Migrating from Oracle to Pardot had the potential to break Minnesota State Mankato’s campus email system
Thanks to RGE Studio, it didn’t. By using RGE Studio alongside Pardot, the team cut costs, shortened deployment time, and kept 40+ departments running without interruption.
Minnesota State University, Mankato has consistently ranked among the top colleges in the State of Minnesota. Since its founding in 1868, the university has expanded to offer over 130 undergraduate and more than 80 graduate programs.
With 40+ departments managing their own communications, email was a fragmented, hand-coded bottleneck. Starting in 2021, the team streamlined this process by adding RGE Studio (formerly known as Beefree) on top of Oracle for their email campaigns.
But when rising Oracle licensing costs led to a migration to Salesforce Account Engagement (Pardot), the team faced two real questions: how bumpy would the migration be? And should they use the native Pardot email builder over RGE Studio?
Before the migration: a fragmented, hand-coded mess
To understand why the Pardot migration went as smoothly as it did, it helps to know what came before it.
Each of the university’s 40+ departments and programs was using its own system to design and send emails. The result was fragmented communication, inconsistent branding, and a workflow built around hand-coding in Dreamweaver.
“It was tough to regulate branding. Everyone was doing their own thing. And we were living in HTML.”
Kyle Snay, CRM Administrator, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Departments would send over content, which then had to be coded, tested, and reworked endlessly before it could render correctly in their CRM. There was no image hosting, limited personalization, and features like responsive design or buttons were out of reach. Getting a basic email out the door took days.
When Kyle Snay, CRM Administrator at Mankato, discovered RGE Studio (formerly Beefree) in 2021, the goal was straightforward: replace tools that posed security risks and eliminate the HTML bottleneck. What happened next went well beyond that.
“As we got deeper into using RGE Studio, we realized its capabilities went far beyond what we originally expected.”
Kyle Snay, CRM Administrator, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Within a few months, Mankato saw a return on their investment. RGE Studio became the standard email design platform across the entire university. Which meant that when the Pardot migration came, there was a real question to answer.
The migration question: do we even keep RGE Studio?
Rising Oracle licensing costs prompted the move to Salesforce Account Engagement (Pardot). The timeline was tight: they had to be off one platform and onto another with no room for a gradual transition.
Pardot has its own email design interface. The assumption going in was that it might cover what the team needed, which raised an obvious question about RGE Studio.
“We were wondering: what are we going to do with RGE Studio? Do we need to get rid of it because we can do it all in Salesforce?”
Kyle Snay, CRM Administrator, Minnesota State University, Mankato
That assumption didn’t survive contact with Pardot’s native builder.
“We quickly realized that [compared to Pardot’s native editor] RGE Studio was a much more powerful tool. It wasn’t just easier to use; we had more options.”
Kyle Snay, CRM Administrator, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Rather than being sentimental, the decision to keep RGE Studio was immediately practical.
What the Pardot workflow actually looks like
With RGE Studio staying in the stack, the team built a clean handoff process. Departments design their emails in RGE Studio using on-brand, customizable templates. Once ready, they notify Kyle and the CRM team, who move the design into Pardot by simply copying and pasting the HTML. The transfer takes under 10 seconds.
For teams using Pardot, RGE Studio offers two options: copy & paste HTML, or plug in a native Pardot connector. The choice is up to each team's preference and workflow, with full freedom to switch between the two options at any time.
Simplifying their usage of merge tags was a massive workflow win for the Mankato team. In Oracle, personalization tokens such as first name, cohort, and unsubscribe links were only available within the CRM. With RGE Studio, Kyle can embed them directly into the email template before it ever touches Pardot. For a CRM administrator managing dozens of departments, this removes the risk of a merge tag being missed at deployment.
“It’s almost like RGE Studio became the source document for those email designs. We don’t have to worry about missing a merge tag as a CRM administrator. It shortened our implementation time.”
Kyle Snay, CRM Administrator, Minnesota State University, Mankato
The cost case for keeping RGE Studio in the Pardot stack
Beyond the workflow gains, the decision to keep RGE Studio solved a cost problem the team hadn’t fully anticipated before the migration.
With 40+ departments actively designing emails, moving every user from RGE Studio to Pardot would have required paying for Pardot user accounts across the organization. By keeping those users in RGE Studio and limiting Pardot access to the CRM team, Mankato avoided that cost entirely.
“We’re going to save a lot of money. We don’t need our RGE Studio users taking up Salesforce user accounts, which would get pretty expensive.”
Kyle Snay, CRM Administrator, Minnesota State University, Mankato
In the fiscal year following the migration, the university sent emails designed in RGE Studio to over 280 lists, reaching millions of contacts, all delivered through Salesforce Account Engagement (Pardot).
Stand out features
How 44 departments stay aligned without a Salesforce seat
Intuitive enough for student workers and still powerful enough for a CRM admin managing millions of contacts.
- Different teams, same result: Some push directly to Pardot through the native connector; others export clean HTML and paste it in. Either way, they're done in under 10 seconds.
- Merge tags defined at the account level: Kyle's team copies the Pardot merge tag syntax once and saves it in RGE Studio. After that, it lives in a dropdown that users pull in, where nothing gets added at the last minute or missed at deployment. When the HTML moves into Pardot, the merge tags move with it—which is one less thing to QA and speeds up time from build to send.
- Easy onboarding for all skill levels: With users ranging from student workers to communications directors, the tool had to be intuitive for everyone. “When we onboard a new user, the process is almost as easy as using the tool,” said Kyle. Most users are up and running confidently in under 45 minutes.
- 50% faster approvals: Student workers build emails within pre-set frameworks in RGE Studio. Supervisors review and approve in the same platform without switching tools or extra steps. The built-in process keeps everything accountable and streamlined.
- Organized workspace for every department: With 44 departments across the University, Workspaces in RGE Studio lets Kyle group users by department, each with its own project folders, approved color palette, and font set baked in.
- Brand consistency at scale: Style Settings lock university-approved colors, fonts, and design elements at the workspace level, so every department is choosing from the official palette and stays on-brand without marketing oversight or a Salesforce seat.
- Set it and forget it: Saved Rows mean Kyle only has to build reusable elements once. “If we have a logo combo that appears in every footer, we just save it once and drag it in whenever we need it,” he said.
Kyle Snay
CRM Administrator
Kyle Snay
CRM Administrator
Kyle Snay
CRM Administrator
The proof is in the process
For Minnesota State Mankato, adopting RGE Studio didn’t just solve the email creation problem. When the Pardot migration came, the investment they’d already made paid a second dividend: a workflow that moved with them, no rebuild required.
“RGE Studio has evolved with us and provided solutions as new challenges come.”
Kyle Snay, CRM Administrator, Minnesota State University, Mankato
For universities and organizations on Salesforce Account Engagement (Pardot) considering RGE Studio: the case isn’t just that it works alongside Pardot. It’s that it makes the whole migration and the workflow that follows it easier to run.
“Whether you’re a department without design expertise or a pro looking to move fast, RGE Studio just makes your job better. It’s rewarding when someone comes to me with a pain point, and I can show them how quickly and easily we can solve it together. It genuinely makes their day better.”
Kyle Snay, CRM Administrator, Minnesota State University, Mankato
If your organization uses Pardot and you're thinking of adding a smarter layer to your email campaigns, you can try RGE Studio for free and discover what it can do for your workflow - right now.
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