How to Pass Your Pardot Specialist Certification

Posted on 2020-03-24 02:36:18

I joined Pracedo in August 2019 as a marketing apprentice, focusing on content marketing. I had very little knowledge of Salesforce and had never heard of Pardot before starting. On my first day I sat in on a demonstration run by one of our consultants, I was impressed by how user-friendly it was and at the number of functions it offered. Soon after that, I decided I wanted to work towards my Pardot Specialist Certification.

Useful LinksA Salesforce Trailmix

I started my independent learning by going through the Trailmix. This is a training programme designed for getting you prepared for the exam and includes Trailheads and Salesforce written content. I’d recommend it as the best place to start.

Trailhead

Each Trailhead is a short lesson complete with a mini quiz to test your knowledge at the end.

Pardot Cookies Info

The links take you through to a page full of information based on a topic. This one is based on Pardot Cookies. They are a little wordy but very informative. You can find a page like this for most Pardot topics.

 

A screenshot of a tutorial looking at Automation vs Segmentation Rules which are part of the Pardot Specialist Certification

Salesforce also produces some really good video content. I’ve linked one which talks about the differences between Automation and Segmentation Rules

 

Pardot Specialist Certification Exam Guide

The exam guide can also be helpful as it gives you a detailed list of what will come up in the exam and how much each area is worth. This is especially useful when you want to check what areas you might still need to cover or what you should prioritise.

Preparation
Pracedo’s marketing manager, Safiyyah Gareeboo, organised internal Pardot training sessions for a few of us to work toward gaining our certification, which I attended.

The internal training was immensely helpful! The sessions were a masterclass in Pardot, which gave me the skills to be able to build landing pages, emails and forms (all processes which I ended up using regularly in my role.) You can still learn these skills, through practising in a training environment or watching tutorials online, if you can’t attend a session in person.

Once I felt confident using Pardot, I booked my exam so that I had something to work towards. I often find that giving myself a deadline is motivating.

As well as using all of the resources listed above and attending the weekly internal training I also used a few different mock test websites. I wouldn’t recommend a specific site as after a little while you get used to the questions and need to swap to a different one. You can find lots of community-made tests on Quizlet or individuals blogs.

The Exam
Heading to my first Salesforce exam, I left plenty of time arriving a little early. The questions were harder in places than I expected, but my revision had adequately prepared me for what was coming. I can’t stress how important it is to read all the questions thoroughly as they can be quite complicated and the differences in the answers can be tiny. If like me you finish in good time make sure you go back through every question, checking your responses before submitting the test.

You need 72% to pass which is about 44 correct answers. I got 81% which resulted in me passing first time!

Now you can be immensely proud of your hard work. Make sure to share your accomplishment on Linkedin and tag me so we can all share in the success!

Pardot Specialist Certification Certificate