In Pardot

Creative Ways to Spice Up Your Pardot Forms: Part 1

3 Mins Read

Looking for some creative ways to spice up your Pardot forms? In this post, I will show you how to implement the popular floating label technique in three easy steps. I will also show you how to turn your long drop down menus into user-friendly, searchable dropdowns.

This is part 1 of the 3 part series. Check out part 2 here.

1. Floating labels

You have probably seen this technique before. The label appears as placeholder text and when you click on the field the text moves out of the way and allows you to type. This technique can be applied to your Pardot forms in three steps.

Here’s an example of what it looks like. Click on the field to see the effect.

See the Pen Pardot form floated labels (Styled) by Jenna Molby (@jennamolby) on CodePen.



Adding this effect to your Pardot forms

Step 1: Edit your layout template

In order for this to work the labels within your forms must be placed below the fields. By default, the labels are above the form fields. To modify this, you will need to edit the layout template, click on the form tab and replace everything within the editor with the code below. 




%%form-opening-general-content%%

%%form-if-thank-you%%
	%%form-javascript-focus%%
	%%form-thank-you-content%%
	%%form-thank-you-code%%
%%form-end-if-thank-you%%

%%form-if-display-form%%

	%%form-before-form-content%%
		%%form-if-error%%
			
Please correct the errors below:

		%%form-end-if-error%%
		
		%%form-start-loop-fields%%
			

				
				%%form-field-input%%
				
					%%form-if-field-label%%
				
				%%form-end-if-field-label%%
				%%form-if-field-description%%
					%%form-field-description%%
				%%form-end-if-field-description%%
	
				
			%%form-field-if-error%%
				
%%form-field-error-message%%

			%%form-field-end-if-error%%
			

		
		%%form-end-loop-fields%%
		
		%%form-spam-trap-field%%
		
		
		
		
		

			
		

	%%form-after-form-content%%
	
%%form-end-if-display-form%%

%%form-javascript-link-target-top%%


Step 2: Add the CSS

Add the CSS below to your layout template. This will create the effect of the floating labels for all form field other than radio buttons and checkboxes.


Step 3: Add the Javascript

In addition to the CSS, this method uses some Javascript. Place the code below within your layout template as well.


The result

Here’s what the floating labels look like after implementing all the code within the layout template.

See the Pen Pardot form floated labels (Simple) by Jenna Molby (@jennamolby) on CodePen.



2. Searchable dropdowns

I came across this technique when I was registering for a webinar recently. When I went to select my Country from the drop-down, I was greeted with a search feature for the drop-down. I immediately started Googling what JavaScript plugin they were using to see if I could use it on Pardot forms. It turns out, you can and not only is it super easy to implement, but it also makes long drop-down in your Pardot forms more user-friendly.

Demo

Here is what a searchable drop down looks like in action.

See the Pen Chosen.js Demo (Single Select) with Pardot Forms by Jenna Molby (@jennamolby) on CodePen.



Adding this effect to your Pardot forms

Navigate to your form and click edit form. Go to step 3: Look and Feel, click on the below form tab, click on the HTML icon and paste this code:

Update country with the name of your drop down field. Optionally, you can update the no_results_text to what ever you want to display when the no results are found for the searched term.

Questions?

Send me a tweet @jennamolby, leave a comment below, or book a Peer Chat.

Author

I'm a Freelance Marketing Operations Consultant With 15 years of experience in Marketing Operations, I’ve worked with a wide range of tools including Salesforce, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), Marketo, and many other sales and marketing platforms. I help teams optimize their tech stacks, improve processes, and get accurate, actionable reporting. Whether it’s setting up your Marketing Automation Platform, building Salesforce reports, managing lead lifecycles, tracking attribution, or integrating your tech stack, I ensure everything is aligned to drive real results.

52 Comments

    • Jenna Molby Post Author

      Hi Jaco, You’re welcome! This is the intended behaviour for picklists since they don’t allow placeholder text.

  2. Tim Reply

    Hi Jenna, this is super helpful thank you for sharing! I do have a question… how do you make your submit button full width and centered?

    • Jenna Molby Post Author

      Hi Tim, You’re welcome! Here’s how you center the submit button

      #pardot-form p.submit {
      margin-left:0;
      text-align:center;
      }

      and here’s how you make it full width

      #pardot-form p.submit input {
      width:100%;
      }

  3. K L Reply

    Hi there! Thanks for the great content – more than one of your articles has been extremely helpful in setting up Pardot for the first time. For this guide, I was able to get the floating labels, but my labels don’t move up like yours when the user types into the field. They just stay there, over the typed text. Any idea what’s going on? I checked for conflicting css and am not coming across any, but I may be looking in the wrong place. Thanks!

    • Jenna Molby Post Author

      Hello! So happy you find my content helpful :). If the labels aren’t moving there might be an issue with the Javascript rather than the CSS. Send me an email with the link to your form and I can take a look.

    • Jenna Molby Post Author

      Hi Will, I haven’t tried combining them myself, but it still should work. Send me the link to your page and I can take a look for you.

    • Steve

      I’m getting an issue trying to combine them too.
      The textarea field seems to break everything, if I remove it everything is fine.

      any help would be greatly appreciated.

      Steve

    • Jenna Molby Post Author

      Hi Steve, Send me the link to your form and I can take a look.

  5. Mandy Reply

    Hi Jenna,

    I have a question, for the searchable dropdown field, is it only applicable for State/Country, or it can be used anywhere?

    Thanks

    Mandy

    • Jenna Molby Post Author

      Hi Mandy, It can be used for any dropdown. All you have to do is modify the Javascript to include the proper field name. Cheers, Jenna

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