What to do when your Pardot is Deactivated

With every campaign run, configured automation and email sent, the target of Pardot users is to have a successful account in place. But there are cases when that success is interrupted, when your Pardot is deactivated. This post explains what to do when that occurs.

In order to understand what happens when your Pardot is deactivated, let’s go through the different stages.

The Cause

Salesforce can deactivate or temporarily archive any Pardot accounts if there is a lapse in billing, a mistake via the accounts team, or you have signed a renewal after leaving within 90 days.

When that occurs you won’t be able to log into Pardot – instead, you’ll see the message below:

The Solution

First check with your accounts team if they are aware of any billing issue, then get in touch with Pardot support immediately. They can provide information on why your account has been deactivated and how it can be resolved.

It is essential that you act quick, as this has a number of serious consequences on your Pardot campaigns, such as:

• Embedded forms won’t work and will show an error message
• Pardot landing pages will be displayed as blank pages
• Scheduled and automated emails won’t be sent to your prospects
• After 90 days, Pardot permanently deletes all of your account data

When it has been resolved it is time to check what else has been affected by this issue.

The Affect

When your Pardot is deactivated, all of your set connectors and automations are paused. The most crucial ones are:

1. Your connection to Salesforce will be unverified, which means your two platforms won’t be able to sync. Make sure you re-verify the connection as soon as possible, so the sync can be reinstated. See if the connected user is still correct, and change it if required.
2. Check the other connectors you had in place, and re-configure the ones that you are using. This is a great opportunity to review which connectors should be in place and with whose details.
3. All of your automated processes will be paused, including Engagement Studio programs and automation rules. By looking at the updated date you’ll be able to identify the ones that were running when your account was deactivated. If they should be running, you can restart them.
4. Regarding the automated processes, I recommend to prioritise the ones associated with your opt-in process.
5. Your scheduled list emails have been unscheduled as well. Find them under List Email Drafts and schedule them again for the preferred dates / times.

This concludes my recommendations on what you should do when your Pardot is deactivated. As you can see, it can have some serious consequences, like the Salesforce sync is stopped. The key takeaway is to avoid this from happening, and ensure you stay on top of your account billing.