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Yemin Deng-KralYemin Deng-Kral 
Hi ! Can anyone help me understand the difference between user-initiated send and guided send? Thank you!  I have checked out the documentation for both and still don't understand when to use which one
Best Answer chosen by Yemin Deng-Kral
Aaron PrattAaron Pratt
A guided send is what you traditionally think of when you talk about sending an email from Marketing Cloud or another email service provider. It walks you through all the steps needed to send or schedule an email (who you're going to send it to; when you're going to send it), and when you're through the process, your email is either sent or scheduled to be sent. (One important note here: a guided send is the process used in Classic Content. Content Builder uses a similar process named Send Flow).

A user initiated send is similar except the email is not sent or scheduled when it's saved. An automation has to be used in order to send that particular email. A user initiated send is usually an email that you're going to reuse over and over on a set schedule, but likely to a different audience every time. Really, user initiated send is not the most intuitive name since an automation is required to send the user initiated send.
Sharif RennoSharif Renno 
Recently we sent a highly relevant email to a distribution list, which contained several corporate emails addresses. We noticed a high level of unsubscribes from this send. Our team then started to ask questions about the fact that some companies are now running emails through a link checking software prior to distrubuting the email to the recipient on their network. Could this practice by companies using this link checking software be the cause of these unsubscribes? Could this also be inflating click metrics given this software appear to ether test every link or links at random to validate they are not malicious. Apologies if this is a newb question - but want to make sure I can articlulate to our business that software like this will or will not hurt our email marketing efforts.

Short term fix was thinking about developing a 2 step unsubscribe effort to combat this - but thats not the best UX either. Any expereience out there dealing with this issue?
Best Answer chosen by Sharif Renno
Andrew RussoAndrew Russo
Yes that i8s possible that that is happening. It has been a known issue in the marketing community that some spam filters and even email clients will open emails and click links to check if they are safe for a user. this does cause inflated metrics. The best path would be to use a sort of 2 step unsubscribe or if you are in something like pardot dont use unsubscribe liunk. you can use the email preference center so even if it is clicked it doesnt auto unsubscribe...
Siva AnnapareddySiva Annapareddy 
User-added image

My knowledge is an email templates are only the published templates in Pardot, but I would like link an email(send email) to Action, not a template.

Please tell me if I am wrong.

Thank you in advance!!!
Best Answer chosen by Siva Annapareddy
Noor NagpalNoor Nagpal
Hi Siva,

It is correct!
It will only let you select the email template and the email template should contain the correct content as well. There is no point here to select email because in EP, the email will be composed according to the email sending time and the prospects are already there as recipients in EP.
Here you are not going to create a new list email and adding that to your EP. It's something automated by your EP and you just need to choose email template.

Also below links will help you more:

Please mark it as a best answer if this helps :)
Best Answer chosen by Amy Forte
Andrew RussoAndrew Russo
Hi Amy,

There really isn't a great way.

You can prevent duplicate prospects as a setting though...

feel free to support this idea:
Hybin JosephHybin Joseph 
Hi Guys,

I am planning to give the Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification in a month.Any tips on where to start also Is there a way I can get like a Trial Marketing Cloud Org so that I could practice all the stuff.I also coudnt find a Trail for this.Am I looking in the wrong place??
Best Answer chosen by Hybin Joseph
Mayank SrivastavaMayank Srivastava
I blogged about this exam's primary content and my experience a while ago:

I found the email specialist exam to be the easiest among other marketing certs (social and cloud consultant) so it shouldn't take too much time to prepare for it ( ymmv). If you focus on the topics that I listed in my post, you should be able to handle 80-90% of the exam content.

As far as a Trial org goes, you could always log a case with support asking them if it is possible to get one. My company already had one so I never had to arrange for it. To be honest, I never practiced anything hands-on and only went through the exact target documentation in theory. There isn't a trail for Marketing emails specialist content as far as I know.

Do google for other resources and make sure you skim through them before taking the exam. Good luck!
Scott ThomasScott Thomas 
Hello fellow Salesforce Marketing Cloud Users,

I had a question regarding the capability of "blind form submission" functionality in Pardot.

So blind form submission functionality would work as such:

1. I set up a form in pardot with fields "Email Address" and "Asset Clicked" that map to prospect fields in Pardot itself. 
2. We create a URL
3. On our landing page we place an html button that represents an asset to be clicked on. The html button has an <a href=""> value equal to the URL from above.
4. When the customer clicks on this button it simulates a submission of the form(we created in step 1 and that we are calling in the URL "formname=ExampleFormPardotHTMLName")  by passing the values of Email Address and Asset Clicked in the Query String parameters of the URL(from step 2).
5. The button click/form submission simulation will perform a page redirect to another landing page or page on our website for the customer to continue their experience after clicking the asset. 
6. Now when we look at the prospect's fields in Pardot it has the "staticParameterValueforAssetClicked" value populated for the "Asset Clicked"(which was associated by the EmailAddress value passed through the form submission simulation) custom field and we can utilize that as a way to segment/target our prospects.

My Question to you fine people...Is this functionality possible within Pardot and how would I go about creating the URL from Step 2 above?? Please if anyone can help me it would be very very very much appreciated as I am relying on this functionality being possible to complete a large client project that is resting on my shoulders!
Best Answer chosen by Scott Thomas
David HindmanDavid Hindman
I think you want a Form Handler ( in this scenario, Scott. Associate the form variables to the corresponding Pardot fields and then redirect to your next page in the process. Have the form in step 3 submit to the url that Pardot generates. The data gets pushed into Pardot and the user immediately redirected to the url of your choosing rather than a default thank you message.
Ohin BraganzaOhin Braganza 

Hi All,
How do I create a seperate bucket for the open/closed leads that have opt out = True

We would like to have a seperate bucket so that the SDR's do not contact and add the same leads in the future

We are using Salesforce Lightning

Best Answer chosen by Ohin Braganza
Nishant Singh PanwarNishant Singh Panwar
Yes, definitely you can do that by implementing a process builder and perform the status update.
sunny ssunny s 
Hi Guys, need some urgent advice.
We are trying to link MC with Sales Cloud to setup email automation.
*** Question: Should we link MC to ‘Leads + Contacts’ OR ‘Lead + Accounts’ from Sales Cloud  ?
Which would be more beneficial for us ??? How is Contacts different from Accounts ?
[our Account object (in Sc) has 2 record types as:Corporate & Person]
We are very confused.
Any help will be highly appreciated.
Best Answer chosen by sunny s
Gobinath AGobinath A
Hi Sunny,

If you have the company name, Please Sync the Lead + Accounts’ 
If it is the Contacts only, Create Account and sync like Lead + Accounts, Contact

Leads - People who you could potential do business yet, but have not qualified them. Unsure if they're going to buy from you. People you don't have a relationship with yet.

Contact - Someone you have a business relationship with, someone you know. Possibly has bought from you in the past.

Account - A business entity. Contacts work for Accounts.

Opportunities - Sales events related to an Account and one or more Contacts.

MarketingSFDC AdminMarketingSFDC Admin 


Has anyone run across this issue? I'm trying to set up a trigger in engagement studio for email open and in that step, 'm given a dropdown to select email template, but that area is grayed out. It won't let me select anything?!

email open step in engagement studio - email template selection blocked

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I have email templates built that are enabled for engagement studio. 

Any ideas? Thanks!

Best Answer chosen by MarketingSFDC Admin
Erin DuncanErin Duncan
Make sure an email action is above this step. Say you send 3 emails before this trigger, then when you add this trigger it will let you select from those 3 emails. 
Mimma AltieriMimma Altieri 

I've been looking for some detailed info about the availability in Pardot of Landing Pages templates developed with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) code.

Unfortunately I didn't find any.
Does someone has already managed this topic and can help me?

Best Answer chosen by Mimma Altieri
Jayson MoralesJayson Morales
Hi Mimma,

Sorry for the inconvenience. In case you don't receive a response here, may I also suggest joining the Pardot group below to collaborate with the experts for best practice and advice.