3 Expert Pardot Tips Every Marketer Should Know

79% of top-performing companies have been using marketing automation for two or more years, so implementing marketing automation isn’t a matter of if you should do it, but how… and how well?

Pardot, the marketing automation technology by Salesforce, supports businesses of all sizes in achieving sales and marketing team alignment and exceeding revenue goals. Its primary goal is to help marketing teams nurture their leads in order to pass them off at a certain “qualification point” to their sales team. Whether you’re already using Pardot, or not quite sure if this tool is right for you (download our checklist to find the right marketing automation technology for your needs), these expert Pardot tips will provide the right insight!

Expert Pardot Tip #1 — Tags and Automation Rules

One of the best ways to nurture leads is to capture and respond to their behavior on the site. Using rules and tags, you can respond to contacts who have viewed specific pages on your site but did not convert. By applying tags to the forms and setting up a rule to send an automated email if the tag isn’t viewed (form completion) but the page was viewed, you can help drive contacts to complete that form.

How to Set it Up:

“If you want to send an email whenever someone views a specific landing page but does not convert (this can be great for form abandonment on high-value or bottom-of-funnel content), you can use a completion action on the form to apply a certain tag, then use an automation rule that says when the landing page is viewed AND the tag ISN’T that specific tag, send the email.” — Kylie Nickles, Sr. Client Advocate

What to Send:

Avoid using language or a tone that lets the contact know you’re tracking them, as this may creep them out. Telling them you saw their interest, so you’re bugging them again is not a recommended approach. Instead, make your offering more about them, their needs and what they’ll accomplish or receive from completing the form instead. There’s a simple formula called PAS that works quite well in this situation.

• P is for Problem — State a common problem that your target audience for the landing page would most likely have. Put yourself in their shoes, then speak directly to them with your messaging.
• A is for Agitate — Mention additional difficulties they could experience by not receiving the proposed solution.
• S is for Solution — Present the solution as the offer the contact will receive from completing the form.

PAS Example:

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Expert Pardot Tip #2 — Recency and Frequency

Once your marketing automation gets its legs, you’ll want to actively manage the recency and frequency of emails contacts receive. It’s exciting to get workflows up and running and set up rules with automated sequences to nurture leads through the funnel, but if not organized properly, contacts may be set up to receive too much automation at once. Don’t exhaust your contacts because you’ll run the risk of disengaging them, having them unsubscribe or even worse… being marked SPAM!

“Pardot’s Recency and Frequency rule type allows you to quickly query your prospect database to generate a list of prospects who have been contacted by you recently.

“Create a dynamic list, using the rule: ‘Prospect has been emailed’ at least :: X :: times in the last :: X :: days/weeks.

“This functionality creates a suppression list of people who have been emailed a certain amount of times in a certain time period (days and weeks).” — Richard Lewis, Sr. Client Advocate

4 times in the last 7 days is in the danger zone. We recommend only letting prospects receive email communication from your company 2 times per week max!

Expert Pardot Tip #3 — Dynamic Content

If you’ve noticed low engagement on your email sends lately (or since forever) you need to take a good hard look at the lists you’re sending to. Sending to clean, targeted lists is key, but you’ll also want to provide a personalized experience using dynamic content.

Did you know businesses that personalize web experiences see an increase in sales of 19% on average?

How to Do It:

Use Variable tags in subject lines and advanced dynamic content to send relevant content to your lists. Advanced dynamic content allows you to change the content blocks in your emails, but also on landing pages and web pages based on who is viewing it. Also known as smart content, dynamic content is used to deliver that personalized experience.

Don’t know where to start using dynamic content? Take a look at the following metrics to find where you are underperforming:

• Deliverability rate is low or your bounce rate is high = it’s time to clean up your lists.
• Open rate is low = take it a step further from A/B testing and use variable tags in your subject lines.
• Click-through rate is low = consider implementing dynamic content in the email.

Don’t get us wrong, it’s a lot more work, but it’s worth it! Want to leverage the full capabilities of Pardot? Forget straining your resources or significantly delaying your ROI, and consider Pardot consultation and training services.

This article was originally published on the Nuvem Consulting Blog by Stephanie Gaughen.