How Do You Build a Pardot Roadmap?
A Pardot roadmap (for Marketing Cloud Account Engagement) is a 12–24 month plan that connects strategy, people, processes, and the platform. It turns “we send emails” into a governed, measurable system that supports pipeline and revenue.
You build a Pardot roadmap by starting with business outcomes, auditing your current Account Engagement and Salesforce usage, and then sequencing changes into time-boxed waves (90-day releases) across data, campaigns, lead management, and reporting. A good roadmap names the outcomes, owners, and metrics for each phase, so Pardot improvements are tied directly to pipeline, conversion, and customer value—not just email volume or feature checklists.
Why You Need a Pardot Roadmap
The Pardot Roadmap Blueprint
Use this sequence to move from “reactive campaigns” to a clear, prioritized roadmap for Marketing Cloud Account Engagement that your executive team can fund and your admins can actually deliver.
Discover → Diagnose → Design → Prioritize → Deliver → Enable → Measure & Iterate
- Discover where you are today. Inventory Pardot and Salesforce: campaigns, automations, scoring, forms, journeys, integrations, data quality, and reporting. Capture pain points from marketing, sales, and ops.
- Diagnose gaps against your growth model. Map your current state to funnel stages (awareness, engagement, MQL, SQL, opportunity, customer). Identify gaps in volume, conversion, and speed where Pardot can help.
- Design your future-state architecture. Define how campaigns, journeys, lead management, scoring, and data should work together 12–24 months from now. Keep it platform-specific but revenue-driven.
- Prioritize initiatives into waves. Group work into 60–90 day waves like “Foundation,” “Lifecycle Journeys,” and “Advanced Reporting.” Score each initiative by impact, effort, and dependencies.
- Deliver with clear requirements. Translate roadmap items into user stories, configuration requirements, and acceptance criteria so admins and developers know exactly what to build and test.
- Enable users and stakeholders. Pair each wave with training, documentation, and change management for marketers, sales users, and leadership so adoption keeps up with configuration.
- Measure and iterate. Define KPIs (for example, MQL→SQL conversion, meeting rate, influenced pipeline) and review them monthly. Feed learnings back into the next wave of the roadmap.
Pardot Roadmap Maturity Matrix
| Capability | From (Ad Hoc) | To (Roadmap-Driven) | Owner | Primary KPI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy & Vision | Tactical email calendar; unclear goals | Documented Pardot vision aligned to revenue targets and GTM strategy | CMO / Marketing Leadership | Pipeline sourced & influenced |
| Data & Integration | Inconsistent fields and sync issues | Curated field set, governed sync rules, and reliable identity between Pardot & Salesforce | Marketing Ops / CRM Admin | Sync error rate, usable segments |
| Campaigns & Journeys | One-off sends, limited nurtures | Lifecycle programs mapped to customer journey stages and personas | Demand Gen / Campaign Managers | Engagement & stage-to-stage conversion |
| Lead Management & Scoring | Static, mistrusted scoring rules | Aligned grading & scoring with SLAs, routing rules, and sales feedback loops | RevOps / Sales Ops | MQL→SQL conversion, speed-to-lead |
| Reporting & Attribution | Email metrics only | Campaign and lifecycle dashboards connected to opportunities and revenue | Analytics / RevOps | ROMI, funnel health |
| Governance & Enablement | No standards for builds or training | Roadmap steering committee, build standards, playbooks, and role-based training | Marketing Ops / Center of Excellence | Adoption, build quality, time-to-launch |
Client Snapshot: From “Random Acts of Marketing” to Roadmap
A global B2B tech company was using Pardot primarily for batch email and simple forms. Over 8 weeks, we led a discovery, diagnosed gaps in lead management and reporting, and built a 4-wave roadmap covering data cleanup, scoring & routing, lifecycle nurtures, and advanced attribution. Within two quarters, marketing-sourced pipeline visibility increased, sales reported higher lead quality, and time-to-launch for new programs dropped significantly. Explore related outcomes: Comcast Business · Broadridge
A strong Pardot roadmap gives you sequence, ownership, and proof: what to do first, who will do it, and how you’ll know it worked—from first touch all the way to closed-won and renewal.
Frequently Asked Questions About Building a Pardot Roadmap
Get an Actionable Pardot Roadmap
We’ll help you audit your current Account Engagement setup, clarify your revenue goals, and turn scattered requests into a sequenced, 12–18 month Pardot roadmap that sales and marketing can execute together.
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