(source: davidcummings.org)

After ExactTarget acquired Pardot in 2012, Salesforce was quick to scoop up ExactTarget in June of 2013 for $2.5 billion, with Marc Benioff tweeting:

Since acquisition, Salesforce has continued to improve upon Pardot’s features and offerings, including making the Pardot/Salesforce sync the fastest sync available and launching Pardot’s new Engagement Studio.

You can check out a feed of the latest (and previously added) features here.

We are excited to continue to see innovation from Pardot! Stay informed by subscribing to the blog: