The Right Way to Perform Pardot Automation Audit

“Ask the right questions if you are to find the right answers” 

                                                                                              -  Venessa Redgrave

Salesforce Pardot has earned the reputation of being a reliable Marketing Automation tool among marketers who invest in digital marketing. It comes from the house of Salesforce and is used by enterprises of different sizes across the globe.

Since Pardot comes at a considerable cost, it is imperative that we keep a tab on whether we are utilizing it to its full potential or not. 

To measure the effectiveness of your Pardot automation, you need to ask yourselves some questions related to different aspects. The answers will help you determine which areas of operation need improvement to boost productivity in marketing automation functions.

Let’s look at the areas you need to focus on:

Performance of Web Forms 

Web forms are an important tool that makes sure that relevant leads are entering our system. If our web forms are not relevant, lack comprehensiveness, and do not seek information that is critical to our business, we may not be able to target our potential customers. In this case, you must ask yourself: 

• How can you improve the forms? Can you get more responses if they are shortened? Do you need to update the forms to reflect your new business model/ service offerings?
• Are the forms working properly on all devices?
• Are confirmatory messages being delivered immediately to the lead mailbox?
• Are these forms good enough to match with corporate branding?
• Are the forms engaging and encouraging your leads to fill them?

Note - By using progressive profiling, we can keep getting updates regarding leads.

Data Hygiene and Lead Segmentation

It is very important to check whether our database is up-to-date or not. Data duplication can lead to unorganized communication to leads. It will further hamper the data segmentation which is the core to informed and targeted lead nurtures. 

If data is not well organized and hygienic, lead scoring will also result in wrong selections and you may miss important and low hanging customers. You need to find answers to the following questions:

• Are you using techniques to store accurate and reliable data?
• Are the criteria to generate these lists updated and match our perspective?
• Are you using the right set of rules to segment the database?
• Can you improve the segmentation process by adding behavioral aspects? Are segmentation rules matching with your buyer personas which is the base for marketing outreach?
• Are you setting up very strict rules for segmentation which is putting potential buyers out of your radar? 

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring refers to the process of allotting scores to customers in the sales funnel by analyzing their response to your communication. Lead scoring helps sales teams to identify the most promising leads and close deals with them asap.

Here, you may want to ask the following questions:

• Are all content pages aligned with the campaign objectives?
• Are scores allocated to these pages realistic?
• Do the existing scoring rules relate accurately with buying signals?
• Are the buyer persona profiles and lead scoring delivering out a good conversion rate?

Read More: Improve Your Lead Nurturing Process With Pardot Automation

Communication Frequency 

Communication frequency plays a major role in winning brand loyalty and the biggest challenge lies in setting up rules to schedule recurring messages. It is very important to refrain from sending frequent and irrelevant emails which irks the customers and lead to email fatigue.

Questions you need to ask here:

• What is the current frequency of sending messages?
• Are response rates and conversions indicating that you can increase the frequency?
• Should frequency for certain audience segments be different from others?
• Can you get customer feedback by asking for their comfort in receiving more emails?

Email Template and Contents

Pardot helps you create amazing email templates and you can reuse them easily anytime. This luxury sometimes leads to complacency and you keep repeating your templates in too many campaigns.

Questions to ask:   

• What are the open rate and click rate while using certain templates?
• Are these rates dropping with similar template campaigns?
• How can you improve our content in emails?
• Are you able to include personal information like name and company name correctly for each contact?

These are some of the basic areas which can be explored by system admins and marketing managers who can then improve the overall performance of the marketing process. Remember, Pardot is an excellent marketing automation tool. However, an underutilized Pardot system is a wastage of resources and time. 

It's always advisable to contact a marketing automation agency to perform in-depth analysis or audit of existing systems and keep fine-tuning it frequently under expert guidance. 

Want to know how your current automation systems stack in the hyper-competitive environment? Get in touch with marketing automation experts at Growth Natives today. With decades of combined experience, our team helps you realize the optimum potential of your Pardot automation. 

To know more about our services, email us at info@growthnatives.com or visit our website.