What Is Pardot (Account Engagement)?
Pardot, now known as Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, is Salesforce’s B2B marketing automation platform. It connects campaigns, scoring, nurturing, and sales handoff so every form fill, email click, and page view becomes a measurable step toward pipeline and revenue.
Pardot (Account Engagement) is a B2B marketing automation platform that sits natively on the Salesforce stack. It lets you capture and nurture leads, score and grade buying signals, automate journeys, and route qualified prospects to Sales with full activity history. Instead of one-off email blasts, teams build repeatable, multi-touch programs that connect anonymous visits and form fills to real pipeline and closed-won revenue.
When Pardot is implemented as part of a revenue marketing system, it becomes the orchestration layer between digital channels, sales development, and account teams. You define lifecycle stages, SLAs, and offers; Pardot executes the nurture, alerts reps to intent, and feeds analytics so you can fund the campaigns that grow pipeline, deal velocity, and customer lifetime value.
What Does Pardot Actually Do?
The Pardot Revenue Marketing Playbook
To get beyond “sending email,” you need Pardot wired into Salesforce, your website, and your revenue process. Use this sequence to turn it into a measurable growth engine.
Align → Capture → Qualify → Nurture → Handoff → Close → Expand
- Align strategy & data: Define lifecycle stages (lead, MQL, SQL, opportunity, customer), lead sources, and campaign taxonomy. Make sure Salesforce objects and Pardot fields are mapped and governed.
- Capture demand: Use Pardot forms, landing pages, and progressive profiling on key offers—demos, assessments, eGuides, webinars—to convert anonymous interest into known people.
- Qualify with scoring & grading: Configure scoring categories for different products or segments, and use grading to reflect ideal customer profile (ICP). Align thresholds with Sales so “MQL” means the same thing for everyone.
- Nurture intelligently: Build Engagement Studio programs that branch by behavior, persona, account, and stage. Mix educational content with clear offers that move prospects toward conversations and self-serve trials.
- Handoff to Sales: Trigger Salesforce tasks, Slack/Teams alerts (via integration), and list assignments as leads cross thresholds. Give reps access to the full activity history directly inside Salesforce.
- Close with insight: Use campaign influence and opportunity reports to see which emails, landing pages, and journeys actually show up in closed-won deals—and which ones stall or attract poor fit.
- Expand & retain: Clone and adapt successful programs for renewals, upsell/cross-sell, and customer onboarding. Use Pardot to keep accounts warm between buying cycles, not just at the top of the funnel.
Pardot Capability Maturity Matrix
| Capability | From (Ad Hoc) | To (Operationalized) | Owner | Primary KPI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CRM & Data Alignment | Loose field mapping, inconsistent status values | Governed fields, lifecycle stages, and sync rules between Pardot and Salesforce | RevOps/Admin | Sync Health, Data Completeness |
| Lead Management | Manual list uploads and one-off blasts | Always-on programs for net-new, recycling, and dormant leads with clear MQL definitions | Demand Gen | MQL Volume, MQL→SQL Conversion |
| Scoring & Grading | Single default score | Category-based scoring and clear thresholds by product, region, and segment | Demand Gen/RevOps | Sales Acceptance, Win Rate |
| Engagement Programs | Linear drips with low engagement | Multi-branch journeys that adapt to behavior, persona, and stage | Marketing Operations | Email Engagement, Journey Progression |
| Sales Alignment | Unclear handoffs and timing | Documented SLAs, automated routing, and shared dashboards across teams | Sales Leadership/RevOps | Speed-to-Lead, SQL Conversion |
| Attribution & Insight | Opens and clicks only | Campaign influence and full-funnel reporting from first touch to revenue | Analytics/RevOps | Pipeline & Revenue Influenced |
Client Snapshot: Turning Pardot into a Revenue Engine
A global B2B provider came to us using Pardot primarily for batch email. After aligning lifecycle stages, redesigning scoring/grading, and rebuilding Engagement Studio programs around buying committees, they increased MQL→SQL conversion, improved SDR productivity, and gained clear visibility from campaign to revenue. Explore related results: Comcast Business · Broadridge
When you combine Pardot with The Loop™ customer journey and our RM6™ Revenue Marketing Framework, you get a governed system that connects every Pardot touch to pipeline, bookings, and customer expansion.
Frequently Asked Questions about Pardot (Account Engagement)
Unlock the Full Value of Pardot
We’ll evaluate your current setup, redesign lifecycle and scoring, and build the journeys and dashboards that turn Pardot into a true revenue marketing platform.
Take Revenue Marketing Test Start Your Revenue Transformation