Joint Pardot + Marketing Cloud project across multiple BUs

Smooth execution of a complex Pardot-to-Salesforce-to-Marketing Cloud implementation involving multiple Business Units, while keeping Campaign consistency cross-clouds

Vertical: High-Education
Client: Private College in Ontario, Canada

The Challenge

Before calling us aboard, College departments worked in silos. Pardot served the College's Admission department, while Marketing Cloud served Alumni communication.
Salesforce was not the System Of Record, rather redundant to two other systems. (Raiser's Edge & Banner).
We had to plan and build the marketing journey end-to-end with consistency : Admission >> Student >> Alumni and eventually back to Admission!

The Solution

The approach we took was starting by consolidating all records on the Salesforce CRM as the one source of truth.
This permitted us to get a holistic view of the constituent.

Next, we analyzed communication personalization needs and designed the data structure accordingly in Marketing Cloud.
We defined filters and process logic in Salesforce to control the records that sync to Pardot only and the hand-over to Marketing Cloud.

Finally, we implemented Automations in Automation studio, Journey Builder and Email Studio using SQL Queries and AmpScript to cover all new data imports, redefined new Subscriber keys, and enabled the College's Marketing Cloud team (with Training) to use new personalization capabilities in its emails. 

Results:

• We designed and implemented the applicant-student-alumni path end-to-end, breaking the silos, creating one consistent user-experience
• We successfully migrated the Marketing Cloud Subscriber key to the correct architecture using Salesforce CRM IDs
• We linked Campaigns cross-cloud - Pardot to Salesforce to Marketing Cloud for consolidated ROI reporting
• We created Marketing Cloud Data Extensions joining data from multiple Salesforce Object to enable unprecedented email personalization
• We Implemented Automations to keep all data up-to-date cross-clouds
• We trained the College on the solution, enabling its team to be independent when sending Marketing emails FFwith the new architecture

The client, very happy, hired us for a sequel project to continue support and development - bringing to life their marketing ideas, tracking performance and integrating with College events.