Why Pardot Score Changes Are Missing From Prospect Activity

July 7, 2023
Lead Scoring, Salesforce Ben | The Drip

Have you ever noticed that a prospect’s score changes doesn’t add up with their activities? While the prospect’s overall score has increased (in increments), each activity shows 0.

When I worked as a Pardot (Account Engagement) Consultant, it was a phenomenon I was aware of, however, each time I came across it, I’d still be stumped for a moment! Here’s how to get to the bottom of it…

Pardot (Account Engagement) Score Changes

Take a look at the prospect record below. The prospect has made three activities, and their score has increased to 10. At first glance, it’s a mystery where this score increase came from!

However, there is a logical explanation for why this happens.

Prospect score adjustments (increase/decrease) in Account Engagement (Pardot) can happen for a number of reasons – a prospect submits a form, opens an email, clicks a tracked link, etc. Although these appear the same from the prospect’s point of view, how the score change is recorded in Pardot depends on how the admin set the score change up.

There’s a difference between:

Score changes from actions that the prospect made: The score is changed in line with the baseline scoring model of the account. You can view this by navigating to: Pardot Settings → Automation Settings → Scoring.

Score changes applied through automation: When an automation runs with an action of ‘Adjust Prospect score by’. This can be through a running automation rule (image below), or as a completion action set on an email, form etc.

The Golden Rule

Score changes as a result of automation will not appear in the prospect activities section. They are not an activity the prospect took – it’s an action an admin applied.

Going back to the prospect record from earlier, even though the prospect clicked on the custom redirect, the score change of +10 was applied to the prospect through a completion action (set on the custom redirect).

The overall score is hyperlinked. By clicking on it, you will be able to view which types of assets (emails/forms etc) caused the score change.

Summary

Though the reasoning is relatively simple, don’t worry if this is something that confuses you – it has caught me out on occasion too! If ever in doubt, check the hyperlinked score and hopefully that will jog your memory.

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