If you’re like me, then you often work with marketing tools that do not integrate nicely with Pardot forms.

Maybe they claim to have a ‘direct’ integration with the tool. However, we all know it’s nothing more than a Salesforce integration. #annoying 

Don’t give up! There is a way around this common frustration. Enter Zapier webhooks, which you can use to bring data into Pardot.

This handy little-known feature is the solution to all your Pardot integration problems! Dramatic maybe. But it’s still a game changer. 

How to use Zapier webhooks with Pardot

Zapier is a tool you can use to send data into Pardot from third-party apps and platforms. With Zapier webhooks, you can capture data from nearly any place and push it to Pardot as a form handler submission.

You read that correctly — a form handler submission. 

Prerequisites for using Zapier webhooks with Pardot

You’ll need to do the following before we get into the setup: 

1. Create a Zapier account. (they have a free account that allows for 100 zaps a month)

2. Set up a Pardot form handler.
   
   Here are two rules to follow when you configure your form handler:

• ONLY have email as ‘required.’ You can add other fields. But do not mark them with ‘required.’
  
  
• Set the form in kiosk mode.
  

3. Identify how you’ll bring data into Zapier.
   
   This can look like using one of Zapier’s native integrations or using a Zapier webhook to get data. Whichever method you use, the most important thing to do is to get the data triggering the Zap. 

Use cases for Zapier with Pardot

Here are common examples of ways to use Zapier with Pardot to bring data into the platform via a form submission.

LinkedIn Lead Generation

In this example, a company is using LinkedIn Lead Generation forms to capture new leads.

There is no direct way to tie LinkedIn submissions to Pardot. So, the company sets up a zap to trigger when a new response is received. Their zap is configured to push the data to Pardot via a form handler post.

Google Form Submission

For this example, our company is using Google Forms to send out a survey to their customers.

The survey itself has data they don’t want within Pardot. So, they chose to send it using Google Forms.

Still, the company wants to see the name and email address of everyone who completes the survey within Pardot.

They can trigger a new workflow (zap) using Zapier when a survey submission comes in. That’s because Zapier integrates directly with Google. Their zap is configured to push the data to Pardot via a form handler.

Drift Lead

In this case, a company captures a new lead via a drift chat. They leverage Zapier’s ability to receive those leads to route the data to Pardot via a form handler. 

Setting Up a Zap with a Pardot Form Handler

Follow these steps to set up a Zapier ‘zap’ to bring data into Pardot as a form handler submission.

Step 1

Create a new zap and select the Google Sheets integration (the app selection will change based on where your data comes from).  

The trigger is ‘New Spreadsheet Row,’ and then select the correct sheet from your drive.

Pro Tip: Test the data capture to ensure it’s working. This will only work if there is data in the app triggering your zap. 

In our example, I submitted example data to the form, and Zapier successfully pulled it in as a test.

Step 2

Now move to select the Webhook as the Action step. Select the POST option on the setup page.

Step 3

Paste your HTTPS encoded Form Handler url into the URL box.

Step 4

If we were to activate it now, the zap would trigger and post to the Form Handler URL. But, no data would pass through. 

We need to set up the data pass.

We’ll take this step by step below:

1. Add a ? to the end of your URL
   
   
2. For each field you want to pass to Pardot:
   
   • Right after the question mark, add the external field name.
     
     
   • Immediately after the external field name, add an equal sign.
     
     
   • Immediately after the equal sign, add in the data source. This can be done via the dropdown in the URL field.
     
     Scroll until you find the field that contains the data you want to pass. Then, click on it.
     
     
   • Your URL will now look like this. The underlined portion is the part that you’ve added to send over a single field.
     
     
   • If you want to add another field, then add a “&” to the end of your URL and then repeat steps I – V for each field.
     

Step 5

Test your action and make sure the submission comes through in Pardot. The final URL will contain all the fields you’d like to pass. On the testing screen, you’ll see what the final URL will look like with your test data.

Click test. Then, ensure you captured the data in Pardot.

Now, turn on your Zap, and watch the leads flow into Pardot! 

Go forth and let the data flow into Pardot

Now you know how to bring in data from third party tools into a Pardot form handler. 

This unlocks the ability to score, grade, assign, add to Salesforce campaigns and more! The sky’s the limit with how you can use this setup. 

Happy building!

Learn more about Pardot forms

• One Form, Two Pardot Orgs: Part 1
• One Form, Two Pardot Orgs: Part 2
• Single Pardot Form, Multiple Completion Actions
• Close the Loop on Events: Splash and Pardot Integration

Original article: Watch the Data Flow into Pardot with Zapier

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Watch the Data Flow into Pardot with Zapier appeared first on The Spot.

Collecting accurate data is essential to your marketing strategy so you can continually optimize it to fit your goals. In most cases, companies capture data through form submissions and keep this data in-house. But what if the data collected needs to be shared?

Marketing is ever-growing, so it isn’t uncommon for two companies to collaborate on a campaign or event. But when these companies work together, sharing data can get messy. 

Traditionally, most marketing teams use spreadsheets to pass data back and forth between partners. This begs the question: is it possible to automate the transferring of data when users submit forms? Well, with Pardot, it’s not only possible, it’s simple— and with no spreadsheets necessary.

There are two ways to trigger this kind of automation. In our first post, we walked you through transferring data from a Pardot Form to a Pardot Form Handler. In this post, we’ll walk you through transferring data from a Pardot Form Handler to another Pardot Form Handler.

1. The initial submission is captured via a Pardot Form then data is passed directly to a Pardot Form Handler.
   Two fictitious companies, Utica Paper and Printers Rock are co-marketing an event. Utica Paper is the main host of the event and they leverage a Pardot form for registrations. In the Pardot form’s completion actions, they have added JavaScript code to forward submission data to a form handler. This Pardot form handler is tied to Printers Rock Pardot org. To simplify, this process is a Pardot Form (Utica Paper) > Pardot Form Handler (Printers Rock).
   
   
2. A Pardot Form Handler captures the initial submission and the data is forwarded to a second Pardot Form Handler.
   In this scenario, The Halpert Company, uses their website to host a registration page for an upcoming event. After a form is submitted, they capture data in Pardot via a form handler. The Halpert Company has partnered with Utica Paper on this campaign. They leverage the data forwarding option on Pardot form handlers to send submission data over to Utica Paper immediately after a form is submitted. To simplify, this solution is Pardot form handler (Halpert Industries) to Pardot form handler (Utica Paper).

Scenario: Pardot Form Handler to Pardot Form Handler

1. Create Pardot Form Handler in the primary org
   Under this scenario, The Halper Company created a Pardot form handler to capture event registrations from their website form. Their web team has configured the site to post data to this form handler after someone submits. This form handler contains all the information their team wants to track within Pardot.
   
   Pro Tip: only mark the email field as required. Leave all other fields optional on the form handler. Let the website form handle which fields are required when the user completes the form.
   
   
   
   
2. Create the Pardot form handler in the secondary org
   The second company in our scenario is Utica Paper. They would create a form handler with identical fields to capture data in their instance. The secondary company will send the form handler endpoint URL to the primary company.
   
   Pro Tip 1: The external fields names must match exactly to how they’re defined on the primary company’s Pardot form handler. 
   
   Pro Tip 2: Use the HTTPS encoded URL to capture data. (see screenshot below)
   
   
   
   
3. On the primary company’s Pardot form handler, do these things:
   
   a. Check the ‘enable data forwarding to the success location’ box. (see A in screenshot)
   
   b. Change the Success Location dropdown to ‘specific url. (see B in screenshot)
   
   c. Paste the endpoint URL from step 1 in the field (see C in screenshot)
   
   
   
   
   
4. (optional) Update the secondary org’s Pardot form handler with a success location.
   This step depends on if the Thank You page a user sees is controlled by the form handler or the original source. In many cases, the thank you page an end user sees is controlled by the website form (outside of Pardot) which is why most form handler’s are in the kiosk mode.
   
   If the form handler controls the thank you page, that page will be ultimately controlled by the secondary companies Pardot form handler. With the Success Location set to ‘specific url’, the secondary company would input the thank you page link into the ‘success location’ url box.
   
   Pro Tip: Set up a custom redirect in the primary company’s Pardot for the thank-you page. That way if the link needs to change, the primary company’s admin can easily update it.

Final step: TEST EVERYTHING! Don’t skip this step – trust us, your future self will thank you. Testing will ensure that data is being captured and passed between the two Pardot instances.

The last thing you want is to launch a shiny new campaign to find out a week later your data was not captured properly.

Check out our post on how to use the format above to pass conditional completion actions through a Pardot form. If you need Pardot help or training, check out some of our mini-courses and bootcamps, or contact us to speak with a consultant. Sercante can help you maximize the investment of your Pardot instance.

Original article: One Form, Two Pardot Orgs – Part 2

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post One Form, Two Pardot Orgs – Part 2 appeared first on The Spot.

Capturing data is a key piece of any marketing strategy. It’s imperative that you capture the right data so you can continue improving your marketing efforts. Pardot is the vehicle we see many companies use to capture form submission data, but what if that data needs to be shared?

As marketing grows, it’s become more of a common place for two companies to work together on a campaign or an event. The tricky thing is sharing data. Traditionally, marketing teams use the spreadsheets – oh, the dreaded spreadsheets – to pass over data to their co-marketing partner.

Is it possible to automate the distribution of data when a user submits a form? With Pardot, it’s surprisingly easy to do away with spreadsheets and move to a completely automated system.

There are two ways to trigger this kind of automation. We’ll go into detail on both of these options, but first here’s a 10,000 ft view of each. 

1. The initial submission is captured via a Pardot Form then data is passed directly to a Pardot Form Handler.
   Two fictitious companies, Utica Paper and Printers Rock are co-marketing an event. Utica Paper is the main host of the event and they leverage a Pardot form for registrations. In the Pardot form’s completion actions, they have added JavaScript code to forward submission data to a form handler. This Pardot form handler is tied to Printers Rock Pardot org. To simplify, this process is a Pardot Form (Utica Paper) > Pardot Form Handler (Printers Rock).
   
   
2. A Pardot Form Handler captures the initial submission and the data is forwarded to a second Pardot Form Handler.
   In this scenario, The Halpert Company, uses their website to host a registration page for an upcoming event. After a form is submitted, they capture data in Pardot via a form handler. The Halpert Company has partnered with Utica Paper on this campaign. They leverage the data forwarding option on Pardot form handlers to send submission data over to Utica Paper immediately after a form is submitted. To simplify, this solution is Pardot form handler (Halpert Industries) to Pardot form handler (Utica Paper).

Let’s dive into the details…

Scenario: Pardot Form to Pardot Form Handler

1. Create Pardot Form in the Primary Pardot Org
   Utica Paper created their Pardot form to capture form submissions.
   
   
   
   
2. Create a Pardot Form Handler in the secondary Pardot Org
   This is where Printers Rock created a form handler inside Pardot. They include fields for all the data points they’d like to capture. All fields should be left as optional except the email address field. As a final step, Printers Rock sent over the form handler endpoint url and a list of field names (see red box in screenshot) to Utica Paper, so they would know where to map the data to.
   
   
3. Connect the Pardot Form to the Form Handler
   Utica Paper incorporates the field names from Printer Rock into a JavaScript post. This gets tricky so let’s take it step-by-step:
   
   a. Copy / Paste the following JavaScript code into the Thank You code section on the Pardot Form.

<script type=”text/javascript”>
var email = encodeURIComponent(‘%%email{js}%%’)
//Update the src URL below to match the destination form handler endpointdocument.write(‘<iframe src=”URL_HERE?email=’ + email + ‘” height=”1px” width=”1px” />’);

//Update the location URL below to point to the Thank You pagewindow.location = “http://pardot.com/”;
</script>

b. Within the JavaScript code, replace the URL_HERE (highlighted below) with the form handler URL. In our example, Utica Paper would paste the endpoint url that they received from Printers Rock. 

Important: make sure you use the secure HTTPS link. 

c. Within the JavaScript, update the final destination URL. Replace the highlighted text with your thank you page link. This is the page users will be directed to after the form is submitted.

d. Save and test! Submit a test through the Pardot form. The expected behavior is that the submission will be captured in the Pardot form and the Pardot form handler will display a submission too (email only). Your browser should redirect to the link you updated in the previous step. If anything does not fire correctly, review the above steps again to make sure your configuration matches.

Now you have a fully configured script that will pass the email address to a form handler url. Optionally you can add in additional fields to capture in this submission. To do so, navigate back to the Pardot thank you code section. You’ll want to add in additional variables, one for each additional field you’d like to send to the form handler. First add in the variable tags and then update the encoded url framework.

Variable Tags

var email = encodeURICompenent (‘%%email{js}%%’)

1. Copy the line you see above, hit return, and paste it as a new row.

2. Replace email (1) with the field name that’s defined on the form handler. In our example, this is the data sent over from Printers Rock in Step 2.

3. Replace email (2) with the Pardot field name. This is the field name in the Pardot instance that’s tied to the Pardot form. You’ll want to navigate to the field itself in Pardot to find the field ID (see screenshot below).

Update the Encoded URL

Right before the circled plug button, add the following:

+ ‘&formHandlerFieldName=’ + variableName

• The Pardot form handler field name is the external field name listed on the form handler. Make sure you create one without spaces. Replace ONLY the highlighted part with the field name, leave the quotes, ampersand, and equal sign.
  
• The variableName is the name you created in the Variable Tags section. If you followed the suggestion, this will match your Pardot Field Name. 

Note: Replicate the Variable Tag and Update Encoded URL section for each field you want to sync to the Form Handler.

Final step: TEST EVERYTHING! Don’t skip this step – trust me, your future self will thank you. Testing will ensure that data is being captured and passed between the two Pardot instances. The last thing you want is to launch a shiny new campaign to find out a week later your data was not captured properly.

Ready for more? Check out the second post on how to pass data between two Pardot Form Handlers. OR check out our post on how to use the format above to pass conditional completion actions through a Pardot form.

Original article: One Form, Two Pardot Orgs – Part 1

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post One Form, Two Pardot Orgs – Part 1 appeared first on The Spot.

I tend to nerd out when it comes to advanced form styling in Pardot. I get personal satisfaction from taking a form beyond its default “out-of-the-box” capabilities to meet a specific requirement or use case.

Recently a client brought a unique challenge to me that required advanced form styling.

The client in question had a form on their website to collect additional data on Prospects. They had introduced a new field to the form and promptly saw an influx in Connector errors.

The reason?

The field that Pardot synced the data to in Salesforce had a character limit.  Prospects that submitted the form had entered too many characters, which resulted in Connector errors.

How we addressed the need to limit characters in a field

If you’ve been in Pardot for any length of time, you’ve likely noticed there isn’t anywhere to set a field character limit in the Form Builder or field settings. So how did we fix this? 

The solution is to use a combination of Javascript, CSS and HTML to set a limit on the form level. This way users can’t submit the form if they have too many characters in a specific field. 

Check out this live example of limiting characters on a field…

Solution Breakdown: How to set character limits in a Pardot form

Let’s dive into how this works! 

A quick note: while the edits we’re about to make involve coding, you do not have to be a coding wizard to make them. I’ll walk you through each step.

In the example above, I have set a 5 character maximum on the Limit field. When the character count is below 5, it displays “under character limit”. When the total is greater than 5, we see a warning message that reads:  “# characters over.” Furthermore, it will prevent a user from submitting a form when the total character count has exceeded the limit. 

This is all powered by the following:

<script type="text/javascript" src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.2/jquery.min.js"></script><script>
    $(document).ready(function() {
        window.pardot.$("p.limit input").after("<p id='limit-text' style='color: #999999; font-weight: normal;'>Under character limit.</p>");

        $('.limit input').on('keyup', function() {
            
            var charMax = 5;
        
            var charCount = $(this).val().replace(/\s/g, '').length;
            var charCountOver = charCount - charMax;
            
            var charUnderLimit = "Under character limit"
            var charOverLimit = charCountOver + " characters over"
            
            if (charCount <= charMax) {
                window.pardot.$("p.limit").removeClass("error");
                window.pardot.$(".limit-text").remove();
                window.pardot.$("p.submit input").prop('disabled', false);
            } else {
                window.pardot.$("p.limit").addClass("error");
                window.pardot.$("p.submit input").prop('disabled', true);
            }
            if (charCountOver < 1) {
                window.pardot.$("#limit-text").text(charUnderLimit);
            } else {
                window.pardot.$("#limit-text").text(charOverLimit);
            }
        });
    });
</script>

Don’t worry if you’re not a wizard at reading code. I’ll explain how to customize this script and implement on your forms. 

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Add the code to your Pardot form

• Open the form editor 
• Navigate to the ‘Look and Feel’ editor page
• Select the ‘Below Form’ section and click the ‘Source’ icon 
• Copy the code from above and paste the code into the editor

Step 2: Adjust the character limits

To increase (or decrease) the character limit, edit the charMax variable. The code below lists shows a limit of 5 characters. In your code, replace the 5 with your desired limit.

Hint: this is typically line 7 in the Pardot editor.

var charMax = 5;

Step 3: Add the limit to the Pardot field

The code is ready to go. The last and most important step is to tell Pardot which field we want to apply the limit to. 

• Navigate back to the ‘fields’ page 
• Open the edit page for that field
• Click through to the ‘advanced’ settings page
• In the ‘CSS Classes’ field, input “limit”

It’s important your page looks exactly like the screenshot below. Otherwise this will not work. 

Step 4: Save and test

The last step is to save all your changes. Now open up your form and start typing in your limited field. 

Customizing text & error messages for character limits

There are two additional changes you can make if you want to customize your form even further: the text that’s displayed when the count is under or over the limit. This can be useful if you need to have very specific text surrounding the error.

Optional Update 1: “under the limit” text

To change the text displayed before the limit is hit, change the text that’s between the two quotation marks. (Hint: this is typically line 12)

Optional Update 2: “over the limit” text

To change the text that’s displayed when a user exceeds the limit, edit the text between the two quotations marks. (hint: this is typically line 13)

Once you’ve finalized all the settings above, your form is ready to go. Open it up in a new tab and test out the new limit.

Happy coding!
Allie

Original article: How to Add Character Limits to Fields in Pardot Forms

©2025 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post How to Add Character Limits to Fields in Pardot Forms appeared first on The Spot.