Based on several implementations of Marketing Cloud Next (Growth & Advanced) — sometimes alongside Pardot, sometimes as a full replacement — here are my key takeaways from the field.
When not to switch
Well, if one or more feature in the following list is vital to your day to day work, it may be wise to keep Pardot, as there are no equivalent in Marketing Cloud Next (Growth & Advanced) so far. They may be announced, but as of 2025, April 23rd, they are not available:
- Business Units
- Progressive Profiling
- Form fields pre-filling (Edit 04/11/2025, fields can now be populated using URL parameters)
- Form Handlers (Edit 04/11/2025, available since Winter ’26)
- Person Accounts
- Dedicated sending IP
- Dynamic Sender (like from: Assigned Rep)
- Dedicated IP
- 3rd Party Integrations
- UTMs are stored but need to be leveraged (Edit 04/11/2025, added in Data Cloud Connector)
The Summer ’25 release states that you no longer need a full Salesforce License to access Marketing Cloud Next (Growth & Advanced), Identity License are now supported, and you can now edit your Emails in HTML or import HTML from another builder. So, those two previous limitations no longer exist.
So you can switch, but should you?
Let’s say the previous list is not a big deal for you, and you want to try the following Marketing Cloud Next (Growth & Advanced) exclusive features:
- Multichannel Messaging (SMS / WhatsApp)
- Path Experiment (elaborated A/B tests where variations are full experiences)
- Data Cloud Segmentation (from the Builder or from an Einstein Prompt)
- Whole Campaigns made by Agentforce
- Repeaters in Emails to display a dynamic list of things
From what I’ve seen so far, the learning curve is not something to be neglected. Some things you used to do with your eyes closed may need to be learned from scratch again, think Flows or Calculated Insights.
Also, even though Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud Next (Growth & Advanced) are made easier and easier to install, both setup need to be made, and I can’t stress enough how a Salesforce Partner might be beneficial to avoid common gotchas.
What to do, then?
This is a question I’ve heard many times recently, from Salesforce AEs, from Consultants, Partners and from Pardot users.
My advice, is to keep Pardot for a while, but start right now using Marketing Cloud Next (Growth & Advanced).
Why, you ask? Well, first because as a Pardot user, if you install Data Cloud and add some credits (Salesforce Foundations can help for this, but sizing Data Cloud credits and add-ons with your usual Salesforce contact point is usually a better call), you have free access to Marketing Cloud Next (Growth & Advanced).
And, Data Cloud and Pardot are good friends, and that is too often underestimated. Pardot Engagement Data (Email link clicks, form submission, etc.) are natively ingested into Data Cloud, which is a good way to discover Calculated Insights and Scoring in Data Cloud. Plus, your Data Cloud Segments can be sent to Pardot as Dynamic Lists, as well as to Ads Audiences (out of the box: Google, Meta, etc.)
Also, by installing Marketing Cloud Next (Growth & Advanced) now, you will understand how Data Cloud consumption model works, and you will be able to start thinking how you could translate that Pardot concept into Marketing Cloud Next (here is a Pardot to MCC translation guide to get started), at your own pace.
Finally, the main Artificial Intelligence efforts are put into Marketing Cloud Next (Growth & Advanced) and not Pardot (even though there are some generative features available), so start using them, without pressure, so you become a master, again at you own pace 😎.
Summary
By keeping Pardot for some time, and starting using Marketing Cloud Next (Growth & Advanced) right now, you create a playground to learn that new tool and its new mechanisms, no rush, at your own pace, and you will be able to plan a replacement wisely if you wish.