Concept
Pardot has always had the ability to add and remove prospects from lists dynamically via automation rules and completion actions, and today we’re extending that functionality by allowing Professional Edition and higher users to create dynamic rule-based lists as well.
Rule-based dynamic lists behave very similarly to existing lists, including those constructed with automation rules and completion actions. Just as you’d expect, these rule-based lists can be used as recipients or suppression lists for an email newsletter, to seed a drip nurturing program, or used in further automation or segmentation criteria (“prospect list is…”). The rule builder interface should be very similar to anyone who has ever created an automation or segmentation – all the criteria and match options are available here as well.
Differences between rules-based lists and lists
However, there are some things you can’t do with rule-based lists. You can’t manually add or remove prospects – instead, their membership gets refreshed on a regular interval a few times per hour. Because of this, you won’t see dynamic lists as an option in dropdowns in the import screen, data tables, or anywhere else throughout Pardot where you manually control list membership.
Overall, rule-based lists will help streamline workflow (you no longer have to create a list AND automation rules) and clean up and clarify list usage and automation rules by allowing the rules to be co-located on the list rather than spread across two different places in Pardot.
Professional Edition accounts can have up to 50 of these active at once, while Enterprise and Ultimate Edition accounts do not have a limit.
How can I see when a list was last refreshed?
We display the Last refreshed time in both the lists table (if you filter the view to Dynamic lists) or if you click on the name of the one of the dynamic lists.
Can you provide additional specifics on how dynamic lists behave.
1) Are the locked during the send when they are used in a mailing?
2) Can you force an update before the send?
3) Is there any indicator as to the last time the list was auto updated?
We are really looking forward to putting this capability into practice for our primary lists.
Thanks!
Mike
Great questions! I will add the info and images for these to the post above.
1. The lists are not locked in per se. They will continuously update so your final distribution could be different if you do something that causes a change in who should be on the list.
2. You can force an update if there hasn’t been a recent one. If you click on a dynamic list, you can then click the refresh now link to force an update. The link will be displayed next to the Last refreshed time.
3. You can see this either in the list table (when you change the view to Dynamic lists) or by clicking on a list and looking at the Last refreshed time.
It’s also important to note that regular automation rules can only be processed once, therefore you can’t cycle people in and out, and back in and back out, of a list using only two rules. My understanding is that these dynamic lists don’t have that limitation. Which. Is. AWESOME!
That’s right — automation can only affect a prospect once, for safety.
Dynamic lists are always running such that the lists are always refreshed. That is a big difference, and I agree, they are awesome!
The real power of these dynamic lists comes when you start nesting them within each other. For instance, instead of repeating the same criteria in each list – you can make lists a subset of each other.
Very cool stuff.