Pardot (now Marketing Cloud Account Engagement) is Salesforce's B2B marketing automation tool — landing pages, email campaigns, lead nurturing, scoring. Setup involves connecting Pardot to Salesforce, configuring the connector, and mapping fields. Pardot is its own SaaS app paired with Salesforce.
- Confirm Pardot / Account Engagement licensing
Pardot is a separate paid SaaS — licensed independently of Salesforce CRM.
- Open Setup → Pardot Account Setup (or Marketing Cloud Account Engagement)
Setup gear → Quick Find: Pardot → Pardot Account Setup.
- Click Set Up Connector
Wizard walks through linking Pardot to Salesforce.
- Authenticate as Pardot admin
OAuth flow links your Pardot account to this Salesforce org.
- Configure Connector Settings
Field mappings (Lead.Email → Pardot Prospect Email), sync direction (Salesforce → Pardot, Pardot → Salesforce, both).
- Pick Lead Assignment to Pardot
Whether all Leads sync, or only those matching certain criteria.
- Configure tracking
Pardot tracking JS on your marketing site captures prospect activity.
- Save → run a sync test
Verify a test Lead syncs from Salesforce to Pardot and back.
Modern (REST-based) / Legacy (SOAP-based, retired).
One-way / two-way per object.
Per-field lookup between Pardot Prospect and Salesforce Lead/Contact.
Real-time (modern) vs scheduled batches.
- Pardot is its own SaaS — has its own UI at pi.pardot.com. Many features (templates, list-building, scoring) are configured in Pardot, not Salesforce.
- Connector mode matters. Legacy SOAP-based connector is retired; modern REST-based is the only supported option for new setups.
- Sync conflicts between Salesforce and Pardot can produce data drift. Define clear ownership: which side owns each field, set the sync direction accordingly.