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You need an edge.
An advantage.
Companies have to stand out from competitors to remain viable in the long term.
Otherwise, you slowly fall behind as others stay up to date with trends.
What trend am I talking about in particular?
Artificial intelligence. 84% of businesses say that AI enables them to have and sustain a competitive advantage.
While developing your own version of Wall-E sounds great, there’s a smarter way to do it: use Marketo or Pardot.
These are two of the most powerful AI marketing tools available on the market today.
Keep reading if you want to learn how they differ in terms of pricing, features, support, and more so you can make an informed purchasing decision.
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Marketo vs Pardot overview
| Marketo | Pardot | |
| Entry-level price | $895/month | $1,250/month |
| Setup fee | $895 | $1,250 |
| Starting number of users | 10 | 1 |
| Free trial | No | Yes |
| Email integration | Yes | Yes |
| Landing pages | Yes | Yes |
| A/B split test | Yes | Yes |
| Content management | Yes | No |
| Campaign segmentation | Yes | Yes |
| Channel management | Yes | No |
| Lead management | Yes | No |
| Membership sites | No | No |
| Lead database | No | No |
| Affiliate management | Yes | No |
| Invoices and quotes | No | No |
| SMS marketing | Yes | No |
| Integrations | 1,000+ | 1,000+ |
| Mobile app | No | Yes |
Marketo review
Marketo describes themselves as “The world’s leading engagement platform for the modern marketer.”
It gives you everything needed to drive measurable results, including email marketing, mobile marketing, and lead management.
Most importantly, it saves you priceless time and energy that you’re losing by doing everything manually. This is thanks to AI and automation.
They have over 2,074 reviews and a ⅘ star rating on G2 which is nothing to scoff at.
Users rave about Marketo’s robust capabilities and user-friendly interface.
But, it wouldn’t be fair to only show the good news.
A small group of customers struggles with the complexity of the software, learning curves, and lacking support.
Let me elaborate.
Marketo features
These are some of the main features of Marketo:
Marketing automation
There are lots of things to do every day as a marketer…
Creating content, promoting it, analyzing campaigns, etc. That’s three out of 1,000 things you do daily, right?
Precisely why marketing automation is a wise investment. As a matter of fact, it drives 14.5% more sales productivity.
Marketo helps you find the right customers, engage with them personally, and measure results. This is similar to Morphio’s audience anomaly feature.
You will be able to do this through:
- Running social polls, referral campaigns, and sweepstakes.
- Retargeting users who engaged with your brand but didn’t convert.
- Discovering SEO keyword, link, and content ideas.
- Publishing optimized landing pages and forms with a drag-and-drop system.
- Building customer profiles with collected data.
- Email marketing campaigns.
The best part is that all of these elements can be automated and templatized.
Account-based marketing
You can’t target everyone. Otherwise, you’ll be spinning your wheels.
The reality is some leads are hotter than others.
They’re worth more and have a higher chance of converting.
Those need attention.
And, yes. You could segment by hand. But that’s a quick way to get carpal tunnel.
This is perhaps why 61% of marketers struggle with generating leads.
Marketo solves this in a flash. Their AI-powered account profiling system:
- Predicts ideal customers ahead of time.
- Has a custom and easy-to-use model tuning system.
- Sends indicators and signals to capitalize on opportunities.
Furthermore, it compiles your different data sources to organize leads in the most effective way possible.
Accounts are then scored, ranked, and tracked. Your organization will be able to instantly know who, when, and how to target leads.
Marketing analytics
You can have the greatest campaign ever. It’s going to shake the world.
Cool. However, you need to measure it.
That’s why you’ll love Marketo’s analytics and reporting systems.
Because if you know your numbers, you can improve them; you can cut back what doesn’t work and give more love to what does.
In particular, you will gain access to:
- Attribution models that track every touchpoint in the buyer journey. This allows you to identify which channels and campaigns rock ROI.
- Unified marketing data by combining spreadsheets and data, but also being able to separate them for inspection.
- Single-touch models, multi-touch models, AI-powered reports, and more that are customizable.
Marketo pricing
Now that you’re itching to try Marketo, let’s talk about how much you have to dish out for this bad boy.
They technically sell three products: Marketo Engage, Marketo Experience Cloud, and Marketo Bizible. Let’s focus on the Engage software.
Upon going to their pricing page, I see… er… nothing?
This is because you must request more information as pricing is based on database size.
However, I won’t leave you hanging. I did some research and it starts at $895/month as seen in the overview table.
Pardot review
Pardot was acquired by Salesforce, so naturally, it has seamless integration with its big brother.
It also makes it ideal for any company that relies extensively on Salesforce.
They put it best by stating, “Pardot is a marketing automation solution that helps companies create meaningful connections, generate more pipeline, and empower sales to close more deals.”
So, if you want to nurture customer relationships and make more money, keep listening.
They scored the same ⅘ star rating on G2 as Marketo, albeit with a few hundred less reviews.
Customers rave about its ability to automate and enhance marketing strategies, integrate with Salesforce, and the visual campaign builder.
Scanning through reviews, common complaints relate to the learning curve, lack of customization in some areas, and unresolved support issues.
Pardot features
Here are some stand-out features of Pardot:
Visual campaign builder
Campaigns can be a real headache when they’re all managed through spreadsheets and different platforms.
Say goodbye to that.
Pardot has a visual campaign builder that makes seeing every step and sequence in the blink of an eye. (Literally!)
Simply add an element, customize its settings (such as targeting, delay, etc.), and test it before launch. This streamlines workflow and makes pushing out new campaigns much faster.
Pardot’s Einstein AI
An artificial intelligence named Einstein. We all knew it was going to happen!
But, this isn’t a joking matter. This is a seriously impressive AI that Pardot has built.
It’s capable of monitoring and analyzing data to prioritize work in the most productive order. No more trying to figure out the best course of action when a supercomputer will do it for you!
Additionally, Einstein scores leads that are most likely to become customers to re-focus your efforts and stop chasing users who just want freebies.
Along with Einstein’s behavior scoring and campaign insights, you will never be in the dark about performance again.
Read my article on predictive analytics applications to learn more about this technology.
Sales alignment
It’s easy to think that every department is its own entity. Rather, a company is one living organism.
Every person and team works together to achieve one goal: growth.
They do it in their own way: sales, marketing, customer support, etc.
Pardot connects all of these people together to help a company generate more revenue.
This is thanks to Pardot’s ability to:
- Let sales reps send out mini-campaigns.
- Send marketing leads directly to sales teams.
- Real-time alerts to connect with hot prospects.
- Shared activity and data.
- CRM integration.
Instead of having to deal with email chains and over-communication, multiple departments can now be on the same page in real-time.
Pardot pricing
The one thing I like about Pardot is that they’re upfront about their pricing. Nothing to hide here.
They currently offer three plans for their B2B Marketing Automation product:
- Growth ($1,250/month): Includes up to 10,000 contacts and gives you the fundamental tools to do smarter marketing.
- Plus ($2,500/month): The same features as Growth with more automation, analytics, and reporting.
- Advanced ($4,00/month): The features of Plus including advanced artificial intelligence, marketing automation, and data.
That means Marketo takes the cake in terms of pricing since the basic plan is a few hundred dollars more for Pardot.
Final thoughts on Marketo vs Pardot
It’s tough to choose a tool when they’re both so incredible.
Here’s what I recommend based on this Marketo vs Pardot comparison: Marketo is optimal for smaller budget companies and those who aren’t Salesforce-driven.
It’s an easy-to-use platform with lightning-fast integrations and setup.
Pardot, on the other hand, suits bigger-budget companies and those who especially rely on Salesforce. They also offer a free demo which Marketo does not. Get ready for steep learning curves and hefty bills, though.
Marketo and Pardot both provide mountains of value. Nonetheless, both have a steep learning curve and still require you to be at the wheel most of the time.
That’s why we developed Morphio, a marketing security software that finds customer profiles, optimizations, and profitable opportunities without your constant attention. Kick back, get back to important work, and our software will do the hard work. Try Morphio today for free!
