Let’s start by saying that Pardot has a new name: Marketing Cloud Account Engagement – or MCAE for short. It’s not exactly a catchy title, but the new name has been introduced to bring the ‘Pardot’ platform in line with Salesforce’s growing suite of Marketing Cloud tools. However, as most marketing automation specialists still refer to Pardot as ‘Pardot’, we’ll refer to the system as Pardot/MCAE in this article. 

Pardot/MCAE is a marketing automation platform (MAP) specifically designed for B2B businesses. Over 35,000 companies worldwide use Pardot/MCAE to generate leads, grow revenue and unite their customer data on one platform. 

In essence, Pardot/MCAE is a suite of tools for lead management, lead nurturing, lead scoring and marketing campaign management. It also provides analytics and reporting features to track campaign performance and measure return on investment (ROI). 

If you’re looking for a MAP that not only enhances and streamlines your marketing efforts, but also unifies your teams, then Pardot/MCAE is a very strong choice. As you’d expect, Pardot/MCAE integrates seamlessly with Salesforce, enabling easy data sharing and contact management at all stages of the sales-and-marketing funnel. 

However, Pardot/MCAE is a little more pricey, and a little more complex, than other MAPs – such as HubSpot –  so you need to know it’s right before you invest. 

Determine whether Pardot/MCAE is the right choice for your business

Do you need to improve sales and marketing alignment?

If you struggle to align your sales and marketing teams, Pardot/MCAE could be a gamechanger. Both teams have full visibility across the entire pipeline within one system, helping them work closely together to improve the quality of marketing-qualified leads and sales-qualified leads. 

Pardot/MCAE also enables marketing teams to use Salesforce data created by the sales team to personalise their campaigns. This could include analysing key account behaviour and engagement history to identify contact profiles that are most likely to convert. With Pardot/MCAE, the two teams work in a mutually beneficial way, helping to foster closer collaboration. 

Do you have a long or complex sales cycle? 

As Pardot/MCAE has been specifically designed for the B2B space, it’s ideal for businesses with long sales cycles. Pardot/MCAE’s campaign-management features include tools for segmenting, targeting and nurturing leads within personalised, cross-channel journeys that are optimised to increase qualification over multiple touchpoints. 

And, unlike other MAPs, Pardot/MCAE offers unlimited email marketing in all its plans, so you can create sophisticated nurture campaigns that effectively nurture contacts – no matter how complex or long the sales cycle. 

Do you already use Salesforce?

While Pardot/MCAE does integrate with other platforms – such as Microsoft Dynamics 365, Zendesk and Monday.com – Salesforce is the most seamless integration to both setup and use. The integration provides a complete view of all customer interactions across multiple channels in one place, making it easy to track leads at every stage of the qualification process.

Decide what you need Pardot/MCAE to actually do

If you’ve been nodding along so far, Pardot/MCAE could be the right choice for your business. Now you need to decide which functions you’ll need Pardot/MCAE to perform on a day-to-day basis. 

Here’s a very brief overview of Pardot/MCAE’s functionality:

• Automated email marketing 
• Lead-generation forms and landing pages
• Lead nurturing, qualification and management
• Audience segmentation and targeting
• A/B testing across campaign elements
• Campaign insights and ROI reporting
• Full-funnel lead attribution
• Multi-channel marketing dashboards

This list isn’t exhaustive by any means, but if it checks off most of the items on your wishlist, it may be time to start considering price. 

Calculate the costs.

Pardot/MCAE can be an expensive option, especially for small-to-medium sized businesses. It also requires a Salesforce licence, adding to the overall cost of the solution. 

Pardot/MCAE offers four main packages: 

• Growth ($1,250 a month)
• Plus ($2,750 a month)
• Advanced ($4,400 a month)
• Premium ($15,000 a month)

All packages include marketing automation, landing pages, email campaigns and lead management. The pricing is then based on increasing levels of functionality, users and contacts in the database. 

For many companies, these prices will be prohibitive. But for enterprise-level B2B businesses, Pardot/MCAE provides the sophisticated workflows and complex customer interactions they need to drive efficient growth. 

Lesniak Swann has experience across all major MAPs – including Pardot/MCAE. During a recent project, we helped ANS sharpen their martech stack and improve their Pardot integrations, delivering 218% increase in form submissions. 

Looking to get to grips with Pardot? Let’s talk.