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Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs Pardot
14 min
Updated: 04.10.2024
Pardot is a B2B marketing automation tool designed to help businesses manage campaigns, engage leads, and drive sales. Rebranded as Marketing Cloud Account Engagement in 2022, it remains a part of the Salesforce ecosystem. While primarily focused on B2B, Pardot can also be useful for certain B2C companies.
Alongside Pardot, Salesforce offers Marketing Cloud, a powerful platform for B2C companies to manage complex, multi-channel marketing campaigns. However, Marketing Cloud, now known as Marketing Cloud Engagement, is also highly effective for B2B organizations.
Discover how Salesforce and Pardot can transform your business by understanding their key differences, benefits, and pricing, and how to seamlessly integrate them into your CRM for maximum impact.
Note: Before diving into the main content, let’s clarify the terminology. Although you’re likely familiar with the updated names of the services being compared, we’ll refer to Pardot as Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud as Marketing Cloud Engagement.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs Pardot: Difference, Strengths and Weaknesses
While Pardot and Marketing Cloud share many similar features, each service offers unique capabilities that differentiate them and make them suitable for different types of businesses.
Let’s take a closer look to see which one is the best fit for your needs!
Difference #1 – Buying Cycle
Pardot is ideal for companies selling high-value goods or services, where multiple stakeholders are involved in a longer decision-making process. This is why Pardot is often positioned as a B2B marketing tool. In contrast, Marketing Cloud is better suited for businesses with lower-value goods or services that have shorter sales cycles and a higher volume of customers and sold products.
Difference #2 – Industries
While Pardot is ideal for companies offering professional services, such as software development or financial services, Marketing Cloud is better suited for industries like retail, travel, and beauty.
Difference #3 – Technology
Pardot is designed as a “What You See Is What You Get” tool that can be managed by a certified Pardot Specialist in a standard setup. In contrast, Marketing Cloud offers a range of ‘Builders’ and ‘Studios,’ some of which require specialized expertise, with more complex data management compared to Pardot. However, the assistance of a Salesforce partner is required in both cases.
Difference #4 – Capabilities
Pardot specializes in lead routing, automated campaigns, and prospect engagement, whereas Marketing Cloud provides a broader suite of integrated tools for managing customer journeys, email, social media, web personalization, and data analysis.
Difference #5 – Channels
Marketing Cloud Engagement offers extensive cross-channel capabilities through modules like Social Studio for social media, MobileConnect for SMS, and Advertising for display ads, supporting comprehensive marketing strategies. In contrast, Pardot primarily focuses on B2B lead management and places less emphasis on channels such as SMS and display advertising.
Now that you understand the key differences between Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Pardot, it’s evident that each tool has its strengths and weaknesses. Exploring these will help you determine which one best meets your business needs.
What Are the Pros of Pardot?
What Are the Cons of Pardot?
What Are the Pros of Marketing Cloud?
What Are the Cons of Marketing Cloud?
Brief Overview of Pardot and Marketing Cloud Capabilities
Automate and simplify business processes with Pardot and Marketing Cloud:
Pardot (Marketing Cloud Account Engagement):
Marketing Cloud (Marketing Cloud Engagement):
Salesforce Pardot vs Marketing Cloud Pricing
The prices are taken from the Salesforce official website and are effective as of September 2024.
There are four Pardot (Marketing Cloud Account Engagement) plans, billed annually:
Designed for SMBs seeking marketing automation, lead nurturing, and insights through dashboards and campaign reporting.
Ideal for growing businesses needing advanced marketing automation, cross-channel journeys, ABM dashboards, and in-depth analytics, including enhanced SEO and Google AdWords integration.
Perfect for large businesses focused on innovation, offering AI-driven tools with Einstein, advanced marketing automation, and secure infrastructure like a dedicated IP address.
Best for large enterprises requiring comprehensive marketing automation, predictive analytics, enhanced support, and security features such as custom encryption keys, supporting up to 75,000 contacts.
There are three Marketing Cloud (Marketing Cloud Engagement) plans, billed annually:
Ideal for businesses delivering personalized messaging throughout the customer journey, with drag-and-drop segmentation and AI-driven tools like Einstein content tagging for efficient content management.
Designed for businesses focusing on personalized cross-channel marketing, using Journey Builder for automated multi-channel campaigns, and leveraging AI tools like Einstein Engagement Frequency to optimize send frequency and Einstein Recommendations to provide tailored content based on behavior.
Perfect for businesses managing multiple divisions with shared content and data, utilizing real-time big data for audience segmentation, and creating complex, cross-channel journeys across brands and geographies.
Note! Pardot and Marketing Cloud features vary based on the selected package and your business needs. Visit the official Salesforce website to review the packages and find the one that best suits your requirements.
Pardot Integration and Marketing Cloud Integration
Pardot integrates with Sales Cloud, working directly with Leads, Contacts, and Opportunities, and using the same Campaigns. Some data remains off-platform, but it’s closely tied with Salesforce. Additionally, it’s easily integrated with non-Salesforce products like HubSpot, Zoom, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud operates separately from Salesforce, using connectors for bidirectional data synchronization, reflecting its advanced capabilities beyond the core Salesforce platform.
Salesforce Certified Specialists at Routine Automation
Salesforce offers a variety of certifications to validate expertise in its platforms, such as Administrator, Developer, Artificial Intelligence, and Architect. Earning these certifications involves passing challenging exams and demonstrating advanced proficiency, marking them as significant achievements.
At Routine Automation, we boast over 50 certified Salesforce specialists. This underscores our deep knowledge of Salesforce solutions and our capability to implement them effectively in your business.
How RA Implements Pardot and Marketing Cloud
Campaign tracking and social media scheduling
A US software company needed better tracking of inbound leads, especially during events like Black Friday, and more efficient social media scheduling.
We implemented the Pardot Google Analytics Connector to track UTM campaign data, improving audience segmentation and campaign insights. We also developed a Pardot LinkedIn Connector for automated post-scheduling.
Results: We improved data-driven decision-making and reduced social media management time by 32% for the company. Additionally, we automated audience segmentation to develop personalized strategies for each group resulting in a 17% increase in conversion rates.
saved time on social media management.
Optimizing email nurture campaigns with Marketing Cloud
A healthcare advocacy client needed to optimize their Marketing Cloud setup to enhance email nurture campaigns and integrate with their Salesforce org. We designed personalized email templates using AMPscript, configured Journey Builder for targeted email campaigns, and set up Triggered Sends for automated responses to subscriber actions.
Results: Improved email marketing strategy with optimized templates and automation, leading to increased campaign efficiency and time savings for the client’s marketing team. It resulted in a 37% reduction in time spent on routine tasks, leading to significant cost savings and more efficient workforce allocation.
What to Choose: Pardot or Marketing Cloud?
The answer depends on your industry, budget, and business goals.
Both Pardot and Salesforce Marketing Cloud offer distinct advantages tailored to different business needs:
At Routine Automation, we leverage our expertise as Salesforce partners and our team of over 50 certified specialists to implement and optimize these solutions. Contact us to discover how we can tailor Pardot or Marketing Cloud to meet your business needs and drive your marketing success.
