Claravine vs Improvado: Which Platform Is Right for Enterprise Marketing Teams? (2026)

Claravine and Improvado both address marketing data quality — but from opposite ends of the pipeline. Claravine sits at the planning stage, enforcing metadata standards and taxonomy governance before campaigns launch. Improvado operates across the entire data lifecycle: extraction from 500+ sources, transformation with marketing-specific models, governance with 250+ pre-built rules, and delivery to your BI stack. Both platforms prevent data corruption; one focuses on upfront validation, the other on end-to-end intelligence. For teams choosing between them, the deciding factor is scope: do you need metadata standardization alone, or the full marketing analytics infrastructure?

A Note on Perspective

Full disclosure: we're Improvado, and this page is written from our perspective. We've tried to represent Claravine's capabilities accurately — and where we've gotten it wrong, email us and we'll fix it. Our goal is to help you make the right call, even if that's not us.

Quick Verdict

Feature Comparison: Improvado vs Claravine

Where Improvado and Claravine Diverge

End-to-End Marketing Intelligence vs Metadata Validation Layer

The architectural difference defines everything downstream. Claravine operates at the campaign planning stage — teams input metadata (campaign names, UTM parameters, targeting criteria), the platform validates against pre-defined taxonomy rules, and outputs clean metadata for use in ad platforms and analytics tools. It prevents naming errors before campaigns launch. Improvado operates across the entire data lifecycle: it extracts raw performance data from 500+ sources (DV360, Trade Desk, Meta, Google Ads, Salesforce, Adobe Analytics), transforms it using marketing-specific data models, applies governance rules to detect budget overruns and performance anomalies in real time, and delivers unified datasets to your BI stack. Claravine ensures your campaign metadata is correct; Improvado ensures your entire marketing data pipeline — from source to dashboard — is automated, governed, and analysis-ready.

This isn't a criticism of Claravine's approach. Metadata validation is foundational work — bad naming conventions corrupt attribution, prevent cross-channel reporting, and create compliance nightmares. But metadata governance alone doesn't move the needle on the 27 use cases listed in your evaluation criteria. You still need separate ETL tooling to pull data from platforms, transformation infrastructure (DBT, SQL scripts, or manual CSV manipulation), a data warehouse, and BI dashboards. Claravine solves one critical piece; Improvado solves the full stack.

For enterprises managing multi-channel campaigns across regions, the difference is operational: with Claravine, your marketing ops team enforces taxonomy standards, but your data team still owns pipeline maintenance, schema changes, connector updates, and dashboard builds. With Improvado, one platform handles all of it — and when a source API changes (Search Ads 360, Meta Conversions API, Google Analytics 4), Improvado maintains backward compatibility and preserves 2 years of historical data. Your dashboards don't break. Your analysts don't lose a week rebuilding queries.

Improvado review

“Once the data's flowing and our recipes are good to go—it's just set it and forget it. We never have issues with data timing out or not populating in GBQ. We only go into the platform now to handle a backend refresh if naming conventions change or something. That's it.”

Tyler Corcoran

Real-Time Performance Governance vs Pre-Launch Validation

Claravine excels at upfront validation: before a campaign goes live, the platform checks naming conventions, validates UTM parameters, flags missing required fields, and enforces taxonomy rules. Teams catch errors in the planning phase — a campaign tagged "Q1_Promo" instead of "2026-Q1-Spring-Promo" gets flagged before spend starts. This prevents attribution breaks and keeps reporting clean. But once the campaign launches, Claravine's governance stops. It doesn't monitor budget pacing, detect CPA spikes, flag underperforming ad sets, or alert when a campaign exceeds its monthly allocation. Those are in-flight operational issues — and they require real-time monitoring, not pre-launch checks.

Improvado's Marketing Data Governance module operates across the full campaign lifecycle. Pre-launch, it validates naming conventions and taxonomy structure using 250+ pre-built rules (plus custom rules your team defines in plain English via the AI rule builder). In-flight, it monitors budget pacing against targets, triggers severity-tiered alerts when CPA exceeds thresholds or ROAS drops below benchmarks, and flags cross-platform discrepancies (e.g., Google Ads reporting 10,000 conversions but GA4 showing 8,500 for the same campaign). Post-campaign, it surfaces compliance trends over time, per-brand governance scores, and audit trails showing when violations were detected and resolved. The difference: Claravine tells you if a campaign name is wrong before launch; Improvado tells you if the campaign is burning budget without results while it's running — and gives you the data to intervene before the damage compounds.

This matters most for agencies managing client budgets and brands scaling campaigns across markets. A naming convention error costs analyst time. A budget pacing failure costs $50K in wasted spend. Improvado prevents both.

Marketing-Specific Data Models vs Metadata Mapping

Transformation determines whether your team spends time cleaning data or analyzing it. Claravine doesn't transform data — it validates and maps metadata fields (e.g., campaign name, UTM source, targeting parameter) to ensure consistency across platforms. Once metadata is validated, teams export it for use in downstream systems. The actual performance data (impressions, clicks, conversions, revenue) still requires extraction via separate ETL tools, transformation in DBT or SQL scripts, and loading into a warehouse. Claravine standardizes the labels; it doesn't unify the metrics.

Improvado applies marketing-specific transformation logic via the Marketing Cloud Data Model (MCDM) — pre-built schemas that unify metrics across platforms without manual mapping. Example: Facebook calls it "link clicks," Google Ads calls it "clicks," LinkedIn calls it "clicks (all)." MCDM normalizes all three to a single "clicks" metric, deduplicates cross-platform conversions using attribution windows, and maps cost-per-conversion consistently whether the source is Meta, DV360, or Trade Desk. This happens automatically — no SQL required for marketers, full SQL access available for engineers who want custom models. The result: your analysts open Looker or Tableau and see unified, analysis-ready data. They don't spend 40 hours per week reconciling field names, cleaning duplicates, or debugging schema mismatches.

For teams without dedicated data engineering resources, this is the deciding factor. Claravine assumes you have transformation infrastructure in place. Improvado provides it.

Improvado review

"Now, we don't have to involve our technical team in the reporting part at all. Improvado saves about 90 hours per week and allows us to focus on data analysis rather than routine data aggregation, normalization, and formatting."

Jeff Lee

500+ Connectors with Custom SLA vs 30+ Marketing Platforms

Connector breadth determines whether you can unify all your data or only some of it. Claravine supports 30+ integrations, primarily mainstream marketing platforms (Google Ads, Meta, Adobe Analytics, Snapchat, TikTok, Pinterest) and data warehouses (Snowflake, Azure Blob, Google Cloud). For brands running campaigns exclusively on those channels, coverage is sufficient. But modern marketing stacks include long-tail platforms — DV360 for programmatic, Trade Desk for CTV, AppsFlyer for mobile attribution, Salesforce for CRM, Adjust for app analytics, Branch for deep linking. Claravine doesn't support most of these natively. Teams either abandon those sources in reporting or build custom connectors themselves — which reintroduces the engineering dependency Claravine is meant to eliminate.

Improvado supports 500+ pre-built connectors, covering not just ad platforms but CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot), analytics (GA4, Adobe Analytics, Mixpanel), attribution (AppsFlyer, Adjust, Branch), commerce (Shopify, Amazon Seller Central), and offline sources (call tracking, in-store POS). If a source isn't pre-built, Improvado commits to a 2–4 week SLA for custom connector development — and maintains it as a managed service, so API changes don't break your pipeline. You don't hire engineers to babysit connectors. You don't lose historical data when Meta deprecates an endpoint. Improvado handles it.

This gap shows up most painfully when scaling. Adding one new platform to Claravine's 30-connector library might be fine. Adding ten — DV360, Trade Desk, Roku Ads, Criteo, Taboola, Outbrain, Bing Ads, Reddit Ads, Quora Ads, Nextdoor Ads — means either living with incomplete data or building and maintaining custom integrations in-house. Agencies managing diverse client stacks hit this wall fast.

Improvado review

“We needed to add platforms quickly, and Improvado offered a clear path forward. Once we integrated with it, we could skip the learning curve for complex systems like Google Ad Manager. Instead of investing months to understand each API, we could add them directly to our portfolio and see the data almost immediately.”

Josh Allen

Senior Software Engineer

Dedicated CSM + Professional Services vs Knowledge Base Support

Enterprise marketing operations don't run on ticket queues. When a dashboard breaks two hours before a board meeting, you need a human who knows your pipeline, has access to your configuration, and can diagnose the issue in minutes — not a support article or a 24-hour SLA. Claravine provides Knowledge Base resources and Claravine Academy training content; user reviews praise responsiveness, but the service model isn't detailed. For straightforward use cases (validating campaign metadata, enforcing taxonomy), self-service support works. For complex implementations (multi-brand governance rules, per-client budget pacing, custom validation logic), you're solving problems alone or waiting in a queue.

Improvado includes a dedicated Customer Success Manager and Professional Services team as part of the subscription — not an upsell. Your CSM attends weekly syncs, prioritizes feature requests with product, escalates bugs directly to engineering, and handles onboarding for new team members. Professional Services builds custom dashboards, writes SQL transformations for edge cases, and trains your analysts on advanced reporting techniques. When Search Ads 360 deprecates an API endpoint, you get a proactive email with a timeline and backward-compatible solution — you don't discover the break when your CMO asks why yesterday's data is missing.

This service model costs more upfront. It also prevents the operational debt that kills marketing analytics programs: unmaintained connectors, dashboards nobody trusts, analysts who spend more time firefighting than analyzing. For agencies managing multiple clients or enterprises with distributed marketing teams, the CSM isn't a luxury — it's the reason adoption succeeds and ROI compounds.

Improvado review

“We have weekly meetings with Improvado representative, and that really helps get things done quicker. We can raise a ticket, ask them to look at it, and they’ll push it forward if needed.”

Quinny Li

When to Choose Claravine

Claravine is the right choice if:

• Your team already has a functioning ETL pipeline (Fivetran, Stitch, custom-built) and a data warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift) — you're only solving for metadata standardization and taxonomy governance, not the full data operations layer.
• Your campaigns are concentrated on Claravine's 30 supported platforms (Google Ads, Meta, Adobe, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest) and you don't need long-tail integrations like DV360, Trade Desk, AppsFlyer, or Adjust.
• Your governance requirements focus on pre-launch validation (naming conventions, UTM structure, required fields) and you don't need real-time budget pacing alerts, performance threshold monitoring, or in-flight anomaly detection.
• Your data engineering team owns transformation logic in DBT or SQL and prefers to keep that layer in-house — you want metadata validation as a separate upstream service, not bundled into the ETL platform.
• You're a smaller team with a limited budget and need a focused tool for campaign taxonomy enforcement, not a full-stack marketing intelligence platform.

What Improvado Customers Say

Agencies and enterprise marketing teams choose Improvado when metadata validation alone isn't enough — they need the full pipeline automated, governed, and delivering insights without engineering bottlenecks.

Case study

At Booyah Advertising, the full transition took approximately two quarters. The Analytics three-person team handled the core migration tasks, yet the entire agency participated in QA efforts. In total, they migrated around 500 to 600 reports. Read full case study →

“We looked into quite a few solutions in the market. Funnel, TopClick, Supermetrics... all those popular marketing tools. But after the first few calls with Improvado, we knew we'd made our decision. Their team demonstrated a deep understanding of our challenges and presented a clear path to resolving them.”

Quinny Li

Booyah Advertising

Case study

At CV, More importantly, the team no longer faces the concern of escalating fees as they scale. Read full case study →

“Without Improvado, scaling to even half our current level would have meant spending all my time updating dashboards and realigning data with complex data workarounds. Now, I run a single query and save an hour's work.”

Beau Payne

CV

Case study

At Signal Theory, for most clients, the reporting process is now fully automated, taking 30 minutes to an hour at most. For clients with unique data sources requiring manual input, the system is flexible enough to accommodate specific needs without compromising overall efficiency. Read full case study →

“Reports that used to take hours now only take about 30 minutes. We're reporting for significantly more clients, even though it is only being handled by a single person. That's been huge for us.”

Shayna Tyler

Analyst, Signal Theory

Improvado is rated as a High Performer on G2 across multiple categories, including ETL Tools, Marketing Analytics, and Marketing Data Aggregation. Customers consistently highlight the platform's connector breadth, transformation depth, and dedicated support model as differentiators. For agencies managing diverse client stacks and enterprises scaling multi-channel campaigns, the ability to unify 500+ sources under one governed pipeline — without hiring data engineers — is the deciding factor.

Pricing Comparison

Both Improvado and Claravine use tiered subscription models with custom quotes based on data volume, connectors, and features. Neither publishes specific per-tier pricing publicly — both require a sales conversation to scope the deployment.

Claravine pricing structure: Three tiers (Essential, Premium, Premium Plus) with unlimited users. Pricing scales based on row limits, number of templates, and connector count. Essential includes moderate row limits and base templates with core validation features. Premium adds approval workflows, Data Standards Dashboard, platform API access, and branded Academy content. Premium Plus offers the highest row limits, bi-directional connectors, and full automation. Custom packages and professional services (onboarding, consulting, SSO, dedicated managers) are available as add-ons. As of February 2026, no public per-tier pricing is listed — request a quote directly.

Improvado pricing structure: Three tiers (Growth, Advanced, Enterprise) based on data volume, number of sources, and feature access. All tiers include unlimited users, dedicated CSM, and Professional Services. Pricing is outcome-based — cost correlates with the number of connectors, monthly data volume, and complexity of transformation requirements. Custom connector builds (2–4 week SLA) and advanced features like Marketing Data Governance and AI Agent are available in higher tiers. Contact Improvado for a quote tailored to your stack.

Total cost of ownership considerations: Claravine's sticker price may appear lower for metadata-only use cases, but total cost includes the ETL tool you still need (Fivetran, Stitch, custom-built connectors), transformation infrastructure (DBT Cloud, Snowflake compute for SQL scripts, or engineering time), and BI tool licenses (Looker, Tableau, Power BI). Claravine solves one layer; you pay for the rest separately. Improvado's pricing is higher upfront but includes extraction, transformation, governance, and BI delivery in one platform — eliminating tool sprawl and reducing engineering overhead. For teams evaluating TCO over 36 months, the question is: what does it cost to maintain three separate systems (ETL + transformation + governance) versus one managed platform?

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main difference between Improvado and Claravine?

Claravine is a metadata standards and taxonomy governance platform focused on validating campaign naming conventions, UTM parameters, and compliance rules before campaigns launch. Improvado is an end-to-end marketing intelligence platform that extracts data from 500+ sources, transforms it using marketing-specific data models, governs it with 250+ rules (including real-time budget pacing and performance alerts), and delivers unified datasets to any BI tool. Claravine solves upfront validation; Improvado solves the full data pipeline from source to insight.

Does Claravine replace an ETL tool like Improvado?

No. Claravine validates and standardizes metadata (campaign names, tags, parameters) but doesn't extract performance data from ad platforms, transform metrics, or load data into warehouses. You still need a separate ETL tool (Fivetran, Stitch, or custom-built connectors) to pull data from Google Ads, Meta, DV360, etc., and a transformation layer (DBT, SQL scripts) to unify metrics. Claravine and ETL tools serve different stages of the pipeline — Claravine operates at planning/validation, ETL operates at extraction/loading.

Can Improvado enforce taxonomy and naming conventions like Claravine?

Yes. Improvado's Marketing Data Governance module includes 250+ pre-built validation rules covering naming conventions, UTM structure, required fields, and taxonomy compliance. You can create custom rules in plain English using the AI rule builder, enforce per-brand or per-client governance standards, and receive severity-tiered alerts when violations occur. Improvado handles pre-launch validation (like Claravine) plus in-flight monitoring (budget pacing, performance thresholds, cross-platform sync checks) — governance across the full campaign lifecycle, not just the planning stage.

How long does it take to migrate from Claravine to Improvado?

Migration depends on the complexity of your data stack and governance rules. For a typical enterprise deployment (50+ data sources, custom dashboards, multi-brand governance), onboarding takes 4–8 weeks with Improvado's Professional Services team. This includes connector setup, transformation logic mapping, governance rule migration, and BI dashboard builds. If you're currently using Claravine for metadata validation and a separate ETL tool for data extraction, Improvado consolidates both — the migration timeline reflects replacing two systems with one, not just switching vendors.

Does Improvado support the same connectors as Claravine?

Yes, and significantly more. Claravine supports 30+ integrations (Google Ads, Meta, Adobe, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Snowflake, Azure Blob). Improvado supports 500+ connectors, including all of Claravine's mainstream platforms plus long-tail sources like DV360, Trade Desk, AppsFlyer, Adjust, Branch, Salesforce, HubSpot, Shopify, Amazon Seller Central, and hundreds of others. If a connector isn't pre-built, Improvado commits to a 2–4 week SLA for custom connector development and maintains it as a managed service.

What kind of support does Improvado provide compared to Claravine?

Improvado includes a dedicated Customer Success Manager and Professional Services team as part of the subscription. Your CSM attends weekly syncs, escalates bugs to engineering, and handles onboarding for new team members. Professional Services builds custom dashboards, writes SQL transformations, and trains analysts. Claravine provides Knowledge Base resources and Claravine Academy content; user reviews praise responsiveness, but the service model centers on self-service and ticket-based support. For complex implementations, Improvado's CSM model reduces time-to-value and prevents operational debt.

Can I use Claravine and Improvado together?

Technically yes, but it's redundant. If you're using Claravine to validate campaign metadata and then exporting to a separate ETL tool, you could replace the ETL tool with Improvado and keep Claravine for upfront taxonomy governance. However, Improvado's governance module already covers naming validation, UTM checks, and compliance rules — running both platforms means paying for overlapping capabilities. Most teams choose one: Claravine if they only need metadata validation and already have ETL infrastructure, or Improvado if they want the full stack (extraction, transformation, governance, BI delivery) in one platform.

When does Claravine make more sense than Improvado?

Claravine makes sense if your team already has a functioning data warehouse and ETL pipeline, your campaigns run on Claravine's 30 supported platforms, and your governance needs focus exclusively on pre-launch metadata validation — you don't need real-time budget alerts, performance monitoring, or transformation logic. It's a lighter-weight solution for metadata-only use cases. Improvado makes sense when you need the full marketing data operations layer: extraction from 500+ sources, transformation with no-code + SQL flexibility, governance across the entire campaign lifecycle, and delivery to any BI tool — all managed by one platform with dedicated support.

Making the Right Choice

The decision between Claravine and Improvado comes down to scope. If your team needs metadata validation at the planning stage and you already have ETL, transformation, and BI infrastructure in place, Claravine solves a focused, well-defined problem. If your team is drowning in connector maintenance, spending 40 hours per week reconciling metrics across platforms, or losing budget to undetected pacing failures — you don't need a metadata validator. You need the full marketing intelligence stack: extraction, transformation, governance, and insights in one governed environment.

Improvado eliminates the tool sprawl. One platform replaces your ETL tool, your transformation layer, your governance patchwork, and your manual reporting processes. Your analysts stop firefighting data quality issues and start answering business questions. Your engineering team stops babysitting connectors and starts building product. Your CMO stops wondering if the dashboard numbers are accurate and starts making decisions with confidence.

That's the difference between upfront validation and end-to-end intelligence.