REVIEWS… that also looks great in Outlook! | If you’re using MC Account Engagement aka Pardot, adding an email button that leads to your website or landing page can be an effective way to encourage your visitors to take action and contact you via email. In this article, I’ll walk you through the steps to create a Pardot email button that will help you increase conversions and improve your user experience.
Adding a Pardot Email Button – Step-by-Step
Step 1: Prep your Custom HTML Email Button
The first step to creating an email button in Pardot is to design your custom HTML email button that will be lead to your landing page or website. You will then be able to create this button using any HTML editor or using one of Pardot’s two built-in email Builders: the classic builder, and the new Lightning Email Builder.
The first step is to configure the link in the button. You need to have that landing page, content asset or web page ready to link to.
Next, decide on our works for your Call-to-Action or CTA, aka the text for your button.
Technically, this text is called the ‘anchor text’. Now you want to create the HTML for the link; it consists of an “a” tag (for anchor) followed by an “href” attribute that points to your email address, (as well as any styling or formatting that you want to apply to your button). Here’s an example of what your code might look like:
<a href=”mailto:youremail@yourdomain.com” class=”button”>CLICK ME</a>.
Then, figure out what colours you would like the text and its background to be. Again, write all this down in a handy format. Ideally stick to your corporate branding colours or a complementary colour to these. You need to ensure that the buttons stand out and can not be mistaken for ‘layout’ elements.
You also want to decide if you want your Pardot email button to have rounded or square corners. Or rounded square corners. A border? What colour would you like?
Step 2: Make a fancy Pardot email button
Once you’ve made all your design decisions it’s time to go make the button!
If you know a little bit about quality email creation that passes the Litmus test of mobile responsive design and looks great everywhere, you might have heard that Outlook does nightmares with your buttons and styles them totally different than the rest of browsers and email services. Mobile devices: ditto!. How to deal with that? After long suffering, CampaignMonitor actually came to the rescue of us email designers and created a handy coding tool, which creates (almost) perfect HTML custom coded buttons that render well in many instances.
At CloudAnalysts, we enhance this code to render well everywhere and add some fancy stuff like different hover colours, but let’s keep things simple for now. Working with this gadget will make your buttons already render better than most.
Bulletproof Buttons
While they are not ‘bulletproof’, this is the easiest to use tool for getting fancier without actually knowing HTML or CSS really. So heads-up: this is your go-to gadget:
Clicking this blue button brings you over to this page, where you can add your styling options on the left. When done, you copy/paste that code on the right, and you head over to Pardot. This is your custom HTML/CSS button code.
Step 3: Add Your Custom HTML Email Button to Pardot
Now that you’ve “created” it, you’ll need to add it to your Pardot email template. To do this, log in to your Pardot account and navigate to your email template builder. Pardot has two builders these days, as not everyone is using the new builder and as the steps are at least conceptually identical, let me suffice with showing you how to add the buttons in the classic builder.
Email Button –> Pardot’s Classic Email Builder
If you use the classic builder, you’ll do this:
Click-path and Steps
- Account Engagement Email > Click ‘+Add Email Template or Edit an existing one.
- Then in the template, scroll to where you want to place your button. Click that block.
- In the editor on the right, look for the symbol <> and click it.
- Now you are in the HTML editor of that block.
- Paste your code here.
- Save your template.
- Admire your button / Ensure it all looks right.
- Publish it (presuming you’re done with the rest)!
Step 4: Test Your Email Button
Once you’ve added your email button to your email template it’s important to test it to make sure that it’s working correctly. To do this, click on your email button and make sure that it opens up a new email message with your email address pre-populated in the “To” field.
If your email button isn’t working correctly, you may need to double-check your code or hosting settings to make sure that everything is set up correctly.
Step 5: Track & Optimise Your Email Button Conversions
Finally, now that you’ve added your Pardot email button, realise that this is one of the most important elements in your email. People ‘reading’ emails will already be effective. But if your marketing department now only values ‘click through’-rates, you want your buttons to work!
So, be sure to track its performance to see how well it’s converting into email clicks as well as sales leads and sales revenue. To do this, you can use Pardot’s built-in reporting and analytics tools to track clicks, conversions, and other metrics.
I highly recommend that you optimise your buttons using A/B testing – for as your Pardot edition allows this, and this makes statistical sense with the volume of emails you are sending out. It’s most important that you test your anchor text and button background/text colours. But also location, spacing around the button and other variances could – and at times should – be tested.
By tracking your email button’s performance, you can identify areas for improvement and make changes to optimise your conversion rate over time.
Yes? Are you in?
Adding an email button in your email can be a powerful way to encourage visitors to contact you and increase conversions. By following these steps to create an email button in Pardot, you’ll be able to create a custom HTML email button, host it, add it to Pardot, test it, and track its performance. Even if you don’t know that much HTML/CSS, you too can create an effective email button that will help you improve your user experience, increase conversions, and ultimately drive more business for your organisation.
Remember to always test your email button and track its performance to make data-driven decisions on how to optimise it. With these tips, you’ll be on your way to creating a successful email button in Pardot that will help you achieve your marketing goals.
Of course, this article has to be seen in the context of your wider email marketing strategy. As Jimson Lee, our Marketing Cloud practice lead just reminded me: “In our Marketing Cloud experience, we adhere to the big 4: Timely, Relevant, Responsive and Consented emails. When this happens, then the Clicks follow.” How true.
Get Help with Email Production
If you have any questions or would like to take your button design and performance up a notch and like some help with that, do ask us. Any Marketing Cloud Engagement or Account Engagement (fka Pardot) question is welcome. That’s what consultants are for: to help you succeed. Besides implementation support we also have Managed Services/agency packages whereby we create actual email templates for you, as well as manage all the technical aspects of Marketing Cloud or Pardot.
Last Updated on November 11, 2023
