Pardot Updates! Default Domain Changes – Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

The Problem

You may have noticed a large pink banner on your Dashboard in Pardot Marketing Cloud Account Engagement recently, and wondered what it is. There is a change to the system in regards to how the default domain of go.pardot.com works. Certain content is restricted when served over the default go.pardot.com domain.

Where You Might Be Affected

As of Jan 31, 2023, all orgs have made the switch and you may be seeing performance issues with your forms or landing pages. Here are the scenarios where you may be affected:

1. If you are using a standalone form(meaning prospects view and submit the Form using the direct asset URL Link) 
2. If you are using a Pardot iFrame Form and serving over the default go.pardot.com- then Javascript is no longer able to make external callouts
   • Some areas where Javascript no longer works with the go.pardot.com domain
     • If you’ve ever used Javascript on an iFrame form to resize it within your website
     • If you use Recaptcha on your Pardot forms
3. You may also experience issues in the following areas:
   • JavaScript callouts on form handlers
   • JavaScript callouts on dynamic content
   • JavaScript callouts on legacy features such as personalization and content blocks served directly via iFrame
   • Landing pages can also no longer be served using the iFrame and the go.pardot.com domain

If you are using a Pardot form in a Pardot landing page, the functionality is unaffected and should function normally.

If you already have a tracker domain in place, and it’s set as the current primary tracker domain in your org, then you are likely unaffected by the change. The only caveat to that could be older/legacy assets where you’d still need to follow some of the steps below to update on your website.

The Solution

If you are a part of the scenarios above and have been affected, here’s what you do:

1. Open the usage report

The Usage report allows you to view affected content and filter in several ways(Date, Type, Uses iFrame, Has Referrer URL). Note- This report only identifies content that a Prospect has interacted with recently. It’s not showing you everything in your org.

2. If you are strictly using go.pardot.com to serve your form and landing page content, it’s time to set up your own branded tracker domain. A tracker domain in MCAE(Pardot) essentially puts a “Mask” over your URL, and also ties in any MCAE content with your own Website URL to help keep consistent branding. If we used Google as our company example here, a common tracker domain setup for a company like Google would be something like go.google.com OR search.google.com. See this help doc for information on setting up your domain.

3. Once you have a verified Tracker Domain, make it the primary in your account, and ensure that all of the forms and landing pages on your website are now associated with the current primary.

4. For any existing forms hosted on your website via the iFrame code, you can follow these steps to update. 

1. Go to your webpage
2. Right click and select “View Page Source”
3. Next type in Command + F(on a Mac) or Control + F(on a PC) and search for go.pardot.com
4. Once you have located the Iframe code, swap out go.pardot.com with the new Tracker Domain and double-check that the rest of the URL hash matches what is showing on the Form inside of MCAE

5. For any future content created, this won’t be an issue as your iFrame code will pull the correct code from your tracker domain from the get go!

So there you have it! We hope you’ve found this helpful, but we understand that some of these topics can be complex to master. If you need any assistance at all, please reach out to Plative. We are here to partner with you in your Pardot – Marketing Cloud Account Engagement  journey! 🤝