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Setting up the Wistia - Pardot Integration
Setting up the Wistia - Pardot Integration

How to use Wistia and Pardot together for super-powered video marketing

Caroline F avatar
Written by Caroline F
Updated over a week ago

Use Pardot? Use Wistia? Want to meld them together to execute a media-driven marketing automation strategy the likes of which this world has never seen? You’re in the right place, friend.

With the Wistia-Pardot integration you can:

  • Generate new leads from your videos and channels

  • See how prospects are watching and listening to all the media on your website

  • Score leads based on media engagement data

  • Use media and email together in marketing harmony 💕

Sound fun? That’s because it is fun. And it’s easy! This page will give you everything you need to get started and be successful.

Set up the Pardot Integration

Note

You’ll need to be the Account Owner or a Manager in an account, on a plan with the Pardot integration enabled.

First things first, let’s connect the puzzle pieces. You’ll need:

If you have all of that, here’s how to get started:

1. Add your Pardot account in Wistia

In Wistia, head to Account Settings and navigate to the Integrations section under Advanced. Scroll down to Marketing Automation integrations, and enter your Pardot Unit Business ID. To find this, log into Salesforce, click the gear icon in the top right and click Setup. Search for “Business Unit” in the quick find and click on Account Engagement => Business Unit Setup. Please note that your Business ID begins with a zero, not an “O.”

Pardot_auth_1

Connect and you’re halfway set up! Proceed to step 2. 👇

2. Enable the Wistia Connector in Pardot

In your Pardot account, click the Admin menu at the top of the page, and choose the Connector section. From there, click Add Connector, and choose Wistia under Video Connectors. That’ll bring you to a form quite like this:

PardotGuide 2

Check the "Show Video Play Heatmaps" box, and then fill in your API Token and Public Token from Wistia. Then save the connector. Read on for details about what you can do with your newfound powers.

Note

To ensure the Wistia - Pardot integration operates as expected and stays healthy, the following scopes will be requested at setup:

  • pardot_api

  • refresh_token

  • offline_access

In addition to these scopes, Wistia will need to be able to interact with the following Pardot objects:

  • Forms (read)

  • Lists (read)

  • Prospects (read/write)

  • Layout Templates (read)

Collect Leads from Videos with Pardot Forms

You can add forms created in your Pardot account to your Wistia videos. They’ll act exactly the same as Pardot forms, except that they’ll appear in your video like a Turnstile or CTA.

Pardot form in Wistia video

Once the integration is enabled, a “Pardot Forms” section will appear in the Customize panel. Here you can choose which form to display in your video either by selecting it from a drop down list or entering the form’s name, when to display it, and add helpful prompt text to encourage viewers to complete your form. Here’s what that looks like:

Pardot forms section in Customize

You’ll notice there’s not an option to disable the “Skip” button. Pardot Forms are iframes and as a result, we don’t have a way to know when a form was submitted. Since this is the case, users will always have the option to continue the video. The use of an iframe also means Wistia does not have the ability to style the form.

Tip

We recommend not adding any styling, but if you do, be sure to check how the form looks when previewing the form in the “Pardot Form” customize section. Additionally, we don’t recommend using full page layouts for Pardot forms as they don’t fit well within the Wistia player.

You’ll notice a message at the bottom of the section that indicates only Pardot forms with https enabled are available to use in Wistia. If you don’t see your form, make sure your form’s Tracker Domain has https enabled in your Pardot account.

To enable https for your form:

  1. Go to Admin > Domain Management in your Pardot account

  2. Choose a domain in the Tracker Domains section and verify SSL STATUS is ENABLED and HTTPS STATUS is HTTPS

Tracker Domains section in Pardot

a. Follow these steps to Enable SSL or use the go.pardot.com domain. b. For https status, click the gear icon in the “Actions” column and select “Default HTTPS.”

Check https status in Pardot

Then, navigate to the form in Pardot and click “Edit.” From here, update the form’s Tracker Domain to use a domain with https enabled.

Update Pardot forms tracker domain

Once done, your form will appear in the dropdown in Wistia. If you have a large number of forms, you can search for your form by its exact name.

Select Pardot form in Customize menu

Automatic Continue Support

By default, Wistia is unable to detect when a Pardot form on a media has been submitted. This means that we’re unable to hide the form and continue playing automatically. However, by adding a couple small code snippets to a Pardot form, we are able to detect form submissions, close the form, and continue playing.

The first snippet will need to go in your form’s layout in Pardot.

1. Go to Layout Templates.

Go to Layout templates in Pardot

2. View a template’s details by clicking on its name.

View template details in Pardot

3. Choose “Edit Layout Template."

Click to edit layout template

4. Copy the code snippet.

<script src="https://fast.wistia.com/assets/external/pardot-form-api.js"></script>

5. On the “Layout” tab paste the code snippet in the tag.

Paste the code snippet in the head tag

6. Click “Save.”

Click to save code snippet

7. Ensure the “Layout Template” is selected on your form’s “Look and Feel” tab.

Look and feel tab of Pardot form

The second snippet will need to go into your form’s Thank You Code in Pardot.

1. Viewer Forms

Click to view forms in Pardot

2. View a form’s details by clicking the form’s name

Viewer Pardot form videos

3. Choose “Edit form.”

Click to edit Pardot form

4. Edit the form, and choose “Completion Actions.”

Edit form and complete actions

5. Open Thank You Code tab and add code snippet

Add Thank You code snippet to Pardot form

6. Copy and paste this code snippet:

<script src="https://fast.wistia.com/assets/external/pardot-thank-you-api.js"></script>

7. Click the “Confirm & Save” button.

Confirm and Save Thank You code snippet in Pardot form

Collect Pardot Prospects with Turnstile

With Turnstile, you can ask people to enter their names and email addresses at any point in your videos. And now that you have Wistia connected to Pardot, that information will automatically create a new Prospect record in your Pardot Account. Woo!\

“Hold on, Wistia. What if the person is already an existing visitor in Pardot” you ask? Good question! In that case, we’ll convert the existing record in Pardot from an anonymous Visitor to a known Prospect. Please note, our marketing integrations go in one direction. This means that Wistia will feed contacts over into Pardot, but that other Pardot form submissions will not feed into Wistia stats.

Here’s an example Turnstile on one of the videos made here at Wistia HQ:

If that was your video, you’d be generating new leads right this very moment. So go ahead and embed your own video to get started! You can find Turnstile in the Customize panel.

You’ll want to be sure that you’ve selected a list to send Turnstile submissions to. Without a list selected, new prospects will only be identified by email in your Video report in Pardot. Adding a list will ensure that prospects are identified by their name in both your Video report, as well as the selected list.

Note

Turnstiles cannot be added to audio episodes. If you’ve added a Subscribe button to your Channel, new subscribers will still populate in Wistia and in a Pardot list if you’ve selected one for your Subscribe form. If you’re embedding an audio episode individually, you’ll want to make sure that a Pardot form takes a visitor to a page with an audio episode upon submission, or that there is a Pardot form on the same page as your audio episode.

Tip

Here’s a handy blog post by Ezra about how to use Turnstile most effectively: Collect More Emails With Video.

Connect Live Event Registration

If you’re using Wistia Live with registration enabled, you can send registrants to your Pardot instance. On your event overview page, scroll down to the registration section and click “Select a Pardot form” to choose a form from the dropdown menu.

Live Registration Pardot Form

Refer to our Live documentation for more information on connecting your Live event to Pardot.

Track Video-Related Events from Your Website in Pardot

With the Wistia Connector enabled in Pardot, data about how every person watches the videos and listens to the audio on your website will feed directly into your Pardot account.

Know that Email report in Pardot, where you can track the performance of all your email campaigns? Well, now you’ve got a report just like that one, but for all of your embedded Wistia media.

Behold, the Video report:

Pardot Videos Dashboard Overview

In the Video report you can see how your videos are performing across the board, and drill down to measure the activity on each one. For each video, you can see every prospect or visitor that watched it:

Pardot Video Report Stats

Then for each prospect and visitor, you can see a full record of which videos they’ve watched, and even how much of the video they watched, down to the second:

Pardot Prospect Overview Stats

Target Your Marketing Based on Prospect Video Behavior

From the Video report (see above 👆), you can add all the prospects who engaged with a certain video or podcast episode to a list in your Pardot account. You can also give them all tags if you’d like. Or heck, do both!

On a specific video’s page in Pardot (which you can access from the full list in the Video report), click the Tools menu on the right:

Pardot Prospect Tools Menu

From there just choose what you’d like to do with the prospects who watched your video, and let Pardot work its magic.

Use Video Events in Prospect Scoring

Want to adjust prospect scores based on media data? Me too. Let’s do this.

First, check out Pardot’s overall guide on setting up Custom Scoring. Now with the Wistia-Pardot integration set up, you’re able to use three specific media-related events to adjust a Prospect’s score:

  • Video Play: Simply, the person began playing a video or audio.

  • Video Watched 75%+: The person watched or listened to at least 75% of the video or audio.

  • Video Conversion: The person entered their contact information into Turnstile on a video.

Score!

Add Video to Your Email Campaigns

Email is a great way to nurture leads and stay engaged with your growing audience. Then add a little video or audio to the mix, stir in some tracking and analytics, and baby, you got a stew goin'!

PardotGuide 7

To add a video thumbnail link to an email campaign, just follow this quick process:

  1. Open the video’s page in your Wistia account.

  2. Select "Embed."

  3. In the "Email Campaign" tab, select Pardot as your email provider.

  4. Adjust the thumbnail image size and choose the URL where you want people to watch the video. It can be the video’s page in your Wistia account, or anywhere you have it embedded.

  5. Copy the Email Merge Tag from Wistia and paste it into your email in Pardot.

  6. Profit!

Fun fact: When people receive your email and click through to watch the video, their email addresses will automatically pass through to the Wistia stats.

Troubleshooting

Having trouble? Shoot! Let’s troubleshoot. Here are some common issues, and how to fix them:

Pardot Re-authentication

Starting February 15, 2021, Pardot’s user authentication system will be discontinued and all users will be required to use their Salesforce single sign-on (SSO). Pardot users who don’t enable Salesforce SSO by February 15, 2021, will lose the ability to log into Pardot until they are connected to a Salesforce user. More details on this migration can be found in this doc: Pardot Migration Overview.

As a Wistia and Pardot user, you’ll need to re-authenticate your Pardot login from the Integrations page of your account. You’ll notice we ask for a new field: Pardot Business Unit ID (as required by Salesforce).

Pardot Reauthentication State

Here’s how you’ll access your Pardot Business Unit ID:

  1. Log in to Salesforce.

  2. Next, click the gear icon on the top right-hand side of the page.

  3. Select “Setup.”

  4. Finally, search for “Pardot” in the Quick Find and click on “Pardot Account Setup.

  5. Please note: your Business Unit ID starts with a zero, not an “O“

If you’re having any trouble accessing this ID, you can reach out to Salesforce support for help.

You’ll want to re-authorize your Pardot integration in Wistia before February 15, 2021 to avoid any disruptions to your integration.

What happens if I don’t re-authenticate?

Before February 15th 2021, if your integration shows up under “Configured” with “needing re-authentication” then data is still flowing to Pardot successfully. Needing reauthorization does not mean your integration is broken. However, this will change starting February 15th.

Pardot will be doing a schedule of controlled enforcement for the API to help ease into full enforcement since we understand integrations can be complex. The schedule is designed to provide a minimal impact early on to allow customers to be confident there are no issues with their integration updates and provide a significant window to address if anything does come up. As time goes on, the controlled enforcement periods will increase in duration until full enforcement, which is targeted for June 2021.

During these outages, if you have not re-authenticated your integration then data will not flow from Wistia to Pardot during the controlled outage time period. You can see a full list of the scheduled outages in Pardot’s User Migration FAQ doc.

My Wistia video views aren’t tracking in Pardot

First things first, it’s important to know that only videos embedded on your website will show activity in your Pardot account. When a person watches a video from the video’s page in your Wistia account, that activity will not appear in Pardot.

If the video is embedded on your website but it’s still not showing activity in Pardot, make sure that you have Pardot’s tracking code on the page, and that your Wistia embed code has the wistia_embed class (as it should by default).

I’m only seeing page and video views, no new Prospects or Heatmaps

If you’re only seeing video views in Pardot, but no other details, this likely means that you have the Wistia Connector enabled in Pardot, but not in Wistia. In order to collect new Prospects, associate video views with prospects, and see heatmaps and conversions, you’ll need to make sure that the Wistia Connector is enabled within Pardot and that the Pardot integration is set up on the Wistia side. Lastly, in order to collect prospects, don’t forget to have Turnstile enabled on your embedded video!

Your problem isn’t covered there 👆 ?

If you’re still having trouble, our Customer Happiness team is here to help: Contact Us.

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