Migrate your Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement data

Prospects are the core object in Account Engagement, analogous to Contacts in Salesforce CRM. Each Prospect is uniquely identified by email address and has a prospect_id that differs from the Salesforce Contact ID. We preserve the Pardot prospect_id as a custom field during migration and reconcile duplicates by email match. Active automations referencing a Prospect's internal ID may break post-migration and must be rebuilt at the destination.

Custom Fields are first-class objects in the Pardot v5 API with full CRUD support. We export all field definitions (label, type, associated tags) and their values per Prospect record. Custom field labels that conflict with destination standard fields require rename mapping before import.

Account Engagement does not have a native Account object — Prospects are associated to Accounts via the Salesforce CRM sync. When migrating from a non-Salesforce source, we create or match Account records first and then link Prospects to them. Multi-BU setups require Account visibility to be scoped per Business Unit.

Prospects sync bidirectionally to Salesforce Contacts via the Pardot-Salesforce Connector. We map Prospect records to existing Contacts by email address, creating net-new Contacts when no match exists. Prospect-specific fields like Grading and Scoring do not map natively to Contact fields and require custom field creation in Salesforce.

Opportunities are not created or managed inside Account Engagement — they live in Salesforce CRM. We preserve Opportunity associations by mapping the linked Salesforce Opportunity ID stored on the Prospect record. When the destination CRM does not have the referenced Opportunity, we flag the orphaned link and leave the Opportunity field blank.

Account Engagement Campaigns track marketing initiative performance and link to Salesforce Campaigns. We export Campaign metadata and Prospect-level activity data (opens, clicks, form submissions) per campaign. Campaign influence attribution data may not fully map to destination CRM models and is flagged for review.

Pardot Users (Assigned Users / Owners) correspond to Salesforce Users who are responsible for Prospect records. We map Pardot user_id to Salesforce user_id, flagging cases where the destination org does not have a matching User record. Unmatched Owners default to the admin user or are left blank per customer preference.

Engagement Programs and Automation Rules in Account Engagement reference Prospects, Campaigns, Forms, and Landing Pages by internal Pardot IDs. These IDs do not exist in the destination system, making direct import of automation logic impossible. We do not migrate automation rules. We document all existing program structures and rebuild them at the destination as part of post-migration services.

Forms capture Prospect data and are tied to Landing Pages and Custom Fields. We export form definitions and field mappings. Form IDs and handler URLs are internal to Account Engagement and must be recreated at the destination. Form submission history is migrated as Prospect Activity records where the destination supports it.

Landing Pages are static web assets hosted within or pointing to Account Engagement. We export page content, layouts, and associated form bindings. Because Landing Pages reference internal form IDs, they must be recreated at the destination and re-linked to Forms. External tracking domains require DNS reconfiguration at the new host.

Tags are used for Prospect segmentation and can be attached to Custom Fields and Prospects via the API. We export tag definitions and their assignments per Prospect. Tags merge cleanly into destination segmentation systems that support flat label lists.

Scoring Categories define named buckets for categorising prospect scores (e.g., behavioural score vs. demographic score). We export category definitions and their weight rules. Scoring logic is recalculated at the destination because scores are derived from Prospect activity that may not be fully replicated.

Static Lists and Dynamic Lists segment Prospects for targeted campaigns. We export list memberships as Prospect records per list. Dynamic lists with rule-based criteria are not migratable as active lists — we export the member snapshot and recommend rebuilding the rules at the destination.

Email Templates contain HTML content, dynamic content blocks, and merge fields. We export template HTML and metadata. Merge fields reference Pardot field names (e.g., %%first_name%%) which differ from Salesforce merge field syntax (e.g., {{Lead.FirstName}}). We rewrite merge field syntax as part of the template migration.

Business Units separate data, users, and branding within a single Account Engagement account. We migrate Prospect records scoped to the selected Business Unit. Business Unit configuration (IP warming, sender profiles) requires manual setup at the destination. Multi-BU accounts require each BU to be migrated separately.