How to Get Up and Running with Pardot

So, your business has decided you need a best-of-breed marketing automation solution and selected Pardot. Now, where do you begin? The faster you can configure a solution, the sooner you can reap its benefits. As such, we’ve invested in the setup experience for Pardot to get you up and running faster than ever!

Know where to go with the Marketing Setup App

Just like any road trip, in order to get to where you’re going, you’ve got to know where to start. After you purchase Pardot, the Marketing Setup App will be visible from the setup menu in your Salesforce org and is the go-to place for all things Pardot setup. It’s a centralized location for setup nodes as well as additional collateral to enhance the Pardot setup experience. As new features are released or as you look to expand your marketing efforts through the introduction of additional Business Units, configuration begins in the Marketing Setup App.

While not as humorous as a “Yay, you’re here!” welcome mat at your friend’s front door, upon initial access of the Marketing Setup App, you’ll be met with a welcome mat with resources and clear steps for getting started on your Pardot journey. Whether watching a video, taking a trail, or jumping right into configuration makes the most sense for your experience level, it will be at your fingertips immediately.

Get started quickly with Setup Assistant

Keeping with the theme of time to value, setting up Pardot without having to leave your Salesforce org to find the appropriate steps is key. Anyone who has tried their hand at DIY home improvement knows you never make just one trip to the hardware store. Instead of those extra trips, the Setup Assistant provides a discoverable in-app guided experience for initial setup, giving you all the tools and resources you need without having to leave the comfort of your home — or in this case, your Salesforce org.

With language focused on outcomes, steps are grouped to achieve a particular job to be done, starting with what needs to be configured to Send Your First Email. For those feeling a bit more adventurous, the more comprehensive path for Beyond the Basics is always available. You’ll notice contextual resources for each step along with suggestions and notes about best practices. You’ll be able to find videos of features for visual explanations to provide an easy path for understanding the product as a new customer.

More traditional resources are available in the form of linked implementation guides and help articles for those who prefer to do some light reading. Each call to action opens the appropriate item in a new tab for the admin user to perform the step but also keeps the Setup Assistant available to retain the initial context. Now, our customers can perform the appropriate steps to clearly see initial value from Pardot quickly without the need to find and determine which configuration steps are appropriate for them.

Delegate initial setup with the Marketing Admin user permission

In the past, Pardot setup has required a Salesforce Admin to complete all setup steps within Salesforce. Now, the Manage marketing setup tasks user permission makes it easy to designate a marketing admin to handle many Pardot setup and ongoing management tasks without needing the full access of a Salesforce Admin. Simply assign the new Manage marketing setup tasks permission and the View setup and configuration permission to grant access to all the configuration options in Salesforce Marketing Setup. After the proper permissions have been added, a marketing admin can now perform most steps within the Marketing Setup App.

If you’d like to fully delegate Pardot setup to a marketing admin, you can add additional user permissions to that user. Want them to set up the email in Lightning Experience? Add Manage Profiles and Permission Sets & Assign Permission Sets. Want them to install the Pardot package? Add Download AppExchange Packages. Want them to not only assign users access to Pardot but also create users who need access? Add Manage Users or Delegate Administrative Duties to that user. As with custom permission sets (and my children’s tactics to delay bedtime), the possibilities are endless.

Next steps

Whether you need to delegate setup or are looking to do the full implementation yourself, the Marketing Setup App, Setup Assistant, and Marketing Admin user permission provide greater flexibility to do so while streamlining the process. Check out the below for next steps in taking advantage of these features.

• Spin up a Salesforce Sandbox and Pardot Sandbox to walk through the initial configuration in a non-production environment.
• Access both the Marketing Setup App and the Setup Assistant to check out the new experience.
• Need to hand over some of the keys? Look into how to designate a marketing admin.