How does Pardot Track Visitors? Implementing the Tracking Code on your Website
A website can track your activity (and improve performance) through the use of cookies, which are small files given unique IDs that are stored on your computer browser. In Pardot’s case, administrators place a tracking code on their website and then visitor activity and behavior is logged, using cookies.
How Does Pardot Track Visitors
While browsing a site with the tracking code, Pardot is logging all pageview activity including session duration, pages viewed, time of first page viewed, time of last page viewed, source and hostname. Additionally, any interaction with Pardot assets is recorded, like filling out a form, clicking a custom redirect, or opening an email.
All of this information can be found in two places:
- on the individual Prospect record
- or by navigating to Prospects > Visitors and viewing unassociated website visitors activity.
An important distinction to keep in mind is the difference between a visitor and a prospect. A visitor is unknown, meaning they haven’t provided their email address yet, while a prospect is a record in your Pardot database, with a known email address. Activity that occurs while a visitor will still be logged to the prospect when converted. Meaning, even all activity someone conducted as a visitor will be stored on the newly created prospect.
Where Do I Find the Pardot Tracking Code?
Tracking codes are actually tied to Pardot campaigns. Each campaign has a unique tracking code that tracks visitor and prospect activity. Navigate to Marketing > Campaigns and select the “View Tracking Code” button.
Then, in your HTML code past the tracking code just before the closing body tag.
Reasons Why You Should Put the Pardot Website Tracking Code on Every Webpage
As a data-driven marketer, having tracking enabled on every webpage by default is what should be striven for. Here are a few more reasons why…
- Page Actions – An under-utilized feature in Pardot that relies on the tracking code. In a classic example, if you included a page action on your companies pricing page, you could then use completion actions to add prospects to a targeted list for specific outreach.
- Individualized tracking of every webpage – With a tool like Google Analytics, you’re able to view every pageview on your site. Likewise, if you put the Pardot tracking code on every webpage, you can get an idea of WHO exactly was visiting those pages.
- Accurate Visitor Reporting – The Visitors and Prospect Page View Activity Report both show activity gathered from the tracking code. Without all pages being tracked, the reports are showing an incomplete dataset.
Enforce Browser Do-Not-Track Settings
Browsers with ‘Do Not Track’ turned on don’t allow third parties to capture activities on one site and use them on another. Since Pardot’s tracking code is first party, it doesn’t honor do-not-track settings by default. That said, you can change this functionality in your account settings.
When turned on, pageviews, form and landing page views, file downloads and custom redirect clicks will not be tracked while form submissions, email opens and clicks are all still tracked.
To enable, all you need to do is go to the ‘Account’ page and click edit. Navigate to the ‘Do Not Track (DNT)’ section and select Enabled.
Relevant Documentation
- Knowledge Base: