Use Scoring in Pardot Lightning App

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Define scoring.
Customize and apply scores.
Define scoring categories.
Apply scoring categories.

Scoring: Put Points on the Board

A score in Pardot is a numerical value assigned based on a prospect taking action. We measure that action as implicit interest in your product or service.

Pardot assigns default values to prospect-initiated activities. These are already set up in your Pardot account as the baseline scoring model. For some users, the baseline scoring model is enough, however Leung wants to ensure that since webinar attendance is a strong buying indicator that scores are increased by 20 points. To do this, she’ll adjust the baseline scoring for this activity.

First, let’s look at how you can customize your baseline scoring model in Pardot.

Navigate to Pardot Settings | Automation Settings | Scoring.
Click Edit Scoring Rules to change any of the rules.
After you adjust a rule, Pardot displays the approximate number of prospects affected. The number sometimes changes if prospects complete activities while you’re still setting rules.
Click Save changes.

You can find more information about the types of activities included in the baseline scoring rules and how to modify them in the Resources section. But now, let’s move on to further customizing the types of activities you can score. Pardot is very flexible, so the playing field is yours!

Scoring: Modifying Scores

Most likely, you’ll settle on using a blend of automation tools to adjust prospect scores in your Pardot account, depending on the type of interaction or activity. For example, you can use a completion action to increase a prospect’s score when they submit a form. If you want to check for several form submissions from the same prospect and score based on that, you can build an automation rule with multiple criteria. Any score applied via an automation tool is also added to the amount applied with the baseline scoring model. In this unit, we review your options for adjusting scores as well as examples for each method.

Modifying Score via Automation Rules

Scores are modified automatically with automation rules. For example, an automation rule can add 50 points to a prospect’s score if they have requested a demo or a specific white paper. Automation rules can both increase and decrease prospect scores, or reset scores to zero.

If you remember Leung and Alan’s scoring criteria, they wanted to increase a prospect’s score if they downloaded a white paper and attended a webinar. Let’s create an automation rule that checks to see if a prospect has taken both of these actions, and then increase their score accordingly.

Navigate to Automations | Automation Rules.
Click +Add Automation Rules.
Name: Prospect Whitepaper and Webinar Engagement Scoring.
Description: This rule will update the scoring for prospects that engage with any webinar or whitepaper, and will be set to recur multiple times for the same prospect.
Check Repeat Rule.
Under Rules, select Match Any.
Click +Add new rule.
Enter Prospect webinar :: attended webinar :: select webinar.
Click +Add new rule.
Enter Prospect file :: Choose File :: White Paper File Name.
Click +Add new action.
Enter Adjust Prospect Score :: by :: 25 points.
Click Create automation rules.

To learn more about automation rules and actions, see the Resources section.

Modifying Scores via Completion Actions or Page Actions

Scores can be customized at the form and form handler level by designating an Adjust score Completion Action on Step 4 of the Form Wizard.

You also have the option to adjust a prospect’s score via a completion action on any marketing asset.

Remember how Leung and Alan discussed how qualified buyers often used the “Request a meeting” form on the website? For this form, Leung will use completion actions to increase the score of the prospect by 50 points and will assign it to the sales team using the Salesforce active assignment rules GetCloudy has configured.

Page actions can also be used to increase or decrease the scores of prospects. Page actions work similarly to completion actions, except they listen for a prospect to visit a specific page on the company’s website. In Leung and Alan’s conversations, Alan mentioned how his team was reaching out to folks applying for jobs at Get Cloudy Consulting. To fix this, Leung uses page actions for the Job Portal url and decreases the prospect score by 100 points.

Modifying Scores During Imports

In addition, you can add to a prospect's score through an import by including a column with the desired bonus points and then mapping that column to Add To Score. This is often used if you have historical score data to bring into Pardot or when uploading lead lists from in person events like scans from trade shows.

Changing a Prospect’s Score Manually

You can modify scores for an individual prospect by navigating to their record, clicking the Edit prospect link at the top, and then entering the new score you’d like them to receive. Note: You cannot manually edit scoring category scores—we talk about those in just a minute.

Resetting Your Prospects’ Scores to Zero

Adjusting for score decay is just as important as earning points. Score decay refers to reducing a prospect’s score for inactivity. You can either reset all prospects’ scores in your account back to zero, or just a selected few. Create an automation rule with the desired criteria the prospect should meet in order to have their score reset and add the rule action to "Adjust Prospect score: To: 0"

Scoring: Get Specific

Scoring Categories allow you to score prospects on more than one product, service or business unit. You still have an overall prospect score, but scoring categories offer additional scores based on which assets your prospects are engaging with. You use scoring categories in tandem with folders—all content that you’d like to score a specific way is placed in a folder and then the scoring category is applied. You must organize your content into folders in order to use scoring categories.

Get Cloudy Consulting serves clients that use Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Communities. Leung wants to build a scoring category for Marketing Cloud so prospects interested in Marketing Cloud-specific content earn a higher score in the Marketing Cloud category relative to their score for other products.

Let’s take a look at how Leung sets that up in Pardot.

First, she creates a new folder to house all of her Marketing Cloud content.

Navigate to Content | Folders.
Click +Add folder.
Enter a New Folder Name: Marketing Cloud.
Click Save.

Then, she assigns that folder to a Scoring Category.

Navigate to Pardot Settings | Automation Settings | Scoring.
Click +Add Scoring Category.
Enter a name: Marketing Cloud.
Check Include all historical activity.
Choose a folder: Marketing Cloud folder.
Click Choose Selected.
Click Create Scoring Category.

Finally, it’s important that the Sales team can see the scoring category activity from their Salesforce account so Leung reaches out to her Salesforce admin team. Leung works with the team to add the scoring categories to the Lead and Contact page layouts so that Alan’s team can differentiate product interest via scoring categories.

Now that you’ve learned what a prospect’s score is and how to adjust them, let’s move on to the next unit and review how to grade your prospects based on information they provide you.

Resources