15 minute read

Reviews, Results, Comparisons & A Professional Take On Things

While there are a number of marketing software solutions available, HubSpot and Salesforce’s Pardot integration are the leaders in the market.

Each solution offers marketing capabilities such as email, website, social media and marketing automation – along with advertising. Within these marketing categories there is lead management and campaign management. Reporting and analytics allow users to track the results of campaigns, determine what does and does not work and take measures to improve upon previous campaign performance.

Wondering which marketing software is the best solution for your company’s needs, goals and budget? Let’s break down both marketing platforms and customer relationship management (CRM) softwares to help you in making a decision, using the results of reviews collected and shared by G2 Crowd. Scores were calculated using real-time data from verified user reviews.

 

Overall – HubSpot Vs Salesforce’s Pardot

HubSpot netted an overall score of 4.3 out of 5

  • Meets requirements – 8.5
  • Ease of use – 8.5
  • Ease of setup – 8.0
  • Ease of admin – 8.5
  • Quality of support – 8.7
  • Ease of doing business with – 8.7
  • Product direction (% positive) – 8.6

“HubSpot has a fantastic resource center that allows users to quickly and easily get up to speed on marketing automation processes, the software and the strategy behind effective inbound marketing principles. The onboarding process was seamless and the customer service has been strong.”

– Joe M.

Salesforce’s Pardot netted an overall score of 4.0 out of 5

  • Meets requirements – 8.0
  • Ease of use – 7.6
  • Ease of setup – 7.3
  • Ease of admin – 8.1
  • Quality of support – 7.5
  • Ease of doing business with – 8.0
  • Product direction (% positive) – 7.5

“The Salesforce integration is awesome. We’ve designed a marketing automation program in Pardot and it helps us manage our Salesforce contacts. Letting our salespeople focus on prospects that need the most attention. Our developers can create landing page and email templates that our sales team can easily use to populate content and send out. Even the least technical people in our organization can set up their own landing pages and email campaigns without any help.”

– Austin T.

 

Our Take Overall

Pardot’s user interface looks dated and antiquated. It lacks a fresh design that is so important for engaging recipients. While the Salesforce integration is superior, it is a separate integration. This is a big deal because the sales integrations are separate from the marketing integrations, which can cause a number of issues, especially with personalization.

 

Cost – HubSpot Vs Salesforce’s Pardot

HubSpot offers four pricing packages

  • Marketing Hub Free – $0
  • Marketing Hub Starter – $50/month
  • Marketing Hub Professional – $800/month
  • Marketing Hub Enterprise – $3,200/month

 

Salesforce’s Pardot offers three pricing packages

(Salesforce is a separate integration. Therefore, it requires an additional purchase.)

  • Growth – $1,250/month
  • Plus – $2,500/month
  • Advanced – $4,000/month

 

Salesforce charges for its CRM

  • Sales Essentials – $25/user/month
  • Professional – $75/user/month
  • Enterprise – $150/user/month
  • Unlimited – $300/user/month

 

Salesforce charges more for additional marketing features

  • Social media marketing – $1,000 to $40,000/month
  • Email and online marketing – cost rises with each package as capabilities increase
  • Digital advertising – requires an additional fee
  • Marketing cloud services – cost rises with each package as capabilities increase

 

Our Take On The Cost

Salesforce slashes the price of Pardot initially, as a tactic to sell more Salesforce software. However, when renewal time comes around, you are stuck with the hefty non promotional price. HubSpot, on the other hand, offers a free package with a free CRM and some free marketing tools.

Users of Pardot and Salesforce should be wary of the many hidden costs including an additional charge for multiple critical features. Do you really want to execute your marketing efforts without social media, paid advertising, automation or email marketing? Well, if you want these features included in Pardot, it is going to cost you extra as they are all separate add-on packages. All of these features are included in the price of HubSpot’s packages.

Salesforce even charges users for immediate, 24/7 support. The free version of support is email only and may take as long as two days to respond and even longer to fix an issue – hardly an ideal scenario when you have a business to run. If you cannot wait, you will end being forced to buy their Premier or Priority support where pricing will depend upon purchased products and it says 20%-30% net.

 

 

Email Marketing – HubSpot Vs Salesforce’s Pardot

HubSpot ratings for its email marketing features

  • Automated email responses – 8.8
  • Building and personalizing emails – 8.7
  • Sending outbound emails – 8.9
  • Manage email delivery – 8.7

“I use HubSpot EVERY DAY! I mostly am creating marketing emails and landing pages. If you have a decent understanding of the HubSpot Design Manager, you can do just about ANYTHING! This is an easy win!”

– Lawrence L

 

Salesforce’s Pardot ratings for its email marketing features

  • Automated email responses – 8.3
  • Building and personalizing emails – 8.0
  • Sending outbound emails – 8.5
  • Manage email delivery – 8.1

“Engagement Studio makes it easy to set up drip campaigns for our contacts. We can segment based on industry, department, time as a contact, etc.”

– Dallin B.

 

Our Take On The Email Marketing

The email feature in HubSpot is more fluid and the design is superior to Pardot. It provides helpful feedback about how to improve email campaigns – perfect for those who are still learning about how to build a campaign. Email automation, a critical component of successful drip campaigns, is extremely challenging in Pardot.

 

Online Marketing – HubSpot Vs Salesforce’s Pardot

HubSpot received the following ratings for its inbound marketing features

“I use HubSpot to manage all digital marketing efforts for multiple clients. It allows me to manage everything from email campaigns to social media to SEO all in one intuitive, visually appealing platform. I’d recommend HubSpot to anyone who appreciates having everything in one place and is willing to pay a bit more for the best features!”

– Steven F.

 

Salesforce’s Pardot received the following rating for its online marketing features

  • Mobile optimized – 7.2
  • A/B testing – 7.5
  • Dynamic content – 7.4
  • Landing pages and forms – 7.4
  • Search tracking and optimization – 7.3

“After setting up templates, the creation of marketing assets is simple. I can launch a landing page in minutes.”

– Jason H.

 

Our Take On The Online Marketing

HubSpot’s inbound marketing is the area where HubSpot demonstrate its superiority most. Landing pages, blogs, dynamic content and in-depth unified reporting are some of the most powerful tools for inbound marketing. Yet you need the pricier Pardot Plus or Advanced edition to create or execute any of the aforementioned items in Pardot. If you have the Standard edition, you must pay an additional fee for dynamic content options. HubSpot, on the other hand, provides capabilities for all of the above in all of its packages. Why pay more when you can get everything you need at a reasonable price?

 

Lead Management – HubSpot Vs Salesforce’s Pardot

HubSpot’s lead management features resulted in

  • CRM lead integration – 8.3
  • Automated alerts and tasks – 8.5
  • Online behavior tracking – 8.4
  • Lead nurturing – 8.6
  • Lead scoring and grading – 8.1
  • Segmentation – 8.5
  • Data quality management – 8.2
  • Marketing lead database – 8.6

“List segmentation and analysis of customers is an absolute game changer in being able to understand our audience and lifetime value. I can easily narrow down into demographics, values and themes to identify what makes a potential customer valuable.”

– Rob B.

 

Salesforce’s Pardot lead management features resulted in

  • CRM lead integration – 8.3
  • Automated alerts and tasks – 7.9
  • Online behavior tracking – 7.9
  • Lead nurturing – 8.1
  • Lead scoring and grading – 8.0
  • Segmentation – 8.0
  • Data quality management – 7.6
  • Marketing lead database – 8.0

“Pardot also does a nice job with website activity tracking so you can easily see this information on a lead or contact record within Salesforce. This allows anyone in my organization with Salesforce access to know what content a lead or contact is accessing prior to a meeting.”

– Stephanie C.

 

Our Take On Lead Management

Some of the biggest differences users noted was HubSpot is much easier to use and setup. Also, that HubSpot’s support and automation was superior to Salesforce. On the other hand, Salesforce did score better for CRM customization and testing environment.

SMS is one of the best ways to get notified of a lead, especially if your sales team is out of the office. Text messaging is the preferred method for important internal alerts and is proven to have a much better and faster open rate. Pardot does not offer texting in its internal automated workflows, but HubSpot does.

Pardot offers much less automation options than HubSpot does and it requires separate sets of automations for sales and marketing. Pardot does not share an interface like HubSpot does and, as a result, they do not communicate effectively with each other. This puts some major limits on your workflows, especially when it comes to deal nurturing.

 

Campaign Management – HubSpot Vs Salesforce’s Pardot

HubSpot received the following ratings for their campaign management features

  • Budgeting – 7.3
  • Calendaring – 8.0
  • Event/Webinar marketing – 8.0
  • Program management – 8.3

 

Salesforce’s Pardot received the following ratings for their campaign management features

  • Budgeting – 6.6
  • Calendaring – 7.1
  • Event/Webinar marketing – 7.7
  • Program management – 7.6

 

Our Take On Campaign Management

HubSpot features a robust suite of tools that empower users to create cohesive, fully integrated ad campaigns. These features include prospects, ad campaigns and UTM creators to track each campaign’s performance. While Pardot has most of capabilities as well, they are separate and require you to manually connect the Pardot campaign to the Salesforce campaign in order to track as one.

 

Social Media – HubSpot Vs Salesforce’s Pardot

Below are the ratings HubSpot received for its social features

“I love the “schedule your post” option. I can create posts ahead and simply schedule for them to be posted later.”

– Karolina S.

 

Below are the ratings Salesforce’s Pardot received for its social features

  • Social ads – 6.1
  • Social sharing – 6.4
  • Social campaigns – 6.5
  • Social engagement – 6.7
  • Social listening – 6.1

“I think the best part of using Pardot, at least so far, is the ability to link our existing social media accounts to the service. We currently use Co Schedule to schedule our posts, but now we have this all in one service which is great for consolidation. There’s much more to learn on here that we are excited to find out about.”

– Austin S.

 

Our Take On The Social Media

HubSpot includes social media tools in all of its packages, whereas even the most basic level of social media marketing is an add-on in Pardot. Users pay $1,000 just for listening and engagement – and the cost goes up from there.

 

Reporting & Analytics – HubSpot Vs Salesforce’s Pardot

Ratings HubSpot received for its reporting and analytics features

  • Basic reporting – 8.3
  • Revenue analytics – 7.5
  • ROI analytics – 7.5
  • Web analytics – 8.1
  • SEO/Keyword analytics – 8.0

“My favorite part about HubSpot is the tracking and analytics. It’s so easy to see how many clicks, views, etc. that a landing page or call to action is getting. I am able to gauge how well certain emails perform and what topics my customers like to read about in blogs. It really helps my company make informed decisions about what content we put in front of our audience based on their interactions with previous content.”

– Lydia N.

 

Ratings Salesforce’s Pardot received for its reporting and analytics features

  • Basic reporting – 7.4
  • Revenue analytics – 6.4
  • ROI analytics – 6.5
  • Web analytics – 6.9
  • SEO/Keyword analytics – 6.4

“Adding the B2B Marketing Analytics tool to the mid-and top-level packages was a great move. That’s the reporting power that my clients want today. And that tool runs on the Einstein engine, so it is the most powerful reporting available for Pardot.”

– Lara B.

 

Our Take On The Reporting & Analytics

HubSpot makes reporting a breeze. It is a drag and drop interface with many pre-built reporting widgets that are customizable and you can add various filtering to. If you know how to create a segment, you can generate a dynamic report with the click of a button.

The reports in Pardot are extremely limited by comparison.

 

 

Platform – HubSpot Vs Salesforce’s Pardot

Below are the ratings HubSpot received for its platform features

“The fact that I can have all of my information on a single platform makes everything easier to overlook, understand and manage. From a simple glance, I get to see what is going on in my project and the things that could be better.”

– Ana B.

 

Below are the ratings Salesforce Pardot received for its platform features

  • Sandbox/Test environments – 6.9
  • Customization – 6.9
  • Workflow capability – 7.7
  • User, role and access management – 8.0
  • Internationalization – 7.5
  • Performance and reliability – 8.1
  • Output document generation – 8.3

 

Integration – HubSpot Vs Salesforce’s Pardot

HubSpot received these ratings for its integration features

  • Data import and export tools – 8.4
  • Integration APIs – 8.1
  • Breadth of partner integrations – 8.1

“What I LOVE about Hubspot is how it integrates with everything! Literally, my coworker and I were strategizing and brainstorming about tools we would love to have in our arsenal and he says, “Let’s see if Hubspot integrates with that or has an internal app for it.” It did! I am so impressed by its versatility.”

– Francis W.

 

Salesforce Pardot received these ratings for its integration features

  • Data import and export tools – 8.0
  • Integration APIs – 7.7
  • Breadth of partner integrations – 7.3

“Pardot’s syncing capabilities between itself and Salesforce are excellent – especially since you get to choose exactly what you want to be synced and when, and which platform you consider to be the source of truth – either Pardot or Salesforce. What’s crazy is that you can get down to the field-level – something I really appreciate.”

– Asia M.

 

Our Take On The Integration

Yes, Pardot integrates perfectly with Salesforce. However, HubSpot integrates seamlessly with almost any program including Salesforce, which offers virtually infinite possibilities. HubSpot has a long lineup of API partners, whereas Pardot’s tools come primarily from various softwares it acquired. In this sense, they are more of a combination of external tools rather than a unified suite.

 

The People Have Spoken, HubSpot Is Their Marketing Software Winner

With an overall score of 4.3, HubSpot beats out Pardot’s overall score of 4.0.

Users felt that HubSpot’s marketing software was superior in the following areas:

  • Email marketing
  • Online marketing
  • Lead management
  • Campaign management
  • Social Media
  • Reporting and Analytics
  • Platform
  • Integration

 

Why We Recommend HubSpot Versus Salesforce’s Pardot

There are several compelling reasons why we at Tag Marketing chose to become a HubSpot partner over partnering with Salesforce & Pardot…

HubSpot’s overall software is perfect for small to medium sized businesses, which is who our clients are. While Salesforce is more for large organization with large sales teams and large budgets, and Pardot is for – well we are not quite sure who would benefit most from Pardot.

The data shows that HubSpot’s CRM is your go-to for companies with 50 or fewer employees, while Salesforce’s CRM is the best for 51 or more employees. But don’t forget, if you are a larger company, you get the best of all worlds if you use HubSpot’s superior marketing software and seamlessly integrate Salesforce’s superior CRM software. We just cannot find a reason why someone would choose Pardot over HubSpot in any scenario for their marketing solution.

Pardot has an outdated design and poor user experience. While this may not sound like a big deal since it’s on the backend, the importance of UI design in a marketing automation tool cannot be overstated.

Perhaps the biggest drawback of Pardot is, it is a separate interface from Salesforce. Why does this matter so much? The sales automations are separate from the marketing automations; they do not integrate with one another. Data is pushed via sync. As a result, you lose data that is critical for personalization and targeting prospects according to where they are in the sales funnel. Plus, the software suite does not offer any auto-formatting templates.

You get access to everything under one hood with HubSpot. Due to the way Pardot is set up, you need a separate log-in for Salesforce and a separate log-in for Pardot. You also need to use WordPress in conjunction with both programs for certain functions to work. The difference between HubSpot and Salesforce/Pardot in this case? It boils down to the convenience of using one solution versus the hassle of using three. And if you want to keep your WordPress site and use HubSpot, you definitely can with no issues.

Salesforce & Pardot charges extra for just about everything including website, landing page, blog, dynamic CTA creation, social media, paid advertising, and automation. While these capabilities are absolutely critical for marketing success, the additional charges can strain small to medium marketing budgets.

Keeping track of how campaigns are performing is absolutely essential for success. The reports Pardot generates are populated with minimal information and setting up customer reports is quite difficult. HubSpot is a quick and easy with a drag and drop interface and pre-built and customizable reporting widgets.

Getting started with Pardot is very challenging. A third party provides their set-up and onboarding. Salesforce is not even involved in this. It does not get any easier following set-up, as the software has a difficult learning curve and pretty much guarantees your dependency on their costly assistance. The dashboard is limited, giving even experienced users less options and less intuitive navigation.

A lack of internal SMS notifications in Salesforce’s Pardot leaves your salespeople out of the loop when it comes to getting the fastest updates on user’s engagement, task alerts, deal changes, ect. when they are out of the office.

Finally, Salesforce and Pardot is very expensive with hidden fees all over the place. There is a reason it says “Contact Us” for pricing all over their website. Even social media features entail paying an additional fee. We do not believe Pardot is worth the additional cost when you consider the lack of features as well.

Investing your money in an affordable, user-friendly, integrated, marketing automation solution is a much smarter business decision. This way, you get everything under one hood and reap the rewards of a unified multichannel, freshly designed and innovative technology.