What’s coming to Pardot in 2019

Last week, I was honored to attend Dreamforce. With so much to do, see, and learn, I decided to go into this one with a clear mission: to learn all things "future of Pardot."

To save you time, I wanted to break down all the major highlights coming out of Dreamforce 2018 about Pardot. Let’s go.

*Before I begin, I'll throw in a Safe Harbor statement. The items in the Keynote are forward looking, and not guaranteed to be available. Do not make purchasing decisions based on this blog post, or the Keynote recording*

Pardot Lightning App (enable now)

It’s happening! Pardot is going native in Salesforce Lightning. There are some cool features, like new navigation, aligned campaigns (yes, TRULY aligned), and cool new metrics reporting. Don’t worry, it only happens if you enable it. Read all about considerations and how to enable here.

Here’s a cool screenshot of what the new Pardot/Salesforce campaigns would look like in the Pardot Lightning app. Check out those marketing assets, “Marketing Forms”; they are linked on and connected directly to the campaign page! This is going to be so helpful when telling the story of your marketing efforts or finding your connected assets.

Screenshot from the Pardot Lightning App Partner webinar

Voice Search (coming 2019)

This is the moment my jaw hit the floor at the Pardot Keynote. Einstein Voice Assistant was a major Salesforce announcement in September heading into Dreamforce, so it’s no surprise they are branching Einstein Voice out to other products.

Using B2B Marketing Analytics, you’ll soon be able to ask Salesforce questions like “What are the top 3 channels for XYZ product?” And it’ll spit out a custom report to show you what channels have been driving leads for that product. Cool, right!?

Here’s a picture of what this looks like.

(All photos courtesy of me and my personal Twitter account- follow me 😊.)

P.S. The full voice search took just a second to have the search performed! Want to see this for yourself? Watch the Keynote here and skip to 44:50.

AI (coming 2019)

Einstein won’t be taking our jobs, but he will certainly be making them more data-centric. (Hurray!)

Not only can Einstein call out what helped make a deal happen, it will now show you how to improve your deal and future deals. This is amazing! Everyone gets a data scientist right in their instance of Salesforce/Pardot.

In this picture from the Keynote, you can see that Einstein predicts the pipeline, what revenue sources are driving those deals in the pipeline, and how to improve the pipeline (along with estimates for the revenue it could bring in). This is a goldmine for helping you with segmenting and targeting!

Chatbots (coming 2019)

Conversational marketing (aka chatbots on your website) is coming to Pardot! This is big because more and more we are seeing digital marketing shift towards using tactics other than email to start conversations. Chatbots are the big one. Just look at companies like Drift.

In the keynote, they showed a chatbot, which looked pretty close to the Einstein Bots available now in Service Cloud. However, it’s not ready yet.

In the Trailblazer Community, a Salesforce employee did confirm that it while it was not the same bot used for Service Cloud, it was built with Einstein chatbots: “The version demoed for Pardot is still on the roadmap and not available at this time. Still Einstein chatbots, but not the version I posted.”

Pretty slick looking, huh?

Lyft Business was a featured customer in the Pardot Keynote, hence the photo. While this is a fictional idea of how Lyft (or any business) could use an Einstein Bot with Pardot and their website, it is exciting to think about.

Marketing, like never before

Here’s another jaw-dropping moment. In the near future, you *might* be able to draw out your Engagement Studio program steps, take a photo of it, and then upload it to Pardot. This is part of the amazing intelligence functionality that comes along with Salesforce, Pardot, and Einstein. While it's not a for sure thing, it's something they are testing out, as evidenced by the Keynote. 

Here's how it would work: A new step in Engagement Studio called Einstein Canvas will take your photo of an Engagement Studio program, read it, and turn it into the steps you want in your program. Boom! You’ll be able to walk out of your next whiteboarding strategy meeting with your Engagement Studio program basically done. This would save so much time.

And once they add in Chatter to Engagement Studio programs (also on the roadmap), you might be able to upload that photo, have it turn into logic, then leave a Chatter message for your team asking them to approve before you hit Start.

This is next-level (time-saving) marketing.

Also, I should note, notice the new Pardot Lightning App interface. In the photo below you can see:

1. A new layout for the Engagement Studio steps

2. A new horizontal navigation for all of Pardot’s features (currently on the left side)

3. A new left side vertical menu, housing the features within each navigation option.

4. The Pardot search bar is now the Salesforce search bar (Hallelujah 🙌)

What the future of Pardot means for you

Once you enable the Pardot Lightning App you’ll be on the first step to streamlining Salesforce and Pardot into one platform of truth. Sales, Marketing, Leadership, and IT teams will all love you. You can manage users and reports all from one place, making all your data more accessible than ever.

Overall, the coming 2019 functionality will help marketers see that Pardot is making strides to keep up with new marketing tactics, like chatbots, while also bringing in AI and aligning to Salesforce. This is pretty amazing functionality that we aren’t seeing come from other marketing automation platforms.

We don’t have specifics of when it will be available to all, but if you keep a vigilant eye on the *Pardot B2B Marketing Automation* community you might be able to get in on a Beta or Pilot program.

Want to watch the whole Pardot Keynote yourself?

I suggest you do! Grab your beverage of choice and some popcorn–- it’s a good one! You might even invite your colleagues to watch it with you. I think you’ll get excited about what this could mean for your organization.

Watch the full Pardot B2B Keynote at Dreamforce 2018 here.

Ready to enable Pardot Lightning app for your organization?

I am! I’m enabling it now and I’d love to help you do the same. Reach out and we can get started.

Let’s Talk