5 ways to automate Pardot

Marketing automation tools like Pardot are designed to make lead generation, nurturing, and management easier. But you and your team don’t work in a silo, and tasks like lead data transfers, tracking form submissions, and sending updates across sales and marketing still need to happen across various apps. 

Thankfully, you can use automation to streamline your Pardot workflows, scale your marketing automation efforts, and free up time for more strategic initiatives. Zapier’s automated workflows—called Zaps—allow you to connect Pardot to the other business-critical apps you use every day. That way, you can build more powerful workflows and deliver smoother, smarter campaigns. Here’s how.

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Keep track of leads from ads

When you’re running ads on different platforms, it can be difficult to track where leads are coming from. Sure, you can block out time to track and export incoming leads from your ad accounts into Pardot to consolidate them in a central information hub. But constantly copying and pasting contact data from one app to another exposes you to errors like missed or inaccurate entries. And it’s impossible to keep up with if you’re managing a high volume of leads.

Save yourself the effort by using automation to log new leads generated from ads as prospects in Pardot. These Zaps will automatically update your Pardot prospects list whenever LinkedIn Ads or Facebook Leads Ads capture a new lead. This keeps your prospect list accurate, up to date, and ready for nurturing.

Add leads from contact forms to Pardot

One of the most important parts of lead management is timely follow-ups. Once leads come through your contact forms, you need to respond immediately—if not, the chance of converting them into customers declines. But if you’re wasting time transferring lead data from forms into prospects lists manually, you risk delays, errors, and missed opportunities. 

Instead, use automation to channel new leads from your contact forms directly into Pardot as prospects. These Zaps integrate with website form tools like Unbounce, Gravity Forms, and Typeform, so anytime a new form submission occurs, the contact information is promptly added to Pardot as a prospect. You can instantly capture lead data, route it to the right sales rep, and trigger timely personalized follow-ups that keep prospects engaged and moving through your funnel. 

Connect Pardot with spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are great for storing, tracking, and analyzing data in a central, accessible place. If you’re creating forms in Pardot, you may need to record the responses in a separate database. 

This Zap will automatically log each form submission in a dedicated spreadsheet your entire sales team can access. This ensures your team has a single source of truth and can access accurate customer information at all times. 

You might also have different teams managing leads in different places or not everyone may have access to Pardot. If that’s the case, you can easily gather lead information in a spreadsheet and automatically update Pardot each time new data is added with this Zap:

Send notifications from Pardot

When you need to alert your team about new activities in Pardot, you have two options:

One is to log into Pardot, check for new form submissions, export the data, and send individual notifications to your communication app—time-consuming, nonscalable, and prone to error. 

Or, you can use automation to connect Pardot to your favorite communication app and instantly notify your team when there’s a new lead or key form activity in Pardot. With this setup, new activities—such as form submissions—can trigger instant notifications to dedicated Slack channels. This way, you can rest assured your sales reps will get real-time updates, enabling them to act quickly, stay organized, and focus on engaging leads instead of chasing updates. 

Use webhooks with Pardot

If the source app you’re using doesn’t have a Zapier integration (yet), or if you’re looking for a more niche use case that isn’t covered by any of the available workflows, you can still create a Zap that connects almost any app to Pardot using webhooks. 

Use this Zap to get started:

Supercharge Pardot with automation

Whether it’s integrating Pardot with spreadsheets, communication apps, or the rest of your tech stack, Zapier’s automated workflows ensure no opportunities are missed, processes run smoothly, and your marketing and sales teams stay aligned.

And these are just a few ways you can automate Pardot with Zapier. What will you automate first?

This article was originally published in October 2022, written by Khamosh Pathak. It was most recently updated by Juliet John in December 2024.