August 2023 Summaries

We’re excited to announce that Census has successfully achieved the Google Cloud Ready - Cloud SQL Designation for Cloud SQL, a fully managed relational database service for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server, as part of Google Cloud’s technology partners. This designation recognizes Census's platform has met a core set of functional and interoperability requirements when integrating with Cloud SQL and refined documentation for ease of onboarding by mutual customers. Earning this designation enables customers to discover and have confidence that the Census platform works well with Cloud SQL or saves time evaluating them if not already used, while also providing opportunities for collaboration with Google Cloud partner engineering and Cloud SQL teams to develop joint roadmaps.

Personalization is key to effective and memorable marketing, but achieving gold-caliber personalization requires fresh and accurate data, which is where the data team comes in. In this article, we'll explore how data teams can drive revenue by supporting marketing initiatives, focusing on three key examples: segmenting users based on trial activity, personalizing a free trial report with usage data, and emailing users about upgrading just after they use a paid feature. We'll dive into a practical example of personalizing emails with product usage data using HubSpot, Snowflake, and Census, covering the setup of custom properties, creating an email with dynamic variables, setting up a sync in Census, and sending highly-personalized messaging to users based on their product usage data. By activating data in HubSpot, data teams can directly impact key business metrics and drive revenue, making their work even more valuable to the company.

You already have datasets that can drive revenue and support marketing initiatives, but they're sitting unused in your data warehouse. Unlocking this data and activating it in tools like HubSpot can help you reach the right people with the right message at the right time, driving revenue directly and justifying spend on data team personnel and tooling. By connecting user and product event data, you can personalize messaging to millions of users at once, impacting revenue directly and giving your data team a seat at the decision-making table as a strategic partner. HubSpot relies on three types of data points: people, lists, and actions taken by people, with lists being the most important for sending emails to the right people. By segmenting active and inactive users in a free trial, you can encourage upgrades and turn your data into a powerful revenue driver for your company.

TL;DR: ClickUp implemented a revolutionary approach to Google and Facebook Ads conversion tracking, cutting its Customer Acquisition Costs by 50% by leveraging its data warehouse-first strategy. This approach utilizes first-party data, which is essential for unlocking the power of marketing campaigns and driving revenue. By using a cloud data warehouse like Snowflake, ClickUp can manage audiences and ensure consistent messaging across email, ad networks, and sales touchpoints, ultimately improving Customer Acquisition Costs and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Additionally, ClickUp's use case demonstrates how to refine audience targeting and email personalization with more complete customer data, leading to better ROI marketing results.

Today, we're excited to announce even more capabilities for Census + Fivetran customers with the release of Fivetran Sync Triggers, which empower real-time use cases with data warehouse by automatically running Census syncs once Fivetran data loads are completed or when Fivetran-powered transforms finish. This feature strengthens the joint integration between Census and Fivetran, enabling their 150+ customers to power new personalized experiences with first-party data. With Fivetran Sync Triggers, teams can automate Census syncs to initiate real-time campaigns, alert sales teams, refresh lead scores, and update customer profiles, streamlining operations in today's fast-paced business world where real-time customer data drives essential decision-making. The feature is currently available for all users, offering a free onboarding and more details in the documentation.

First-party data is becoming increasingly important as third-party cookies lose their effectiveness due to changes in browser usage and emerging regulations. It allows for personalized messaging, outstanding customer experiences, and improved targeting of high-quality sales leads. By leveraging first-party data, marketers can unlock new levels of audience segmentation, improve campaign ROI, and drive revenue through more efficient sales processes and targeted marketing efforts.

Databricks has expanded its partnership with Census through the launch on Partner Connect, highlighting the importance of data activation in today's data-driven business environment. By leveraging a single source of truth in the data lakehouse, companies can build a Composable Customer Data Platform to drive more personalized experiences and improve customer conversion and retention. The partnership offers several benefits to users, including lightning-fast setup, streamlined collaboration, data consistency, and enhanced security. With Census on Databricks Partner Connect, customers can easily connect preferred data, analytics, and AI tools to the lakehouse, streamlining first-party data integration into 200+ business tools and uniting data and marketing operations around the data lakehouse.

The author is excited to return to their home city of Boston for INBOUND 2023, an annual event for data-driven marketers, and shares their enthusiasm for the city's athletic culture and fitness scene. The author highlights various scenic running routes in Boston, including the Harborwalk, Seaport → Boston Common, and Seaport → Beacon Hill, which offer stunning views of the city's historic landmarks and neighborhoods. They also recommend several gyms in the Seaport area where attendees can fit in a workout before or after the conference, including Equinox, Wave Health, SoulCycle, and Solidcore.

The author is excited to be back in their home city, Boston, for INBOUND 2023 at the Boston Convention Center and plans to explore the Seaport District's food scene while attending the conference. They share some of their favorite restaurants within walking distance or a short Uber ride from the BCEC, including Nautilus Pier 4 for seafood, Lolita Fort Point for Mexican cuisine, Strega Italiano for classic Italian dishes, Yankee Lobster for lobster rolls, and several bars and breweries in the Seaport area. The author invites attendees to join them at Census' booth #38 and encourages interested individuals to learn more about how Census can power their data-driven marketing efforts.

The retail and e-commerce industry is facing a "data deluge" due to rapid digitization, resulting in an enormous influx of customer, inventory, and other data types. This challenge is pressuring businesses, primarily due to the industry's need for more insight into customers and operations with every click, purchase, return, subscription, and review. Many growing companies are struggling to build and maintain proper in-house pipelines and infrastructure in a scalable, real-time, cost-effective manner. The pressure of rapid digitization, data maneuverability, and slowing market conditions has increased the need for operational efficiency, leading some businesses to reduce staff, limit technology procurement, and curtail data investments. To address this challenge, companies are adopting a cloud-based data warehouse solution as the central element of their Modern Data Stack (MDS), which offers advantages such as data ownership, quick value realization, streamlined synchronization, and reusability. However, implementing a successful MDS requires three critical layers: data collection, transformation, and activation. Some businesses are leveraging tools like dbt and Census to streamline their data management and activation initiatives, and companies can benefit from adopting a modern approach to data modeling with the help of skilled partners like Hiflylabs.