Marketing Cloud vs Pardot: What's the difference?

Whether you're a marketer or a CXO of a company, you must understand the challenges of attracting prospects and nurturing leads through the sales funnel.

Moreover, to keep up with customers at multiple touchpoints and keep up the consistent interaction, the need for an effective marketing automation platform is essential.

However, it becomes troublesome when Salesforce users try to differentiate between Pardot and Salesforce Marketing Cloud. While both platforms are often confused to be the same and are being marketed under the same brand umbrella, they are different platforms and offer different features.

To make it easier for you to understand, we are here to shed some light on this topic.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Vs. Pardot: What's the difference?

Marketing Cloud vs Pardot, what's the difference? You need to know that no platform is better than the other. Both platforms are different and designed to meet the unique needs of various enterprises.

Pardot is specifically designed for lead nurturing. With a well-organized structure, features, and user-friendly interface - it's an ideal platform for guiding leads through the long and complex sales process.

Meanwhile, Marketing Cloud is a Marketing Automation platform that prioritizes personalization and multi-channel automation. Its wide range of features and strong automation capabilities are tailored for large, high transactional businesses.

Here are some primary differences that can help you further distinguish between both platforms:

1. Lead Nurturing

Pardot's user-friendly lead lifecycle tools empower the marketing team to set advanced lead qualification and scoring models. This capability facilitates the precise identification of sales-ready leads, ensuring that the sales team receives top-notch prospects.

Marketing Cloud's lead management capabilities are capable but may require more time and effort to set up. It's best suited for organizations with extensive customer bases, as it can be challenging to identify and prioritize leads most likely to convert.

Don't forget to check out: Salesforce Marketing Cloud Implementation Guide

2. Integration

You may not know but Pardot is natively built on core Salesforce Platform. So, it can easily be integrated with Salesforce CRM or other Salesforce platforms to create a 360-degree view of customers.

While Marketing Cloud may not be built natively on the core platform, it can still be integrated with Salesforce CRM and other applications using Marketing Cloud connectors.

3. Automation Capabilities

As both of these are marketing automation platforms, it's one of the most crucial distinctions among both platforms.

Pardot is an automation platform, more suited for organizations with large and complex sales cycles involving prospects with multiple decision makers.

On the other hand, Marketing Cloud specializes in multi-channel marketing automation and personalization that involves multiple touchpoints and a large transactional customer base.

4. Pricing

Pricing is an essential factor to consider when investing in an enterprise platform.

Pricing of Pardot or Marketing Cloud engagement begins at $1250 for the pro version and $4200 for the corporate edition, with pricing/quotes for the Enterprise version being customizable based on your needs.

In contrast, Marketing Cloud is an expensive option considering its wide range of features. Its price may vary based on which edition you are opting for, however, you should only invest if you are a large organization with complex marketing requirements.

Check out another amazing blog by Cymetrix here: Salesforce Chatbot: Streamlining Customer Service and Support

Conclusion

So, this was a distinction between two of the best marketing automation platforms in the Industry. While both of these platforms are amazing, you may find one that's better suited for your needs than the other, and it's completely fine.

However, if you are unable to determine which one's the right pick, don't hesitate to get in touch with a Salesforce Partner Company and find out the best platform for your business.