by Sophie Daniline 
Dori recently told us about a way to deal with prospects when you have exceeded your database limit which involved the Pardot recycle bin. But what else is this magical bin useful for, and how can we utilise it?
What is the Recycle bin?
When you delete an asset, it’s moved to the recycle bin in your Pardot account instead of being permanently deleted. You can restore most assets from the recycle bin and, unlike my very full desktop recycle bin, you can’t empty the Pardot recycle bin.
Okay, so it’s just a ever-filling bin?
Sure, to the untrained eye. But you can use this seemingly dull Pardot feature to your advantage in the following way:
Items in your recycle bin don’t count towards your Pardot usage limits, making it a really handy place to store anything that isn’t immediately useful to you, but that you don’t want to lose forever. So it essentially acts as an archive, without having to have a pesky archive folder somewhere else on your desktop (let’s be honest, that’s where you’d keep it).
This can be incredibly helpful especially if your usage limits are starting to look like this:
Are there any exceptions?
I’m glad you asked. Yes, if you delete content files or tags, they are gone forever so start mourning now.
What about prospects?
Another fantastic question. If you delete a prospect it will sit in the bin until one of the following things happen:
- An admin permanently deletes the prospect
- The prospect performs an activity that marks them as active (e.g. email click, form submission)
- Their Salesforce record being synced with is undeleted
And campaigns?
You’re on a roll. If you delete a campaign, the prospects associated with the campaign remain in the system tagged with the deleted campaign. Before deleting, Pardot warns you if elements associated with the campaign, such as lists, rules, and landing pages, are in use. You can then delete the assets or associate them with another campaign.
Where can I find this recycle bin?
Under Admin > Recycle Bin.
That’s all for today. If you really want to chat about recycle bins, or on a more serious note want help working out a strategy for your ever growing asset list, get in touch here.