Which tool to centralise your data
Comparing advertising spend to a real margin assumes both figures sit in the same place. That is what these tools are for, and it is the foundation of any serious profit-based management.
As long as spend lives at Google and margin in the business system, nobody can settle anything. Discussions go round in circles, each side with its own spreadsheet extract, and arbitration falls back on revenue for want of anything better. Managing on revenue when margins vary by product means funding your least profitable sales.
How to choose
Do you already have a data warehouse?
These tools pour data somewhere. If no warehouse exists yet, that is the project to open first, otherwise you are buying a pipe with no tank.
Volume-based billing: careful
The dominant model charges for rows processed. One chatty source connected out of curiosity can double the invoice. Only connect what you will genuinely use.
Who maintains the connectors?
An advertising platform changes its programming interface twice a year. With a hosted tool, the publisher fixes it. With software installed at your end, your team does, and that is a real recurring cost.
Where does the data live, under which rules?
Depending on your sector, the warehouse location and the provider’s commitments are not negotiable. Ask at the start, not at go-live.
What UNYX does
We build the collection and maintain it. That is what lets us compare advertising spend against real margin rather than an estimate.
The tools for this job
- Reference
Fivetran
Automatic data loading into your warehouse.
Discover - Reference
Airbyte
Open data connectors, hostable on your own servers.
Discover Stitch
Straightforward data collection.
DiscoverHevo Data
Data collection with no development.
Discover- Large accounts
Adverity
Marketing data platform for large organisations.
Discover - Large accounts
Improvado
Large-scale marketing data aggregation.
Discover
The questions we get
Is this necessary for a mid-sized company?
Rarely at first. As long as a monthly spreadsheet reconciles spend and margin, it is enough. The need appears when the number of sources and the volume make that manual reconciliation wrong or too slow.
How is this different from a reporting tool?
The reporting tool displays. The collection tool retrieves and stores. You can report without collection, but you cannot seriously combine different sources without it.
Can we start small?
Yes, and you should: two sources, one precise question to answer, and you widen only once that first question is answered every month without intervention.