Amid over 400+ available marketing automation software, selecting the right one to meet your nonprofit’s needs can be daunting.
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (MCAE), previously known as Pardot, is recognized for its robust reliability and advanced features. It makes a compelling choice for nonprofits looking to improve their marketing efforts.
In our blog post we’ll discuss:
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (MCAE), formerly known as Pardot, is a Salesforce-based platform. This nonprofit email marketing software empowers nonprofits to enhance their marketing and engagement efforts.
Since 2013, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement has become one of the leading email marketing tools. Now, it’s used by over 44,000 companies.
This one of the best nonprofit marketing automation software, embedded within Salesforce, is designed to refine and optimize nonprofit marketing initiatives. By automating key processes, MCAE helps nonprofits:
Our MC Account Engagement specialists will ensure that the platform is utilized to its full potential and identify areas for improvement in alignment with your marketing goals.
While originally crafted for B2B environments, MCAE’s adaptability makes it equally valuable for nonprofits.
According to Marketo, software like Account Engagement can increase sales leads by 50% and reduce cost per lead by 33%. Overall, 86% of marketing professionals believe that automation is key to achieving major marketing objectives.
Top Marketing Automation Benefits | Ascendix
Furthermore, with this inbound marketing tools charitable organizations can:
Here is what Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement non-for-profit user says:
My team uses Marketing Cloud Account Engagement as both our mass email service and also to track which of our constituents are opening those emails. In addition, we can see various digital interactions with our website.
We've found that knowing who has opened or not opened specific email communications has been really helpful, especially as we are doing follow up. It also helps us determine which of our programs an individual may find the most interesting, based on their pattern of email opens, webpages visited, etc.
This matters a lot for a small nonprofit, as we are always looking for ways to better serve our constituents, whether they be donors or community members. Particularly for donors, if we are not keeping our content relevant, we may be leaving money on the table or not doing the most we could do for our generous supporters.”
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Pardot Use Cases | Source: Ascendix
MCAE empowers nonprofits to facilitate donor interactions through personalized email campaigns and targeted outreach. For instance, it allows the creation of multi-channel journeys that engage donors through:
Salesforce Pardot for nonprofit automates the filtering and prioritization of new leads. It ensures that engagement efforts focus on supporters most ready and willing to contribute to the mission.
MC Account Engagement enables nonprofits to effortlessly create and manage forms, landing pages, and call-to-action buttons using intuitive drag-and-drop builders.
This feature helps in capturing and segmenting supporter leads from various channels, facilitating targeted outreach and engagement.
MCAE provides the ability to assign scores to leads based on their interactions and engagement, prioritizing follow-up efforts. Nonprofits can customize lead scoring criteria to reflect their specific supporter profiles.
They can also utilize AI-driven insights for advanced subscriber plans to refine these processes further.
Moreover, organizations can define lead stages, statuses, and transitions to manage engagement through various phases, optimizing supporter cultivation and retention.
With its campaign management features, this email marketing platform enables nonprofits to organize and promote events effectively across social media and email.
The insights gained from these campaigns can inform future event planning by identifying key engagement metrics.
Post-Webinar Nurture in MC Account Engagement | Source: Salesforce
This marketing automation tool provides your outreach and service teams with real-time information about key supporter interactions.
Pardot can automatically alert teams when new high-potential supporter data is captured or when high engagement activities occur.
Nonprofits must foster deep, personal relationships with their supporters. Account Engagement facilitates the creation of personalized donor journeys, allowing organizations to tailor messaging based on:
For instance, using dynamic content and personalization tokens, nonprofits can make each communication feel like a one-on-one conversation.
Email Template Builder in MC Account Engagement | Source: Salesforce
With a suite of email automation tools, nonprofits can:
Engagement Studio in MC Account Engagement | Source: Salesforce
By sending personalized and relevant content, nonprofits can guide their community toward active participation or donation.
“ The real power of MCAE is in personalization. By integrating donor data from across your organization, you can create segmented journeys that speak to each individual's motivations and past interactions. This means more meaningful connections," emphasizes a nonprofit technology strategist. ”
Fundraising campaigns are the lifeblood of many nonprofits. MCAE’s robust campaign management tools enable the design, execution, and analysis of integrated campaigns.
By using detailed analytics, nonprofits can identify which strategies best resonate with their audience, optimizing future efforts for greater impact.
Customizable lead forms and automated communication workflows help nonprofits in recruiting and engaging volunteers.
Also, MC Account Engagement allows organizations to automate their volunteer recruitment processes, from initial sign-up to ongoing communication and engagement.
Its segmentation tools ensure that each volunteer receives information relevant to their interests and availability, thereby increasing retention and satisfaction.
MCAE’s reporting features provide insights into the performance of marketing activities and campaigns.
Nonprofits can access marketing analytics, dashboards, and reports to monitor performance and make data-driven decisions.
Its enhanced plans offer real-time analytics powered by Einstein AI, providing advanced insights and predictive analytics.
Account Engagement History in MC Account Engagement | Source: Salesforce
This not only helps with compliance and transparency but also strengthens trust with donors and volunteers.
Additionally, with MCAE reporting and analytics tools, organizations can:
“ For any nonprofit leveraging MCAE, the power lies in the data. Tailor your engagement strategies based on what the numbers tell you about donor behaviors. ”
MCAE enables nonprofits to manage their social media presence directly from the platform, allowing for:
Einstein AI, available in advanced MCAE subscriptions, offer predictive analytics and lead-scoring optimization, driving smarter, data-informed strategies.
Einstein AI in MC Account Engagement | Source: Salesforce
With AI tools available in Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, nonprofits can:
Nonprofits gain insight into website visitor behavior, page views, and interactions, helping to inform engagement strategies and content relevance.
All Salesforce products, including MCAE, come with robust security features ensuring data protection, GDPR compliance, and reliable email deliverability.
It aligns with best practices in nonprofit marketing. Besides this, MC Account Engagement offers IP warming & sender reputation management to ensure nonprofit emails reach inboxes, not spam.
MC Account Engagement supports targeted marketing efforts toward specific supporter groups or industries, enhancing the personalization and impact of outreach campaigns.
Account-Based Marketing Dashboard in MC Account Engagement | Source: Salesforce
By integrating with Salesforce Sales Cloud, MCAE provides a comprehensive view of donor and volunteer interactions, ensuring cohesive engagement efforts.
This integration is crucial for aligning marketing strategies with overall mission goals and enhancing collaboration among departments.
Besides that, charitable organizations can synchronize Account Engagement with:
It helps automate the registration process for events, send surveys, and SMS messages as part of comprehensive engagement journeys.
“ Seamless integration with Salesforce can transform your nonprofit's data into actionable insights, providing a holistic understanding of engagement across your community. ”
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (MCAE) offers a range of features tailored to the needs of nonprofits, with functionalities varying by subscription level. Nonprofit organizations can select a plan that best aligns with their specific operational needs and goals.
| Growth |
| $1,250/month |
| Plus |
| $2,750/month |
| Advanced |
| $4,440/month |
| Premium |
| $15,000/month |
While MCAE offers substantial benefits, nonprofits should be mindful of certain challenges.
Among them are:
However, with a strategic implementation plan and expert guidance, these obstacles can be effectively navigated.
Whether you’re considering deploying a MC Account Engagement or need professional audit, we’re here to assist. As a Summit Salesforce consulting partner, we offer comprehensive services, including:
“ Investing time in proper training and adoption strategies is crucial. The more your team understands MCAE's capabilities, the more value they can deliver to your mission. ”
Our in-depth expertise ensures that your nonprofit uses Pardot to its full potential, enhancing your organization’s impact and efficiency.
Our consultants will help you enhance and refine the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement platform to maximize its effectiveness for nonprofit organization.
Nonprofits increasingly benefit from automation tools to enhance operations and engage more effectively with their supporters. Here are several strategies they employ:
Initiate a structured email sequence to welcome new subscribers when they sign up on your website. This series can:
Use an email drip campaign to explain how their contributions impact your mission.
Engagement Studio in Account Engagement can automate the creation of tasks, such as notifying staff to call donors who contribute above a specified amount.
Set up an automated rule to send personalized thank-you emails to donors after a contribution. This message can emphasize the impact of their donation, reinforcing their value to your organization and encouraging future support.
Use completion actions to send auto-responder emails when someone completes a Form on your website. Additionally, you can organize donors into targeted lists based on form submissions, email interactions, or specific actions.
Gather insights into donor preferences using Completion Actions and Tags without overwhelming them. Tags can be automatically added to donor profiles based on their interactions with your content, such as specific links they’ve clicked, to track interests.
Dynamic lists are a vital feature for nonprofits, enabling real-time list management based on criteria you define. The lists update automatically, ensuring they are always current.
For example, create a list of donors who haven’t contributed in the past six months, allowing you to reach out and encourage renewed support.
Benefit from connecting Salesforce and Account Engagement campaigns by aligning reporting to ensure that campaigns created in Salesforce automatically sync with MCAE.
It also works well with a structured campaign hierarchy, where each campaign can have one parent but multiple sibling campaigns.
By turning on Connected Campaigns, nonprofits can apply multi-touch attribution to assess the impact of each engagement.
Also, this sync enables pulling detailed data into the B2B Marketing Analytics app.
Implement page actions to categorize visitors based on the pages they view. For instance, if someone visits a page about volunteering opportunities, automatically add them to a “prospective volunteers” list.
Follow up with an auto-responder email containing detailed steps on how they can engage further.
By using custom fields in Salesforce and MCAE, you can customize donation requests to align with donor profiles and calculate personalized ask amounts for renewals or donation appeals, improving the likelihood of donations.
To amplify your nonprofit marketing activities, you can use our Ascendix Search app.
Ascendix Search – an advanced Salesforce search and geomapping tool. It can be particularly useful for non-profit organizations to optimize everyday activities at a reduced cost.
Designed for Salesforce users, Ascendix Search enhances data management and boosts user adoption by simplifying access to data.
While Salesforce’s inbuilt features like Global Search and List View Builder have strengths, they also have limitations.
Among them is inability to support multi-criteria searches or search across multiple objects.
Ascendix Search addresses these gaps by providing expanded search capabilities with:
Nonprofits can benefit from these features to build targeted prospect lists, save and share searches, and customize list views.
Get an all-in-one tool to skyrocket your nonprofit marketing and Salesforce search experience
The app also offers intuitive geomapping to:
Salesforce Geomapping Tool – Ascendix Search
This functionality can be crucial for nonprofits managing geographically diverse projects or outreach.
Ascendix has chosen a product donation model and pledges 1% of the product to the Not For Profit and Charity sectors.
We provide all the benefits of our products at a reduced cost to Non-Profit organizations that are using Salesforce.
Complementing these features is our reliable customer support, offering assistance from onboarding to user training and troubleshooting.
“ Speed is key. We have been using the Ascendix Search for over a year now. The largest benefit to us has been in the ability to quickly locate information via the map, without having to filter after the search.
For example, we need to find lease/sale comps for a specific area that may cross over into multiple zip codes. Go to the map, draw the polygon and there are the comps we need.
In addition, finding lease expirations for prospecting purposes via the same search process. The less time we have to spend looking for information and the more time we can spend on actionable items exponentially increases productivity! ”
A warm welcome email is vital for new subscribers, fostering a strong connection and boosting donation potential. These emails often form your organization’s first impression, crucial for ongoing engagement or risking unsubscription.
Consider Save the Children‘s example, which effectively:
These elements are essential for engaging supporters and encouraging continued involvement.
Welcome Email Example for Nonprofits | Source: Save the Children
WWF exemplifies effective onboarding with its initial welcome email. Key elements include:
Additionally, WWF incorporates a survey in this first message to gather insights about new subscribers. This approach helps tailor future engagement based on subscriber preferences.
Welcome Email Example with a Survey | Source: WWF
Donation Request Email Example | Source: Springly.org
The example above is straightforward, personalized, and concise, featuring a clear call to action (CTA). Additionally, the email facilitates seamless navigation to the donation page, ensuring ease of access.
Furthermore, it acknowledges and expresses gratitude to past donors. It eliminates any redundancy in case the recipient encounters the information more than once.
Look at the another donation request email:
Another Donation Request Email Example | Source: Springly.org
When your organization seeks non-monetary contributions, such as donations of items or clothing, it is important to consider your approach.
Highlight potential benefits for the donor, such as presenting it as an ideal opportunity to declutter and contribute to a meaningful cause.
This communication should include all essential information, such as:
Also, you need to ensure an inviting format has appropriate fonts and layout.
Thank-you emails are a crucial element of nonprofit email marketing. It serves well to express gratitude, foster relationships, and encourage ongoing donations.
Nonprofits should thoughtfully acknowledge their supporters at every opportunity.
Such emails can be integrated at various points in a campaign, including:
Consider the following example of a simple yet impactful thank-you message.
Thank You Email Example | Source: Really Good Emails
Success story emails are a powerful tool for inspiring and engaging supporters by demonstrating the real-world impact of their contributions.
When nonprofits share these stories, they showcase the tangible outcomes and positive changes driven by fundraising efforts.
These narratives resonate emotionally with readers, reinforcing their belief in the organization’s mission. Additionally, success story emails provide social proof, illustrating to potential donors that their support truly matters.
Seeing the concrete results of their donations motivates supporters to continue giving and enhances ongoing fundraising efforts.
Fundraising event invitation emails serve as VIP passes, igniting urgency and excitement among recipients. They vividly illustrate how attendees can make a meaningful impact, leaving a lasting impression by bringing the cause to life.
These emails tap into emotions, fostering a strong connection that encourages supporters’ eagerness to contribute. They also have the advantage of instantly reaching a wide audience, highlighting the event and attracting new donors.
Moreover, they consolidate essential event information, from ticket sales to donation links. It simplifies the process for recipients to get involved and make a difference.
Ultimately, these invitations are a powerhouse for engagement, significantly amplifying fundraising potential.
Fundraising Event Invitation Email Example | Source: Copper Charity Email Gallery
If Marketing Cloud Account Engagement implementation doesn’t justify its investment or their features are malfunctioning, hire Ascendix.
Our Marketing Cloud consulting services are designed to ensure your charitable organization maximizes your investment. As your trusted consultants, we aim to boost product utilization and your marketing campaign effectiveness.
Ascendix Technologies is a Salesforce Summit Consulting Partner. In addition, our team boasts over 150 Salesforce certifications highlighting our expertise in various aspects of the Salesforce ecosystem.
Want to take advantage of Marketing Cloud Account Engagement capabilities to their full extent?
Book a free Salesforce consulting call with Ascendix today to explore the possibilities.
Marketing Cloud Account Engagement enhances donor relationship management by automating personalized communication, such as welcome series and thank-you emails.
It simplifies outreach and effectively tracks supporter interactions, leading to increased donations and volunteer engagement, exemplified by targeted fundraising campaigns.
For nonprofits, Mailchimp and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement are popular choices.
Mailchimp offers user-friendly design and segmentation tools ideal for smaller organizations, while Marketing Cloud Account Engagement provides robust automation and integration options, benefiting larger nonprofits with complex engagement strategies.
Nonprofits can choose from various inbound marketing platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Constant Contact, Hootsuite, and Mailchimp.
These tools offer CRM integration, email automation, event promotion, and performace analytics, helping organizations enhance donor engagement, and increase fundraising effectiveness.
HubSpot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign are leading marketing automation platforms for nonprofits.
HubSpot enhances donor outreach; Salesforce integrates CRM for personalized engagement; Mailchimp offers easy email campaign setup; ActiveCampaign provides advanced segmentation.
Anzhelika is a seasoned B2B content marketing strategist with extensive experience in elevating corporate profiles through compelling content. At Ascendix, she offers a wealth of knowledge in Salesforce consulting, providing valuable tips, tricks, and comprehensive guides. Additionally, Anzhelika stays at the forefront of the industry, delivering expert analysis on the latest Salesforce tools and emerging technology trends.
(20 votes, average: 4.90 out of 5)
Loading...Follow us and get expert insights and guides right to your inbox.