If you're looking for a marketing automation platform, the chances are good you've come across the two major platforms: HubSpot vs Pardot. Both tools are effective and can help you improve website traffic and boost your business. To help you make the right choice, we've curated a simple guide comparing both customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. Scroll through the article to help pick the right enterprise CRM platform for your business.
What Is Pardot?
If you're an ardent Salesforce user, you've come across platforms like MailChimp and Campaign Monitor. Well, there's one solution that's head and shoulders above the competition: Pardot. The platform was developed in 2007 as an independent marketing automation solution. In 2013, Salesforce bought Pardot's parent company. Pardot is a part of the marketing cloud that involves tracking and measuring the effectiveness of the communication tools in a company. It also checks user behavior to create personalized content for your audience to increase sales. Pardot helps a business narrow down to the right client at the right time.
What Is HubSpot?
Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah co-founded HubSpot in 2006. The company is based in Cambridge, MA, and offers a holistic marketing platform, combining CRM with marketing automation software. It also has a suite of tools for sales teams and content management tools for website hosting and blogging. These customer-focused activities will help you improve customer relationships and engage with them to boost your business.
How Is Pardot Different from HubSpot?
When differentiating between Pardot and HubSpot, considering the advantages, disadvantages, and features of each is a good place to start. Considering these first will guide you in choosing the most suitable CRM platform for your needs.
Advantages
As critical tools in the marketing industry, HubSpot and Pardot are both beneficial. Below is a comparison of Pardot and HubSpot based on their respective advantages.
Advantages of Pardot
- Pardot is a unique Salesforce platform designed to create more leads and increase sales.
- You can freely calculate and measure your return on investment to optimize your marketing efforts.
- It will help you understand the sales funnel and prepare life cycle and engagement reports.
- Pardot enables lead nurturing to customize content and improve your sales.
Advantages of HubSpot
- HubSpot helps you run a successful campaign without any added stress.
- As the best enterprise CRM platform, you can boost lead tracking and conversions easily.
- The exclusive features of HubSpot will allow you to improve your SEO rankings and business results.
- It's extremely easy to use the platform even if you aren't tech savvy.
Disadvantages
Of course, both marketing automation platforms have unavoidable downsides, like any other software. Let's review a few of the disadvantages for each below.
Disadvantages of Pardot
- If you're a small business owner, purchasing the Salesforce Pardot software can be a significant expense.
- It doesn’t have a built-in CRM, so you'll have to purchase Salesforce or an alternative CRM separately and integrate them yourself.
- Salesforce Pardot implementation and maintenance can only be done by experienced and well-trained administrators.
Disadvantages of HubSpot
- HubSpot contracts are billed annually by default. Many business owners might prefer to have a rolling month-to-month contract.
- There is no A/B testing in their basic or Pro package. If you would like this feature, you'll have to upgrade to their $2,400/month package.
- While using and mastering HubSpot is fairly easy, if you do need technical support, you’ll have to pay for it.
Features
Let's glance over the best features each CRM platform can offer you. Analyzing these features will help you pick the software that most aligns with the needs of your business.
Features of Pardot
- You can create email templates that align with the needs of your business.
- It allows you to nurture leads and retain prospective clients.
- Its robust reporting feature assists you in determining the pathways of the best—as well as the worst—leads.
- You can streamline lead management and sell your products and services faster to the right customers and audience.
- Pardot provides effortless email marketing and seamless sales alignment.
features of HubSpot
- It allows you to design templates based on your business requirements.
- You can send bulk emails that have a strong call to action to attract your customers.
- It offers a free CRM platform that helps you manage relationships with customers effectively and efficiently.
- HubSpot's landing page tool allows you to create beautiful pages to generate leads.
- Marketing reporting features allow you to gain insight into your marketing tactics and efforts.
How to Choose the Best Platform for Your Business
Once you've decided to invest in a marketing automation tool, you must choose between many options. Marketing automation tools are costly, and they are not one-size-fits-all solutions. You need to make sure you invest your money wisely and pick the best tool for your company's needs.
Pardot and HubSpot may be the most popular options among small- and mid-sized businesses, but how do you know which one best fits your business and needs? To answer this, you'll first want to identify your target market, research the tools' pricing plans, features and functionalities, and understand the possible integrations with other tools and platforms.
When to Use Pardot
Pardot is an easy-to-use email and marketing automation solution targeted at sales in business-to-business (B2B) companies. Also, Pardot is good if you want a clear track of customer journeys, especially their purchases. If you're looking for a lead generation tool to automate your marketing campaign and help you analyze prospect activity, choose Pardot.
When to Use HubSpot
HubSpot is a full suite of marketing tools designed for small-to-medium B2B businesses looking to improve their inbound marketing efforts through blogging, SEO, social media publishing, landing pages, and analytics. Their software also includes some features of traditional CRM and email marketing software. So, it has a much broader use case beyond just sales and is the best choice for almost all businesses. It's also the best CRM for inbound marketing.
It's Time to Choose the Right Marketing Automation Platform for Your Business!
When it comes to marketing automation, one of the first questions people ask is, "Should I choose HubSpot or Pardot?" The answer to this question is not always so cut and dried, though. You'll need to choose between HubSpot and Pardot based on your business's needs and goals. But if you're a novice in the marketing automation industry, consider choosing the HubSpot CRM platform. It is specifically designed to help B2B businesses grow in the competitive market.
If you need more leads, website traffic, or customers, or if you simply want to get better messaging, schedule a call with us today, and let's get growing! We are your one-stop shop for all the marketing services you need to grow your business. You can also download our template to use hashtags like a pro and make your business stand out from the crowd!
