Datorama 101: Built for Marketers

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This is a podcast episode titled, Datorama 101: Built for Marketers. The summary for this episode is: <p>Learn all about the platform designed for marketers. In this episode of In the Clouds, hosts Bobby Tichy and Cole Fisher invite Lev’s Technical Specialist Olivia Miller on the show to discuss all things Datorama. Olivia played an active role in Lev recently being named the number one Datorama Partner last year by Salesforce and is here to share her thoughts on this marketer friendly tool. In this podcast they will cover: 1. The functions of Datorama 2. Things to keep in mind when implementing Datorama 3. How Datorama complements and compares to Tableau 4. How the standard Marketing Cloud connector and Lev’s customized connector can be utilized 5. When it is appropriate to use Data Lake, Datorama’s recent addition 6. Customer Examples And as always, stay tuned for the completely unrelated section at the end to wrap up!</p>
What is Datorama?
01:17 MIN
Datorama Vs Tableau
02:23 MIN
Implementing Datorama
03:04 MIN
Data Lake vs. Data Warehouse
02:15 MIN

Announcer: Welcome to the In The Clouds podcast. In The Clouds is a Marketing Cloud podcast powered by Lev, the most influential marketing- focused Salesforce consultancy in the world. Lev is customer experience- obsessed, and podcast hosts Bobby Tichy and Cole Fisher have partnered with some of the world's most well- known brands to help them master meaningful, one- on- one connections with their customers. In this podcast, they'll combine strategy and deep technical expertise to share best practices, how- to's, and real- life use cases and solutions for the world's top brands using Salesforce products today.

Bobby Tichy: Welcome to the In The Clouds podcast. This is Bobby Tichy alongside Cole Fisher, and we are joined today by Olivia Miller, a Solution Architect here at Lev who focuses on Datorama. And today, we're going to jump into all things Datorama. We'll go through a high- level overview of what it is and what it isn't, main use cases, talk about the differences between Datorama and Tableau, as well as what it looks like to actually implement this solution as well. And then we'll carve things off with a couple of sample customers and how they're using Datorama as well. But Olivia, if you wouldn't mind first just introducing yourself and telling us a little bit more about you?

Olivia Miller: Sure. Thanks for having me. My name is Olivia. I'm a Solution Architect at Lev, a part of the Emerging Services group, so my focus is on Datorama, and now Audience Studio as well. And yeah, I'm happy to be here, happy to talk about a great platform such as Datorama, which is the correct pronunciation, I might add.

Bobby Tichy: It's not Data-rama or Da-da-rama or anything like that?

Olivia Miller: No. I've heard many, many other words combining with Datorama as well, but just Datorama, that's it.

Bobby Tichy: Awesome.

Cole Fisher: inaudible was the original Latin pronunciation many, many years ago, right?

Olivia Miller: Exactly.

Bobby Tichy: I love that the unspoken language had a previous interpretation. So, just to give you guys a little bit of background, like Olivia mentioned, she's on the Emerging Services team here at Lev, which focuses on all new Salesforce products like Datorama and Audience Studio. We were recently named the number one Datorama Partner for Salesforce for last year. And we also recently were the first partner to receive our Audience Studio accreditation as well. So, something that we're really investing in is not only what Salesforce is currently doing, but also as they acquire new products or launch new products, making sure that we're doing a good job of" keeping up with the Jones's," so to speak. If you wouldn't mind, Olivia, just giving us a high- level overview of Datorama for those out there that may not know anything about it, or may just be hearing about it for maybe the second or third time.

Olivia Miller: Sure. Yeah. So, Datorama is a data analytics and visualization tool. And what makes it really special is that it's kind of designed and really advantageous for marketers. So, if you're tracking data across all different sorts of sources of platforms like Google Ads, Analytics, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, maybe you have some custom data warehouse locations or custom files that you're getting every day, Datorama is going to be the place where you can upload and connect all of that data to be able to see it in one place. So, you're eliminating the 50 tabs open in your browser, you're eliminating the 10 Excel workbooks open, and you're just logging into one platform. And being able to see that data visualized, in most cases harmonized together, which we can get into in a little bit, and with some powerful analytics tools.

Bobby Tichy: Very cool. I think one thing that, a lot of times, there's a misconception of Datorama versus Tableau, especially when we talk about visualization. And so I'd love to hear your perspective on kind of the main differences there.

Olivia Miller: Sure. Well, like I mentioned before, Datorama is really a marketing- focused tool and it has a lot of built- in API connectors to almost any marketing tool that you can think of. So, instead of having to go into Google Ads per se, and download a report, export that, and re- upload that into Datorama to get that data to show there, there's a native built- in API connection. And for many tools, there's also a standard and a custom connector for that as well. So, you're not just getting the out- of- the- box data that you might normally get from Google Ads reporting. You can customize that to the needs of your business. So, that's what I would really say makes Datorama special and a super powerful tool for marketers, specifically.

Bobby Tichy: I think the other really cool piece about it is that Datorama sits on its own. It's a cloud offering and does not require any kind of an on- prem or data warehouse solution or anything like that, as to where Tableau has to sit on top of something. So, I think, especially to your point of Olivia, of just being more marketer- friendly, Datorama provides not only the ease of use within the user interface, but also just getting it set up and integrated as well.

Cole Fisher: Yeah. I think one thing is, and I'm sure, Olivia, you've probably run into this a lot, where customers begin to see the differentiators between Datorama and Tableau with ETL capabilities, with independence and prebuilt connectors and everything like that, but a lot of customers either already have Tableau, or use Tableau for specific features within their business, and the two actually work well together and are not necessarily competitors, considering Salesforce also does own both of them, so they're really not built to be competitors. But a lot of the times inaudible use one in conjunction with the other.

Olivia Miller: Yeah, absolutely. I've worked on a few use cases where Datorama is really just empowering Tableau or supplementing it as well.

Bobby Tichy: In terms of implementation and kind of the typical timeline requirements from customers, that sort of thing, can you kind of share with us how you typically approach implementing Datorama and some things that are important to keep in mind?

Olivia Miller: Yeah. I actually think one thing that's kind of interesting to think about, is that a lot of the customers that I've worked with are actually kind of really kicking off or rolling into a new wave of marketing efforts at the same time that they've purchased and are inaudible Datorama. So, Datorama is almost this benefit to being able to see right away these insights into all these new marketing efforts that are being rolled out. So, of course, the sooner we can get access to the data sources we're going to ingest and analyze in Datorama, the better. We try and kick everything off as fast as possible right away and work with customers on that so that there's plenty of time to ingest the data, fit it to the data model of Datorama, start to get some initial analysis out there, and then kind of really begin to work on the harmonization aspect of the project [inaudible 00:08: 10 ].

Bobby Tichy: What are some typical data sources that a company might bring in through those standard connectors?

Olivia Miller: Through the standard connectors? Usually Google Ads, Google Analytics, all the social platforms, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. There are a ton of different social, other media channels that customers will want connected into their Datorama in addition to lots of unique and specific flat files to their business as well.

Cole Fisher: So, Olivia, outside of those hundred or more, hundred- plus productized connectors within Datorama, when are cases when we would need to build an integration custom or when Lev would come in and develop their own connector?

Olivia Miller: Yeah. So, Datorama can also integrate with other Salesforce products in a standard way. And also, Lev has customized that a little bit. So, there's a standard Marketing Cloud connector, which is inaudible really great way to get insight into email performance. But also, Lev has worked with customers to be able to even dig further into those insights. So we, our Emerging Services team, worked on building a customized connector, if you will, to pull specific data extensions from Marketing Cloud, as well as get insights into subscriber information. That's been really useful for customers, too.

Cole Fisher: So, for instance, if you're looking for standard email KPIs, clicks- opens, unsubscribes, that's probably all standard in your typical Marketing Cloud connector. But if you're looking for anything that's specific individual data, purchases, things like that, or even behavioral or affinity categorizations, we can actually pull that in through a custom- built integration directly from those data extensions.

Olivia Miller: Yeah. That's right.

Cole Fisher: And really quick, you mentioned, I think we mentioned data lake earlier, can you expand a little on what exactly the data lake is within Datorama?

Olivia Miller: Yeah. The data lake is very new. I believe we work with one of two customers ever that currently have it. But the data lake is really a place for granular, raw, non- aggregated data sets to live. So, the typical Datorama licensing is based on row count, and the data model really isn't built to support super- granular raw data, so that's where the data Lake is a really nice addition into being able to house that data and also write SQL queries directly off of it. So, for example, if you have a customer transaction database, the data lake would be a really good addition for you.

Bobby Tichy: In what scenario does that data lake, or should that data lake, replace someone's data warehouse or any other kind of data solution? Or, is it just another way, kind of more of an enhanced way to use Datorama?

Olivia Miller: Yeah. I think that the data lake is really just a way to leverage exactly how you're tracking paths via media channels and inaudible your customers are converting. So, you're not able to just see one kind of individualized view about customer conversion. So, if one user saw two Facebook ads, they clicked on the second one, you're tracking these creatives, and they got a Twitter ad and converted there or something. With being able to query directly off the data lake and the data that's housed there, that's how you're able to kind of visualize those conversion paths and analyze cross- channel behavior.

Bobby Tichy: And I think, too, to your point, being able to utilize a lot of this unaggregated data, so that way someone doesn't necessarily have to worry about aggregating it outside of the platform, they can do it inside of the platform.

Olivia Miller: Yeah, absolutely.

Bobby Tichy: Great. We had a couple of use cases, or I shouldn't say use cases, customers and examples we wanted to talk through. One was a solar company that we previously had talked about that is using it in conjunction with Sales Cloud. I would love to learn a little bit more about what they're doing and how they're getting benefit from Datorama.

Olivia Miller: Yeah, for sure. So, I really think one of the greatest achievements with that project with the solar company was unifying their sales and marketing data. So, like you said, they integrated Sales Cloud into Datorama as well as had insights into their marketing efforts on Google Ads and other social platforms. So, it really was a large effort of data consolidation and better understanding their return on investments. So, they could really just log into Datorama and see with those visuals how their advertising spend worth was affecting sales. I think it was the first time for them that they were able to see kind of the side- by- side overlay of their media spend and performance with sales numbers. We were able to unify their existing Salesforce reporting and also provide additional insights for them that they normally would have to wait for a period of time if they wanted a specific report on certain metrics. So, I think that was a huge achievement as well. So, we kind of provided solutions for separate and lagging data with the capabilities of Datorama.

Bobby Tichy: What's your favorite thing about Datorama?

Olivia Miller: Oh, that's a hard question. This is going to sound surface- level, but once you do kind of all the hard data work and you get everything together, Datorama has this tool called InstaBrand and you can kind of immediately bring a page of data to life with colors and whatever specific brand you want to use. It's kind of like a" wow moment" and I enjoy it.

Bobby Tichy: Oh, that's cool. So you can kind of bring in your own brand styling and guidelines and that sort of thing?

Olivia Miller: Yeah. Definitely.

Bobby Tichy: Oh, very cool.

Cole Fisher: Olivia, you like icing when you eat cake, don't you? Is that your favorite...? This is like the icing on the cake, right? That moment?

Olivia Miller: I think inaudible when I eat cake, so inaudible I'm biased.

Cole Fisher: This feels like the icing- on- the- cake moment when you see the brand wrapped and all the data wrapped in that and that brand image. Because I know what you're inaudible it's a very cool feature.

Bobby Tichy: Great. Olivia, anything else you'd like to add?

Olivia Miller: Yeah. I just think that Datorama really has sort of a message or a goal of" clicks, not code." So really, its ultimate aim is what I said before, to eliminate those multitude of tabs you have open in your browser, the multitude of Excel workbooks that you're sending and exporting from certain different data sources and being able to put all of that into one platform, into a really nice visual, as well. In a way, that's more of problem- solving and critical thinking with the right people and their experience in a sort of partnership that we have with our customers. And I really enjoy being able to leverage Datorama and help customers achieve insights into their data, as well as improvement on spending and marketing efforts in all of those important projects.

Cole Fisher: Yeah. Datorama feels like one of those products right now that is almost the quintessential quick- wins type of product, where every customer that's signing up for it is seeing some sort of immediate wins. A lot of the times that's with, whether it's media spend beyond aggregate- level reporting or insights into connecting data sources they've not had the ability to do before, and making it scalable. Like you said," clicks over code, making it easily configured and scalable. So, yeah, that's super helpful. So thanks, Olivia, for sharing that with us. I'm going to go off on the total tangent here. Olivia, we always end the podcast with a section called" completely unrelated." And now, since we're all doing this virtually and everybody's listening virtually, it makes sense to kind of go through your" social isolation survival kit." So, what are the handful of things that you guys need to navigate successfully through social isolation so you don't climb the walls?

Olivia Miller: Yeah. That's a tough question. I don't... I know-

Cole Fisher: Or, are you climbing the walls? You lost that battle already?

Olivia Miller: Only about once a week, it's not that bad yet. I like to... You know what? I'm really leveraging the privilege that I have to virtually connect with people that, if I didn't have that, I would be climbing the walls 24/ 7. Virtual FaceTimes, phone calls, all of that has been a very big blessing at this time.

Cole Fisher: Yeah, absolutely. What about you, Bobby?

Bobby Tichy: Oh, boy. I tell you, it's a mix of Netflix and food. For those who... I'm sure we've done the favorite movie at some point, but a hidden little secret is I have not seen that many movies. Cole likes to joke that I've seen seven movies. And so I saw my eighth and ninth movie this weekend. I saw Miracle, which, a bit cheesy, but a good family flick.

Cole Fisher: I'm going to disagree with you on that point. Fantastic movie.

Bobby Tichy: And then also Outbreak, which was very, considering the times, very grim, but a good ending for sure. Good ending, for sure. It was good. And also, I find myself just eating spoonfuls of peanut butter all day long. And I don't remember doing this before. How about you, Cole?

Cole Fisher: Bobby, your social isolation is inaudible just being completely pear- shaped and barely fitting through your doors, which actually isn't fair because Bobby's technically been practicing social isolation for a couple of years now, at least since he moved to Austin. It's not fair, you got a headstart on all of us.

Bobby Tichy: I knew this was coming inaudible I prepared.

Cole Fisher: You had the Y2K pantry stocked up.

Bobby Tichy: I sure do. I actually still have canned chicken from Y2K.

Cole Fisher: My survival kit, I've been trying to accumulate a home gym. I think, Olivia, you inaudible up the point of being socially active, and for me, it's very much that. If I can stay socially and physically active, that does a world of difference in making sure that I can sleep well at night and I'm not completely just a bundle of too much energy. So, I try to deplete myself socially. We got on yesterday for one of our first after- work happy hours, that was lovely. So that visual, virtual- like conferencing, Zoom or Skype or whatever, that's been super helpful. And then, as well, just literally walking outside, getting a little bit of sun if it's out and going for a jog, or trying to deplete myself somehow with a little bit of physical work. I feel like that's at least keeping my sanity up to this point.

Bobby Tichy: Yeah. I think that's the main thing. Even over the weekend, we just left for an hour just to go for a drive and grab a cup of coffee through a drive- thru or something, just to kind of put a break in the day of binging shows and food.

Cole Fisher: Yeah. I noticed one thing is I like to dabble a little humor, at least for myself, so if I am out in public and people are around me I'll start fake sneezing just to get a rise. At least I can appreciate keeping people on their toes. I got to do something to keep myself alive, right?

Bobby Tichy: Well, Olivia, thank you so much for joining us and talking about Datorama. Really, really appreciate it. And hopefully by the time this podcast airs, things have started to clear up from the pandemic. But hopefully everyone is staying safe, and we will talk to you soon. As always, you can write us at intheclouds @ levdigital. com, and we'll talk to you soon.

DESCRIPTION

Learn all about the platform designed for marketers. In this episode of In the Clouds, hosts Bobby Tichy and Cole Fisher invite Lev’s Technical Specialist Olivia Miller on the show to discuss all things Datorama. Olivia played an active role in Lev recently being named the number one Datorama Partner last year by Salesforce and is here to share her thoughts on this marketer friendly tool. In this podcast they will cover: 1. The functions of Datorama 2. Things to keep in mind when implementing Datorama 3. How Datorama complements and compares to Tableau 4. How the standard Marketing Cloud connector and Lev’s customized connector can be utilized 5. When it is appropriate to use Data Lake, Datorama’s recent addition 6. Customer Examples And as always, stay tuned for the completely unrelated section at the end to wrap up!