Pardot Integration Mini-Series #1: Pardot to Salesforce Integration
Pardot Has the Best Integration with Salesforce
Welcome to this mini-series covering the Pardot-Salesforce integration. Pardot has the best integration with the salesforce on the market. While there are other marketing automation system on the market that integrate with Salesforce, none do so better than Pardot. There are multiple factors that determine what the best integration constitutes. These include speed of sync, reliability of sync, and handling and resolution of errors.
Speedy Sync
Pardot has the industry's fastest sync with Salesforce. Data syncs every 2 minutes. In comparison many other solutions such as Hubspot sync only every 15 minutes. Based on experience Pardot usually syncs faster than 2 minutes and it is near real time. When you take an action in Pardot, and then refresh the Salesforce tab in your browser the change is instantaneously reflected.
Why is speed of sync important? According to a study on Lead Management by InsideSales.com the best time to contact a sales-ready lead is within 5 minutes of them filling out a form. A sales person's chance of contacting a lead after 5 minutes of raising their hand diminishes exponentially. The difference in a 2 minutes vs. a 15 minute sync time results in a difference in revenue. Pardot also has great features such as Salesforce Engage so that sales reps can receive notifications on their desktop when a prospect fills out a call-to-action form, opens/clicks your email, or even visits your website enabling your sales person to reach out to the prospect at the right time with the right message.
Reliability of Sync
Reliability is paramount when it comes to integrating a marketing solution with Salesforce. If a prospect doesn't make it into your CRM at all money is falling through the cracks. Pardot has an extremely tight and reliable seal with Salesforce; and what was best-in-breed previously has only become better since Pardot was bought by Salesforce! Issues can arise, such as getting an error in the sync error queue. These are few and far between, and are a result of your Salesforce setup not jiving with your Pardot setup. These errors have nothing to do with the actual Pardot to Salesforce integration.
In summary, the Pardot to salesforce integration is rock solid. I have never experienced any down time, and no one can do it better than Salesforce because it is all under one roof with teams from both Salesforce and Pardot coming together to make it the best in the industry. Check out this infographic on information about the Salesforce - Pardot integration!
How the Pardot to Salesforce Integration Works
By default for every Prospect record that is stored in Pardot is created as a Lead record in Salesforce. After the record is created in Salesforce, Salesforce becomes the system-of-record. Any change to the Lead record's information, such as their title, phone number, or even email address will be reflected back in Pardot instantaneously. It is possible to change the system-of-record to be Pardot, or even the last change that happened in either system. However, by default, it is recommended that once a lead becomes sales ready that all changes happen in Salesforce first. This is logical because your sales person may hunt down more relevant information, or talk to the person who tells them they prefer to be called by a different first name.
For a Lead to be created in Salesforce the Prospect recordmust be assigned to a user in Pardot. This is similar to the concept of Lead record ownership in salesforce. In fact, the user that the Prospect is assigned to in Pardot becomes the Lead Owner in Salesforce. It is important to note that Prospects in Pardot can be assigned to both Users or Queues, just like Salesforce. The moment a Prospect is assigned in Pardot, it is thencreated in Salesforce as a Lead.
Prospect Creation & Assignment
Some companies prefer to have all of their Prospects created as Leads inside of Salesforce, while others prefer only those who have reached a certain lead score and are sales ready. In this vein, Pardot provides automation rules to automatically assign the Prospect record to a User or Queue once it hits a certain lead score. In addition, because Pardot works with Salesforce queues records can be assigned to a marketing queue in Salesforce, and then be round-robined in Salesforce based on any criteria. Most round robin Lead assignment packages for salesforce plug directly into queues. You can use these features in a myriad of ways. For example, you could use an automation rule or completion actin in Pardot to assign a Prospect record to a Queue. You could then have an assignment rule in Salesforce to assign Leads from a certain Queue to a User. Conversely, you can leverage Salesforce assignment rules directly in Pardot.
Update: You can now also leverage Groups in Pardot to round robin Prospects directly in Pardot!
Order of Operations for the Pardot - Salesforce Sync
Once a Prospect is assigned in Pardot a number of items occur. First, Pardot checks to see if there are any Contacts with the matching email address in Salesforce. If so, the Salesforce Contact is linked with the Pardot Prospect record. If not, Pardot then checks if there are any Leads in Salesforce have the same email address. If so, the records are linked. If not, Pardot then creates a new Lead record in Salesforce. Note that it is possible to have Pardot create a Contact by default instead of a Lead, but you must contact customer support to enable this feature.
Stay tuned for more in the Pardot - Salesforce integration series!
