Understanding the Pardot Grade
Grading is a measure of how interested a B2B business should be in the prospect. The Pardot Grade is a measure of a prospect’s “fit” for a business, based on explicit criteria stored in a Salesforce database, and how that information matches a businesses ideal customer profile. Based on CRM values like Job Title, Industry or Location, Pardot ranks an entire database based on how good, or how likely to transact a Prospect looks, based on stored information. Just like in grade-school, Pardot will rank Prospects with an “A” grade that seem more likely to succeed (in terms of a business opportunity), because CRM data matches other customers with which the company has done business with in the past. 
Pardot creates this ranking by using something called the “Default Profile.” Every new Pardot org is provisioned with this Default Profile, but a Pardot Grade will not appear unless grading is configured. Instead, a step by step evaluation process must take place that should include all business stakeholders (marketing, sales and business analysis), often with the help of a Salesforce Partner.
Grading works hand in hand with the Pardot Score for Lead Qualification
How to Set Up Pardot Grading
1.Identify Criteria
- What are the explicit values that exist in our database that we are interested in about the customer? Examples include:
- Company size
- Location
- Industry
- Department
- Job Title
- CRM
2.Weigh criteria
- What is the weight of each criteria?
- Prospect criteria can be adjusted in ⅓, ⅔ and 3/3 increments, which correspond to letter grade adjustments*
- Should criteria be weighted differently?
- *Generate the best grade of A+ by ensuring ten ⅓ increments to get from a D to an A+.
3 . Define Criteria Values
- What is our businesses ideal values for each criteria? Ex:
- Company size is > 50
- Location is Northeast
- Job Title includes “CIO”
- CRM = Salesforce
The actual grade is generated if Prospect criteria values match the Default Profile. Either Prospect Grades are adjusted manually, or Pardot “Automation Rules” are used to automate this process.
Grading and scoring represent “fit” and “intent” data, based on explicit criteria (CRM) and implicit activity (digital engagement). Using both surfaces the best quality leads. However, explicit criteria should never be used for Pardot scoring, or implicit activity used for grading.
Additional Resources
Pardot offers a fantastic scoring and grading lab on their website, which is very helpful to businesses just beginning their Lead Qualification journey. Also from Salesforce, Trailhead’s module on the Pardot Score and Grade is well worth the 20 minutes it takes to complete. And if you’re still looking for tips or best practices around Lead Qualification, here at Forcery we’re always happy to chat about strategy.