Pardot Users Can use Einstein for Send Time Optimization

Americans who work on a computer spend on average over 9 hours sitting in front of the computer working, checking emails, and navigating in and out of various applications they need to complete their jobs. With the shift to more and more employees working from home and the addition of the cell phone allowing people to take their emails and work with them everywhere, how as marketers, are we supposed to know when the best time is to send an email? We can no longer assume all of our prospects are 9 – 5 employees taking a lunch break from 12 – 1, we can no longer assume an email sent at 9:05am will be at the top of our prospects inbox, and we can no longer make a general assumption about the best send time for all of our prospects. It needs to be done on an individual basis. So how can we find the right send times for so many prospects that are all working during different times and checking emails from morning to night? How do we take into consideration that some employees are now monitoring email 24/7 from their phones? If you’re sending emails with Pardot, then you can leverage Einstein Send Time Optimization. Email Send Time Optimization leverages Einstein to determine whats the best time to send your prospects an email in order to try to achieve the highest engagement with them. This long-awaited feature is easy to use and is only available in certain editions of Pardot. Using this feature, along with some best practices for email deliverability in Pardot, you should see a difference in your engagement.

What Pardot Editions can use Einstein Send Time Optimization?

The Einstein Send Time Optimization feature is available to Pardot users who are in Lightning Experience only, and users must be using Pardot’s new email experience. It is available to Pardot Advanced and Premium editions with Salesforce Enterprise, Performance, or Unlimited editions. So if you’re still on the legacy editions or working in Pardot Classic you won’t be able to access this feature. 

How Do You Enable Einstein Send Time Optimization?

First, navigate to the setup cog on the top right of your screen, then click on the marketing set up from the drop-down.

Then, from the Quick Find box, search for Einstein, then select “Einstein Send Time Optimization” and then click activate.

Note: Once you activate the feature you’ll need to wait approximately 72 hours to use the optimized sending option prior to sending emails.

How Do You Use Einstein Send Time Optimization?

Once you’ve created your email template and you’re ready to hit the send button, you’ll be given the option to either send now, send later, or use the Einstein Optimized send. Click on the Einstein Optimized send. Then you’ll be prompted to enter the send time and date. Secondly, you’ll be prompted to enter a window, in which Einstein should send emails. So what’s the earliest that Einstein can begin sending this email, and within what number of hours should all emails be sent? Your sending window can be as short as 3 hours and as long as 7 days. Tip: Toggle over the I in the second box, to see a cheat sheet that shows you how many hours equate to each number of days, for instance, it will show you 24 hours is one day, 48 hours is two days, and etc.

Note: You’ll also want to make sure you allow for an additional hour for Einstein to calculate the sending times, of if you’re looking to start sending immediately, you’ll be related by approximately one hour.

Lastly, if you have a hard deadline that all of your emails must be deployed by, the last box on the bottom, indicates that all of your emails will be deployed by this date and time. This is helpful when you have time-sensitive information that you need to make sure your prospects get before a specific date and time, or if you’re sending an event invitation, you want to make sure your prospects receive prior to the start date.

How Do You See Your Results?

Navigate your email send report, like you normally would to see your email performance. You’ll notice there is a sending time range field, that shows you the time frame you’ve allowed Einstein to deliver the email during an optimized time. You can review the results as the emails are being deployed, and you can see the percentage of emails sent versus the percentage of emails still waiting to be sent because their Einstein optimized send time has not been reached.
From this section of the report, you can click through the number of queued emails to see who has not yet received the email. You can even see what time they’re scheduled to see the email. This is great for the sales team if they’re looking to follow up on an email that is scheduled using Einstein Send Time Optimization. They can take a look through the prospects to make sure they have received the email prior to reaching out, and of course, with Pardot, they’ll be able to see whether or not the email has been opened, if a link has been clicked, and etc.

This long-awaited feature will help marketers achieve higher open rates and hopefully overall engagement with their prospects. Did you know on average approximately 7% of all emails end up in the spam folder? Check out our post on best practices for better email deliverability in Pardot.

If you need assistance optimizing your Pardot emails or just want to talk Pardot, please feel free to reach out to us.