Pardot and Why We Chose It
June 18, 2019

Pardot and Why We Chose It

Danielle Armour | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Ultimate

Overall Satisfaction with Pardot

Pardot is being used by our entire organization as we communicate with our donors, event participants, sponsors, partners and all of our constituents. Pardot is used to promote new campaigns, remind event participants of event details, share our monthly birthday campaign and share news and information with our constituents. Pardot solves the issue of having to have an entire marketing team dedicated to scheduling and creating emails. Each department is able to create their own emails within the system and then have them approved by marketing.
  • Pardot syncs with our database, Salesforce and works seamlessly in updating records with individuals. Having this sync allows everyone in the organization to know where the last communication was and where they stand.
  • Pardot's A/B testing is the easiest A/B testing to use and communicate differently with individuals based on reporting. You are able to test this A/B before sending out an email unlike other platforms. The A/B testing is time saving and effective when trying to communicate with our audience.
  • Pardot's engagement studio is very easy to not only set-up but to follow. They set up their engagement platform in a way that you can see it overall and follow it like a flow chart, allowing the creator to truly understand where the emails/individuals are doing. The reporting of the engagement studios is detailed and very accessible.
  • Pardot is not easy to teach others and takes multiple hours to truly teach to someone in the organization so they can understand the platform as a whole.
  • My organization was trying to set up an automate campaign based on birthdays and send these emails out based on their birthday day going a month out, a week out and on the day of. This was very difficult to achieve and the customer service could not provide assistance. The answer came from the Pardot blog and other users working together. Birthday campaigns are used by many non profits and this should be fixed so it is easier to implement.
  • Creating lists in Pardot for you to send emails to can be difficult and takes time. There are many steps when trying to create certain lists of an audience.
  • In the beginning, Pardot took a lot of time to learn and to train others. Other systems are easier to learn on your own, but Pardot is a system that needs to be taught by a well versed individual.
  • Once learned, Pardot is able to have incredible automated systems that save staff time from creating weekly or monthly emails. The systems are easy to duplicate and work through.
  • Pardot allows my team to pull reports on the development side to see what donors are interested in reading and opening. This allows us to tailor information to them regarding our organization.
We moved from Act-On to Pardot almost a year ago. The way Pardot integrates with Salesforce and is able to report on the communications really drew us to change. We enjoyed the customization of the emails and the easier set up of the emails. Both products are similar but as stated, the reporting and processes were positive to my organization.

The upside of Act-On is the ability to make lists and learn the system on your own. Pardot requires much more training on the front end.

Pardot is well suited when you have an organization that wants to get multiple communications out on different levels and to an array of individuals. The reporting systems of Pardot as well as the ability to plan multiple campaigns within the program is unparalleled. Pardot allows you to gain valuable data from the emails sent and more importantly the individuals who opened and interacted with the emails.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Feature Ratings

WYSIWYG email editor
10
Dynamic content
10
Ability to test dynamic content
10
Landing pages
10
A/B testing
10
Mobile optimization
8
Email deliverability reporting
7
List management
6
Triggered drip sequences
7
Lead nurturing automation
8
Lead scoring and grading
7
Data quality management
8
Automated sales alerts and tasks
6
Calendaring
7
Event/webinar marketing
4
Social sharing and campaigns
6
Dashboards
8
Standard reports
6
Custom reports
8
API
9
Role-based workflow & approvals
9
Customizability
9
Integration with Salesforce.com
10