With your eCom-store being set up, you need to integrate a marketing automation solution to manage, store, analyze, and report your customer data. Salesforce, in two decades, has made its presence indispensable for businesses looking forward to digital transformation.
If you are looking forward to finding the right solution under the name, then two dominant and robust solutions are Pardot and Marketing Cloud. Both these solutions are managed by Salesforce and are quite similar in their features. To address the audience’s dilemma, Salesforce renamed Pardot “Marketing Cloud Account Engagement.”
Can’t decide what to choose for your business? Well, you aren’t sailing the boat alone. Many Enterprises and Startups initially can’t choose between the two salesforce tools. Your marketing efforts will be successfully guided by Pardot and Marketing Cloud, two solid and practical tools from the intriguing world of Salesforce.
Pardot Vs Marketing Cloud: Which Is the Right Pick?
Understanding the business needs that direct you throughout your decision-making is crucial before going over certain qualities, advantages, and disadvantages between these two tools.
To help you identify your business need better, try answering the following questions:
- Is your business a B2B or a B2C?
- How big is your company, and how much data do you keep about your clients?
- The state of your sales cycles?
- Do you typically do business deals in person, online, or with sales teams?
- What communication channels do you want to cover with your marketing plan?
- What CRM do you use currently?
Making the correct choice would be easier if you had answers to the above questions. Pardot and Marketing Cloud features are developed with a specific goal that lets you customize the tools to align with your business needs.
Understanding Pardot: A Brief Look at What the Tool Offers
If you have a B2B business, this is the right choice.
It helps you reach your customers easily via standard emails prepared under the email marketing editor. Find preparing email templates troublesome? No worries, choose from the list of pre-defined templates or create custom templates. The tool generates a detailed ROI report that helps your sales and marketing team focus on the right areas. You can generate tremendous potential leads by creating aesthetic landing pages and forms. Pardot Einstein is another advantage here; it’s an AI tool that improves the efficiency of leads and potential customers. With an automated configuration, lead management becomes child’s play. The tool sends notifications when a potential user visits your website and helps you win the game.
Pardot in Numbers: As on December 2022, there are around 92,418 websites that use Pardot for their marketing automation. The tool has proven its efficiency for b2b sales in various domains.
The Highlights
1. Lead Management
New client acquisition through various marketing campaigns.
2. Lead Generation
The beginning of consumer interest in firms’ goods or services.
3. Email Promotion
Using email to send clients messages depending on their preferences and interests.
4. Automated Interactions
It is a strategy for customer interaction that provides services or goods throughout the buying and using lifetime.
5. Custom Texting
Sending communications about products; such as discounts and specials, based on the customer’s interests and preferences. These are sent according to the customer’s age, gender, and location.
6. Improved Translation
Selecting the most suitable time to send emails or messages. The ideal moment is when the client will view the message or check their mail.
Understanding Cloud Marketing: A Brief Look at What Makes It the Right Choice
Cloud marketing is more suited for B2C businesses. It has many integrated tools, like Journey Builder, Content Builder, Mobile Studio, Email Studio, Web Studio, Social Studio, and Advertising Studio. The solutions are highly customizable, and you can adjust the modules to fit your business needs. The platform lets you engage customers with a one-to-one experience via many channels, including mobile, mail, web, etc. You can also reach a large number of customers with a single shipment if you so want.
It can gather information from various sources, including CRM, ports of sale, and every point of general client contact. It unifies all your customer data at once.
Marketing Cloud in Numbers: As of December 2022, the number of websites integrated with Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 6,991. The number continues to grow with each passing day drastically.
- Message for Each Step
See a rise in your sales by assisting customers throughout their purchase journey.
- Customized Email
You can send custom emails to the users based on their demographics and interests.
- Real-Time Analytics
Check clicks, views, impressions, and other aspects as and when you want and get real-time data.
- Custom Design
Customizing or personalizing content based on key services and search intent.
- Extended Integrations
Salesforce Sales Cloud, Shopify, Workbook, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin supported integrations.
Comparison Between The Biggies – Pardot Vs Marketing Cloud
| Aspect to Consider | Pardot | Marketing Cloud |
| Design | Simple, Easy Integration and Implementation, Intuitive | Complex, Sophisticated, and Comes with Extensive Features |
| Learning Curve | Easy to learn (Flat) | Needs Training (Steep) |
| Communication Channels | Email Marketing and Social Media | Social Media, SMS, Email marketing, Push Notifications |
| Suitable for | B2B Business | B2C Business |
| Price | Affordable | A little expensive |
| Integration | Can be integrated with any CRM | Need not be integrated with any CRM as ladened with multiple tools |
| Features | Lead Management Email Campaigns Landing Page Design Social Media Integration Pardot Einstein | Mobile Studio, Email Studio, Web Studio, Advertising Studio, Social Studio, Journey Builder, Content Builder. |
Choosing the Right Platform
At the end of the day, you and your marketing team would decide the needs. You are familiar with your target audience, the size of your team, their technological prowess, and the marketing budget.
Pardot is better suited for mid-sized to sizeable B2B companies looking for enterprise-level, yet still user-friendly, marketing automation technology. It also has a reduced buy-in requirement. Pardot can be utilized alongside Sales Cloud even though it doesn’t have a lot of CRM functionality.
B2C businesses seeking highly customized, multi-channel customer journeys are better suited with Salesforce Marketing Cloud. It’s also an excellent option for B2B businesses that wish to provide customers with an experience similar to that of a B2C business. The platform has a steeper learning curve and requires more buy-in and technical resources. Still, it provides more CRM functionality than Pardot, making it stand-alone and ideal for companies with extensive databases.
Having said that, despite Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s ability to function alone, many businesses still choose to employ Sales Cloud or Service Cloud to help with contact management and reporting.
