Pardot List Management: How to Add Prospects to a Dynamic and Static List

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There are lots of ways to add prospects to a list in Pardot, especially from Salesforce. You can add directly from a list view, campaign, or individual record page. There is also a file import feature if your list exists outside of Salesforce.

Before you can do add prospects to a list, you’ll need to create one. In order to do that, you need to learn the difference between a static and dynamic list.

When to use Static Lists in email marketing

Static lists consist of prospects that you build once and manually make changes. You can add prospects manually (import, prospect record or table view) or through automations (completion action, automation rule or engagement studio).

There are many good use cases for static lists but in my experience, they’re primarily used for one-off emails. Event invitations, special offer, etc. Static lists are useful because you can add and remove prospects NOT based off any specific criteria, but by automations.

When to use Dynamic Lists in email marketing

Dynamic lists are rule-based and automatically update when a prospect’s data changes. Generally speaking, these are used for when you plan to send out a set of emails, and want to make sure the prospect meets specific criteria at the time of the email being sent.

Often times, marketers use dynamic lists in engagement studio programs. For example, let’s say you want to send a nurture campaign only to prospects who are in the “nurture” lead stage in Salesforce. Using a dynamic list, you can guarantee that only prospects that meet your criteria will be added to the drip campaign. As time goes on, records would automatically be added and removed.

How to create a list in Pardot

As mentioned above, there are two list types in Pardot. And creating a static list is much different than creating a dynamic list. In Pardot, navigate to Marketing > Segmentation > Lists. Click on “Add List” and complete the fields displayed to generate your new list.

Ways to add prospects to a static list

Ways to add prospects to a dynamic list

Prospects are only automatically added to a dynamic list. So, if they meet the specific criteria for a list, then they’re added. Conversely, if they no longer meet the criteria, then they’re removed.

In the example above, any prospect who was active (as far as Pardot is concerned) in the past 2 days AND has a score greater than 50, will be on the list. See more examples and use cases for dynamic lists.

How to delete prospects from a list in Pardot

You can manually remove a prospect from a static list. With dynamic lists, the prospect needs to opt-out of the list or they need to no longer meet the criteria.

How to add Salesforce leads and contacts to a Pardot list

There are a couple ways to add Salesforce records to Pardot lists.

For static lists you can use the “Add to Pardot” button. Make sure to add the button on relevant list views, campaign layouts and/or lead/contact record layouts. Also important, select “Visible in CRM” on each applicable list within Pardot to insure it shows up in Salesforce.

You can also create a dynamic list, pulling in Salesforce records that are members of a specific campaign, or meet specific field requirements from Salesforce.

Relevant Documentation