Pardot

The software is pretty intuitive and easy to use. There is a huge community that's eager to collaborate and assist (local user groups, blogs, the Dreamforce conference, the connections conference, twitter, slack groups, linkedin groups, etc). We utilized the product for List Emails ( about 30 each month), Automated Nurture Campaigns, Segmentation, Email Preference Center, and so much more. It is very powerful and played a key role in our marketing efforts.

The trade off to ease-of-use is lack of complexity. After working with the platform for 5 years, I have concluded that it is a great fit for smaller companies that want to use their features in a straightforward, uncomplicated way. We are a medium sized company with multiple target audiences, some that overlap, some that don't, territories with multiple languages and a vast and diverse product line. I am regularly (daily if not weekly) frustrated by the platform's limitations. The saving grace is that there is usually a work around. We are always able to figure out how to solve a problem, but each time it requires more steps, more time, then more "overhead" to manage in the future.

While, Salesforce is regularly rolling out enhancements and features, the list of wants and needs created by users is long. There are features that seem completely basic and have been in demand by the users for years that have yet to be delivered. Things that are sometimes minor but quite surprising to learn aren't included.

One of Pardot's biggest weaknesses is reporting. We do all our reporting in Sales Cloud dashboards or in Excel.

The software is great for staying in touch with prospects and clients. It makes it easy to set up emails, create content, measure and report on results, and build stronger relationships. It’s fun to use, once you understand how it works.

There’s a long learning curve for adopting Pardot, and if I hadn’t had a consultant to hold my hand through the integration and kick off, I’d be struggling. I find Pardot and Salesforce training to be overly confusing and it’s really hard to find what you’re looking for. It’s a knowledge based system and continually adds more and more information, and it’s not always clear if the instructions apply to you or apply to a different level of service. Other than that I highly recommend it because of all the functionality and way it can dramatically improve your digital marketing.

Pardot is unmatched in its ability to automate your marketing activities. The Engagement Program features it offers is probably the best in the market and allows you to design Customer journeys with customization based on the customer attributes as well as engagement. The WYSIWYG builder allows you to build beautiful email templates and Landing pages for Lead generation and Lead nurturing. It also integrates seamlessly with Salesforce CRM and a wide variety of 3rd party applications.

Pardot allows you to create multiple leads with the same email address. This is a compulsory feature and causes issues with duplicate and bad data. You need to make sure the data is cleansed regularly.

We love engagement studio and how easy it is to build out automated campaigns and dynamic lists. The ease of automation has meant less time spent uploading csv’s and more time developing great content.

We wish it had a drag and drop editor. Not everyone on our team can code and it makes it difficult when we have a heavy season for deploys. The good news is, they’ve announced a beautiful drag and drop editor for the 20 winter release.