When Salesforce discussed potential names for the Optimizer, I would have suggested a different choice.  I would have called it "Mom."  It's the force that says, "Clean up your stuff!" What is the Optimizer? The Optimizer gives marketers a big-picture look at the health of their Account Engagement systems to improve email send times, speed up automation processing, and more.   Marketers can see which recommendations [...]

A big step toward better marketing reporting is using campaigns. For marketers, campaigns are the foundation of measuring the effectiveness of their team's activities. Here's a six-step process to help you navigate setting up your campaigns in Account Engagement. 1. List your marketing initiatives Write down all the activities of your marketing team. Defining initiatives will provide insights into the effectiveness of those efforts. Events [...]

Creating your first email drip is daunting.  (Where to begin?) So, I’m giving you a starting point. The concept Here’s the scenario: you have permission to email a segment of prospects, and they are new to your company.  Maybe these are prospects from a trade show. We are going to send five emails- one every week. I’m looking for prospects that click twice. After the [...]

Let's get your Sending Domain setup! Sending Domain A sending domain indicates who an email is from via the "From" email header. Your IT person can configure the DNS records for a sending domain, which allows recipient mail servers to authenticate your messages.   For instance, if you use Email Sender jen.kazin@greenkeydigital.com, "greenkeydigital.com" is the sending domain.  Domain Setup Your IT person will need to add [...]

Do you use the Do Not Email field? Most marketers overlook it or misuse it. Account Engagement (Pardot) mailability features updated in the summer of 2021. With it, Salesforce proposed a new way to manage prospects. Understand the difference Pardot offers two fields to prevent prospects from getting emails. Do Not Email - Marketers can mark prospects as Do Not Email to suppress them from [...]

If you ask anyone in Salesforce, "What's new with Account Engagement (Pardot)?" they will probably say, "Extensibility." Salesforce has been dutifully dedicating resources to extensibility, the ability to connect Pardot to different systems. Why should marketers care?  Better connectivity allows for better data and insight, leading to more precise automation. Plus, it reduces manual work. Salesforce is expanding extensibility with Pardot in three ways: External [...]

I often get this question from clients: "We plan to start sending emails in Account Engagement (Pardot). How can we make sure that we do everything correctly?" Here are three steps to getting started correctly sending emails in Pardot: Clean your lists When was the last time you emailed these prospects? If it's been a while (more than six months), I recommend cleaning your lists. [...]

Did you see the new message on the Pardot Dashboard tab:  Select Sync Behavior for the prospect Opted Out field?    Salesforce is changing the Opted Out field sync behavior.   You must choose either "Use Pardot's Value" or "Use Salesforce's Value."  You have until July 11, 2023, to update it.   If you don't take action, the Opted Out field will be UNMAPPED and stop syncing [...]

"Should I use the new Email Builder," is a question I hear often.   My answer: "It depends."  I've seen marketers divide on their preferences, mainly due to what features are available in Email Builder. Marketers who embrace the Email Builder Have neither HTML and CSS coding capabilities nor agency resources Put more emphasis on the email content (less on design) Think speed and ease of [...]

If you want to send a birthday email to your customers every year (or for any occasion), it’s a challenge. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (MCAE) doesn’t have an easy drop-down button for annual email sending.  No worries! You can create a couple of custom fields and copy these Salesforce Flows to make it work in your system.   How it works To send an email on [...]

A common question from Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) marketers has been, “Can we see a bounce report?”   Well, now you can. What is a Bounce? An email bounces when it cannot be delivered and is returned to the sender. Emails bounce for many reasons,  but they may also negatively impact your email deliverability. For instance, if you have a high bounce rate, servers may [...]