Pretty solid Marketing Automation platform, good if you are a Salesforce customer

Pardot delivers on promises

Pardot has made it easy to understand how our marketing is working, know who is a hot lead versus a disengaged one, and to create content that is easy to share and delivers good ROI. It’s built in many safeguards to keep you from getting in trouble with spam rules and avoid sending emails multiple times.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Strong Marketing Automation Tool! Highly recommended for SME and Mid Range Businesses

Overall I loved it. It's easier to use and the LIGHTNING EXPERIENCE IS AMAZING!!! It has the modern look and feel. I am going to stay with Pardot for a long time. Truly recommend it!

Pros

In-house integration with SFDC. Easier to manage. Not complicated. It has similar functionality as the other major peers like Hubspot and Marketo and it was easier to learn and start working on it.

Cons

Lead routing is not available. I am looking for in-built round-robin routing functionality.

Integrates well with Salesforce but lacks features of competitors

Pros

The fact that it integrates natively with Salesforce is Pardot's best feature. The engagement studio automation product is great as well, making it really easy to create drip campaigns and other conditional flows.

Cons

The email builder is 10 years behind competitor's builders. To get things to behave, you have to code emails in html. The WYSIWG builder is poor, but asset management of images and files is even worse. Competitors like MailChimp and ActiveCampaign have much better platforms for designing beautiful, responsive emails.

Expensive and UI left much to be desired

The only reason we've stayed with Pardot this long is because of its connectivity with Salesforce. It helps to have visibility into a prospect's engagement from both platforms. It plays a critical role in our email marketing initiatives and capturing and managing MQLs that come through our website forms. Building and segmenting our audience lists.

Pros

Creating customized email templates and nurture campaigns. Easily setup A/B testing for any email send. The ability to slice and dice your segments so you can get more granular with contact lists. Integrated well with many of the other platforms (GoToWebinar) and social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) we used. Obviously with Salesforce too.

Cons

Compared to other email management tools, Pardot is expensive and the UI feels outdated. Unless you spend a lot of time reading their resources and tutorials, it isn't intuitive. The Pardot forms is also confusing. They have forms and form handlers and there should be a better way of combining the two to make things simple.