Read before you even think about that demo
January 17, 2018

Read before you even think about that demo

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Enterprise

Overall Satisfaction with Pardot

We use Pardot as our marketing automation platform. We transitioned to Pardot from Hubspot with the goal of gaining better visibility into marketing performance since Pardot is a Salesforce product. We utilize Pardot for email nurture campaigns, lead-gen forms, and reporting. We thought that since Pardot links to Salesforce that we would get a correct and seamless MQL to SQL reporting process and also a multi-touch marketing attribution set up. We also implemented lead-scoring which we had with Hubspot. So far, marketing and sales use the tool.
  • Pardot is cheaper than Hubspot
  • Pardot does not push the persona based marketing
  • Pardot links to the Salesforce CRM
  • It is not very developed yet, so there are a lot of steps to setting anything up. Even simple emails take many steps.
  • The user experience of the tool is very confusing. There are two folder storages and one of them you don't want to use apparently but then you cannot restrict it from others to not use. You will want to provide a lot of user documentation with screen shots and explicit instructions to a team on how to correctly get around the tool and work in it.
  • File hosting is annoying. When you hold a file in Pardot for a download, it automatically download the document from whatever link you have and puts the file into your downloaded documents folder in your computer. If the user doesn't know this, then they might think they never received the file. With Hubspot, the file opens as an online PDF in another tab so that you can read it and then choose to download it if you want. A much better user experience.
  • There is no true integrated reporting to SF. We are still in the same spot as we were in with Hubspot.
  • There are not really any "how-to" articles to make up for their lack of customer support. They rely on some sort of customer community that is a bunch of question feeds from customers with answers from other customers to help you. Terrible experience there.
  • It is cheaper than what we paid for Hubspot.
Have used Hubspot and it is 100% made for marketers. The email editor in Pardot is laughable. Have also looked at https://autopilothq.com/ which has a better user experience and more capabilities for the modern marketer.
Well suited for a small company that wants a Salesforce (SF) recommended product. Not suited for anyone who is on Hubspot currently and not suited for anyone who just wants to send marketing emails. I would recommend anyone looking to leave Hubspot or implement any marketing automation platform to look at https://autopilothq.com/ if they are evaluating options. Pardot is underdeveloped and seems like it is just something that SF wanted to sell in order to make more money and not really solve marketers problems.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Feature Ratings

WYSIWYG email editor
1
Dynamic content
8
Ability to test dynamic content
8
Landing pages
4
A/B testing
6
Mobile optimization
8
Email deliverability reporting
8
List management
8
Triggered drip sequences
8
Lead nurturing automation
6
Lead scoring and grading
6
Data quality management
2
Automated sales alerts and tasks
6
Calendaring
8
Event/webinar marketing
7
Social sharing and campaigns
6
Dashboards
3
Standard reports
3
Custom reports
3
API
2
Role-based workflow & approvals
Not Rated
Customizability
1
Integration with Salesforce.com
2