Pardot Review

The following is a review of the Pardot marketing automation solution.

Positives

Landing page URLs can be branded and there is native integration with bit.ly.
Form builder includes real-time lookup to MX record excludes faulty email addresses.
Integration with Site search.
Progressive profiling with all forms allows customer to build more complete customer profile.
Landing page forms can be easily embedded on existing page.
Desktoop application called ‘Lead Deck’ allows reps to instantly see when people are on website. iPhone app and Google app available.
Bi-directional sync on all list segmentations.
AddThis can be attached to all emails.
Emails can come from specific user and be attributed to contact record in CRM.
Email testing and rendering on 31 most popular email clients.
Emails can be compressed to business hours (10 am – 4 pm) M – F.
Intuitive campaign logic builder tool to create drip marketing programs.
Campaigns can be provisioned directly from the CRM.
Layout template tool can ‘scrape’ styling code off of website to be cleaned up from Services team.
GoodData – Sophisticated business intelligence application.
Outlook Plug-in allows sales team to use MS Outlook to track emails to prospect and clients and measure response. Supports Outlook 2007, Mozilla Thunderbird, Apple Mail.
Forrester rated #1 in Total Cost Ownership.
No long term commitment.

Negatives

There are areas we do not offer due to complexity. There are others that do more but they are not as user friendly.
Basic lead nuturing process.
No direct mail integration.
Long list of key features like automation rules, emails, and real-time alerts not available in base package.
$200 – $500M is sweets spot. Larger organizations may require another solution.

Implementation Process