Turning raw data endpoints into fantastic customer experiences or effective marketing campaigns isn’t simple. Businesses require a data platform to transport data from one location to another and make it accessible to analysts, business teams, and marketing teams.
These are complicated procedures utilizing a variety of technologies, the most recent of which being reverse ETL (extract, transform, load).
In this piece, we’ll take a closer look at Reverse ETL, including why you might need it, the best tools to use, and more.
What is Reverse ETL?
Data is taken from data sources including SQL databases and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tools, converted, and put into a data warehouse in a conventional ETL process.
Fivetran, Airbyte, and more solutions make it easy for your company to develop ETL pipelines.
On the other hand, Reverse ETL enables enterprises to transport converted data from their cloud warehouse into operational business tools in the opposite direction of ETL (which enables companies to ingest data into their data warehouse for transformation and modeling).
It’s a novel way to make data actionable and address the “last mile” problem in analytics by enabling business teams to access and act on transformed data directly in the SaaS platforms they already use on a daily basis.
By democratizing data access in this way, Reverse ETL is enabling a new paradigm known as operational analytics — the practice of delivering insights from data teams to business teams in their normal workflow, so they can make better data-informed choices.
Why do you need Reverse ETL?
The most typical applications of data stored in warehouses are business intelligence and analytical reporting.
Using tools such as Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, and SAS Business Intelligence, businesses can create reports that provide data insights and aid in the development of large-scale organizational plans.
In the same way that reverse ETL can get your current data into the hands of operational teams such as Sales, Marketing, and Customer Support for use in day-to-day decision-making, reverse ETL also makes that data actionable.
Reverse ETL solutions sync real-time data from your data warehouse to operational tools such as CRM, Support Apps, Project Management Apps, and Marketing Apps, ensuring that your workers are always up-to-date and prepared to act.
Here are a few instances of how Operational Analytics can benefit various business groups:
- Operational Analytics allows marketers to design customized marketing programs. Rather than sharing a single campaign with all users, campaigns based on Sales, Support, and Product data can be created for each user individually depending on their needs.
- Product Teams can recognize at-risk customers by integrating real-time product usage data with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools. A method can be put up to warn teams when consumption falls below a given threshold, allowing the Sales Team to take action to prevent the customer from departing.
- Customers can be seen in a uniform way across all systems, which helps sales and customer service teams. They gain access to a current list of each customer’s Lifetime Value, Product Qualified Lead (PQL) and Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) information, Customer Health, and other information that can be utilized to plan future initiatives.
Best Reverse ETL Tools
If you’re new to Operational Analytics and the reverse ETL bubble, you’ll probably stumble and consider a lot before deciding on your top pick.
To assist you in making an informed decision, we’ve compiled a list of our top selections for the finest Reverse ETL tools on the market:
1. Grouparoo
Grouparoo is a real-time data migration platform that allows enterprises to migrate data between their data warehouses or databases and Cloud-based operational tools.
One feature that distinguishes Grouparoo from other products is that it provides a free, open-source Community Edition.
This implies that enterprises can customize the code to match their use cases and requirements. While Grouparoo is great for reverse ETL, it only has a few sources and destinations.
Data from five data warehouses (Snowflake, Postgres, MySQL, Redshift, and BigQuery) can only be moved to a limited number of destinations, including Marketo, Facebook, and MailChimp. It is, however, free and effective.
Pros
- It is Open-source
- Runs that have been pre-planned.
- It’s always free to use the private cloud/community edition.
- Allows local and private clouds to be deployed for testing and production.
- Allows for the usage of sources apart from a data warehouse.
- The number of sources and destinations is unrestricted.
Cons
- Only the free Community edition has ticket-based assistance.
- There are fewer sources and destinations, but they are expanding (29 at the time of writing).
- Enterprise UI is a user-friendly setup that you pay for. Otherwise, the Command Line Interface is an alternative (CLI)
Pricing
You can start using the platform with its community edition, which is free for everyone and is open-source too. It also offers premium editions, which start from $150/month.
2. Integrate.io
Whether you want to run a typical ETL or reverse this process to make data more operational, Integrate.io’s super-simplified point-and-click user interface makes data pipeline-building simple.
With pre-built connections that transport data between warehouses and SaaS apps, this low-code/no-code solution makes operational analytics a considerably more enticing notion.
Integrate.io’s sheer number of connectors is mind-boggling, but the platform also gets high marks for scalability and security.
You can move large amounts of data from a warehouse to a SaaS platform for operational analytics while staying compliant with data governance laws such as HIPAA, GDPR, and the CCPA.
Pros
- Excellent, prompt, and responsive customer service. Sandbox is available for free for an endless amount of time.
- The user interface is fantastic. Unlike other business ETL solutions, every functionality and usability has been simplified.
- It’s a great technique to quickly integrate data from many sources into a warehouse.
- The plugins, as well as using the API to start jobs. Connecting to various sources and integrating them into a single data source.
Cons
- Error logs aren’t always helpful.
- Long waits for assistance from support
Pricing
You can try the platform for 7-days, no credit card is required. For its pricing, you directly have to contact sales.
3. Census
Census is a platform for operational analytics. It’s also one of the first companies to provide reverse ETL as a service. Canva, DigitalOcean, and Loom are among their clientele.
It’s now a fully functional tool with several integrations (41 to be exact, including all major data warehouses and sources). Census works with the data infrastructure you already have in place.
This means you won’t have to spend any more money or time setting up new gear.
Census is the go-to solution for data-savvy organizations like dbt, Fivetran, Mode, and Metabase, so it’s no surprise. It’s the most dependable and effective at dealing with large amounts of data (while providing a single source of truth).
Pros
- Begin with a single data warehouse and ten destination fields for free.
- Synchronizations that are close to real-time;
- Runs that are scheduled.
- Quick processing and synchronization.
- Alerts for sync failures and extensive logs.
Cons
- SQL expertise is required for querying sources.
- There are fewer sources and destinations, but they are expanding (49 at the time of writing).
Pricing
You can test the platform with its trail pack. It offers paid plans which start from $300/month.
4. Polytomic
Polytomic is yet another lucrative reverse ETL solution that enables organizations to quickly build a live view of all customer data in Marketo, Salesforce, HubSpot, and other business platforms.
It’s a no-code solution, so it’s ideal for folks who want to learn about operational analytics but don’t have any data engineering background.
This application is especially useful for collaborative projects since it has superb one-click functionality that allows you to invite other persons into the platform to handle reverse ETL activities.
It has fewer clients and integrations because it is still a young company, but it does provide Airtable, Azure, and MongoDB as sources.
Pros
- It sends out sync failure notifications.
- Runs that are scheduled.
- Data source searching with no or little code.
- Smart job queuing allows for minimal API utilization.
- Allow Webhooks to be used as a destination for data sent to custom applications you’ve created.
Cons
- There are fewer sources and destinations.
- There is no free trial or information on the basic plan on their website.
Pricing
The pricing starts at $500/month, but for more details, you have to contact the vendor.
5. Hightouch
Hightouch is a reverse ETL technology that enables enterprises to easily sync data from data warehouses to Customer-facing Team Applications.
Customer Relationship Management Apps (CRMs), Marketing, and Support solutions such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Gainsight, Zendesk, and others are included.
It also enables companies to use their data warehouse as an operational and analytics center.
This enables them to use the analysis to power their operational procedures. It is another reverse ETL SaaS service.
The Audience Builder is what distinguishes Hightouch. It essentially transforms your data warehouse into a Customer Data Platform (CDP).
Pros
- The debugger is in real-time.
- Builder of an audience.
- Near-real-time synchronization.
- Sync failure notifications
- Runs that are scheduled.
- There are now 93 connections and the number is rising.
Cons
- Email assistance is only available for the free plan.
- Querying sources necessitates SQL understanding.
- Depending on the plan, there are just a few options for locations.
Pricing
You can start using the platform with its individual plan, which is free forever. It also offers paid plans which start from $350/month.
Conclusion
Organizations can use ETL technologies to streamline and maintain the data pipelining process, data governance, and daily monitoring of these operations.
The choice to utilize the correct ETL tool for your business is dependent on a number of variables, including the organization’s use cases, connectivity to data sources, skill sets required to operate the program, capacity to give role-based access, and data governance, budget, and so on.
Leave a Reply