Pardot Prospects and the Recycle Bin

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1. What may not be as obvious is how a prospect deletion will affect your wider reporting within Pardot. “When you place a prospect into the recycling bin, their previous activity will still remain. So the unique form submission that they were responsible for would still be on a form report for example.” In contrast, by permanently deleting a prospect from the recycling bin and therefore that prospect’s activity history, you are essentially deleting that activity from your asset metrics too. For example, any form that prospect filled out will have one less submission.

   In Data retention

2. How to put them in/take them out “So how do you actually go about putting prospects in the recycle bin? As you might have guessed, this can be done manually. Either navigate to an individual’s prospect record, or create a list of multiple prospects and hit the Deletebutton by using Table Actions.” Bare in mind that you will need to hold either the Pardot Administrator, Marketing, or Sales Manager role to be able to do this.

   In Prospect data deletion workflows

3. It’s now also possible to permanently remove prospects from your Pardot account. GDPR regulations give a prospect the right to ask for their information removed from your database. In this case, you must oblige. “In order to permanently remove a prospect from your database andyour recycle bin, simply navigate to the bin, select the prospect’s respective checkbox, and hit the Permanently Deletefrom within the dropdown underneath the prospect table.” A video showing the steps

   In Prospect data deletion workflows

4. This has not always been the case, but since the change in GDPR regulations prospects that are situated in the recycling bin will not be tracked. This means that any activity that the prospect carries out will not be recorded by the system, be that a link click or a form submission for example. “All of this said, have an agreed plan on how you will treat your Pardot prospects; when they should be added to the recycle bin or deleted altogether.” James has delivered countless projects in the martech industry and has worked closely with some huge clients over the years. He particularly enjoys the challenge of working with large-scale operations to optimise their tech stack, but also loves to get smaller businesses up to speed, giving them the best start in their automation journey. As a certified Pardot consultant, James spends his days at MarCloud as Head of Client Services; supporting the team to deliver on client objectives and ensuring the client experience is excellent.

   In Prospect data deletion workflows

5. Once they’re gone, they’re gone! “It may sound obvious, but when you permanently delete a prospect (from the recycling bin too), they are gone forever and you cannot retrieve their record. This goes for all of their activity history too, such as clicks and form fill outs.” Reporting

   In Prospect data deletion workflows

6. When you place a prospect into the recycling bin, their previous activity will still remain. So the unique form submission that they were responsible for would still be on a form report for example. “In contrast, by permanently deleting a prospect from the recycling bin and therefore that prospect’s activity history, you are essentially deleting that activity from your asset metrics too. For example, any form that prospect filled out will have one less submission.” Prospects are not tracked in the recycle bin

   In Prospect data deletion workflows

7. What can be put in the recycle bin? “You can pretty much put anything in the Pardot recycle bin, including campaigns, layout templates, and those all important prospects.” Unlike a lot of recycle bins, the information that goes into your Pardot bin will remain there, and will not be deleted after a specific length of time.

   In Retention trigger rules

8. You can pretty much put anything in the Pardot recycle bin, including campaigns, layout templates, and those all important prospects. “Unlike a lot of recycle bins, the information that goes into your Pardot bin will remain there, and will not be deleted after a specific length of time.” As is expected, you can retrieve whatever you have put in the recycle bin fairly easily.

   In Retention trigger rules

9. Unlike a lot of recycle bins, the information that goes into your Pardot bin will remain there, and will not be deleted after a specific length of time. “As is expected, you can retrieve whatever you have put in the recycle bin fairly easily.” **Exceptions** -Content Files, empty folders, and advanced dynamic content cannot be retrieved once they have been deleted.

   In Retention trigger rules

10. How is the Pardot recycle bin unique? “What is slightly different about Pardot’s recycle bin is the fact that you can’t empty it.” The only exception is your Pardot prospects, which can now be hard deleted from the recycle bin as part of the ‘GDPR Right to be Forgotten’ - I touch on this further down.

    In Retention trigger rules

11. What may not be as obvious is how a prospect deletion will affect your wider reporting within Pardot. “When you place a prospect into the recycling bin, their previous activity will still remain. So the unique form submission that they were responsible for would still be on a form report for example.” In contrast, by permanently deleting a prospect from the recycling bin and therefore that prospect’s activity history, you are essentially deleting that activity from your asset metrics too. For example, any form that prospect filled out will have one less submission.

    In Lifecycle segmentation

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