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Fivetran and dbt merged in October 2025 to create a unified ELT platform. The combined entity handles data ingestion and transformation at scale — but it's built for general data engineering teams, not marketing. Improvado is purpose-built for marketing: 500+ pre-built connectors, marketing-specific transformations, and governance frameworks that most general ELT platforms don't address. Same starting point — extraction from marketing platforms — but entirely different destinations.
Fivetran + dbt vs Improvado: What You're Actually Choosing Between
The Fivetran + dbt platform is a general-purpose ELT solution. It syncs data from 700+ sources to your warehouse, then uses dbt for SQL-based transformations. It's schema-consistent, reliable, and integrates well with modern data stacks. But it's not marketing-native. There's no pre-built marketing data model, no campaign-level governance, and no self-serve interface for marketers who don't write SQL.
Improvado is an end-to-end marketing analytics platform. It extracts data from 500+ marketing sources, applies marketing-specific transformations (campaign mapping, UTM normalization, cross-channel attribution), enforces governance rules before data hits your warehouse, and delivers insights through no-code dashboards or your existing BI tools. One platform handles the full marketing data lifecycle — extraction, transformation, governance, and activation.
If your data engineering team already owns transformation in dbt and you only need reliable extraction, Fivetran makes sense. If marketing needs to operate the pipeline without engineering tickets, Improvado eliminates that dependency.
Quick Verdict: When Each Platform Wins
Feature Comparison: Fivetran + dbt vs Improvado
Below is a side-by-side breakdown of how the platforms compare across the decision criteria that matter most for marketing data operations.
| Capability | Improvado | Fivetran + dbt |
|---|---|---|
| Platform Type | Full-stack marketing analytics platform (extraction, transformation, governance, activation) | General ELT platform (extraction via Fivetran, transformation via dbt Cloud) |
| Data Connectors | 500+ marketing-specific connectors; custom connectors built in 2–4 weeks (SLA) | 700+ general connectors; fewer marketing-specific sources; custom connector SDKs require maintenance |
| Data Transformation | No-code transformation framework + AI mapping; pre-built Marketing Cloud Data Model (MCDM) | Post-load transformations in dbt (SQL required); no pre-built marketing models |
| Marketing Data Governance | 250+ pre-built governance rules; pre-launch budget validation; 2-year historical data preservation | Basic schema normalization; governance rules must be coded in dbt |
| Self-Serve for Marketers | No-code interface for campaign mapping, metric creation, dashboard building | Requires SQL proficiency (dbt) or reliance on data engineering team |
| Data Destinations | BYOW (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift), managed warehouse, native Snowflake app | BYOW (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, others); no managed warehouse option |
| Enterprise Compliance | SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, GDPR certified; single vendor for compliance review | SOC 2 certified (Fivetran); dbt Cloud compliance separate; two-vendor review process |
| Support Model | Dedicated CSM + professional services included; proactive monitoring | Documentation-driven; support tickets; steeper learning curve for dbt |
| Pricing Model | Custom, outcome-based; includes services and custom connectors | MAR-based (Monthly Active Rows) for Fivetran + separate dbt Cloud subscription; costs scale with data volume |
What Sets Improvado Apart: 4 Areas Where the Platforms Diverge
The feature table shows what each platform does. This section explains what those differences mean when your marketing team is trying to answer a business question at 4 p.m. on a Friday.
Marketing Teams Operate the Pipeline — No Engineering Bottleneck
Fivetran + dbt puts transformation in the hands of data engineers. Marketing teams request a new metric, and it becomes a dbt ticket. The engineer writes SQL, tests the model, deploys it to production, and then the marketer gets the dashboard update. That loop works fine when you have one request per quarter. It breaks when you have fifteen requests per week.
Improvado's no-code transformation framework lets marketers build their own metrics, map campaign IDs, normalize UTM parameters, and create cross-channel dashboards without touching SQL. Engineers still have full SQL access when they need it — the platform doesn't lock them out — but routine marketing requests never hit the engineering queue.
The result: your marketing ops team operates at the speed of the business, not at the speed of the sprint backlog.
Marketing Data Governance — Built In, Not Bolted On
Fivetran handles schema drift and ensures data arrives in your warehouse reliably. That's table-level governance. It doesn't know if your Facebook Ads campaign is misconfigured, if your Google Ads budget just exceeded the monthly cap, or if two campaigns are using conflicting UTM parameters that will break attribution.
Improvado's Marketing Data Governance layer includes 250+ pre-built rules that validate data quality at the campaign level before it hits your warehouse. Budget pacing alerts catch overspend before the month closes. UTM normalization fixes inconsistent parameter formatting automatically. Cross-channel campaign mapping ensures that "Q1_Brand_Awareness" in Facebook and "q1-brand-awareness" in Google Ads are recognized as the same campaign.
When a new campaign launches, Improvado validates the setup against your governance rules and flags issues before you've spent a dollar. Fivetran + dbt extracts whatever you've configured — validation happens downstream, after the data's already in the warehouse, which means you're fixing problems in hindsight.
“If we don't trust the data, the agency won’t trust the reports and won't give them to the client. They’ll start pulling data manually to Excel and spend a lot of time comparing platform numbers to reports. With Improvado, we now trust the data. If anything is wrong, it’s how someone on the team is viewing it, not the data itself. It’s 99.9% accurate.”
One Platform, One Vendor, One Compliance Review
The Fivetran + dbt merger unified two tools, but it's still a multi-tool architecture. Fivetran handles extraction. DBT handles transformation. You bring your own warehouse. You connect your own BI tool. Each layer has its own configuration, its own monitoring, its own failure modes. When something breaks, you're diagnosing across three or four systems.
Improvado is a single platform. Extraction, transformation, governance, and data delivery happen in one environment with integrated observability. You have one alerting system, one support contact, one vendor relationship. When your security team needs SOC 2 documentation, you hand them one packet — not three.
For enterprises, vendor consolidation isn't just operational efficiency. It's risk reduction. Every vendor relationship is a compliance surface area, a contract negotiation, a renewal cycle. Fewer vendors means fewer points of failure.
Implementation: Weeks, Not Quarters
Fivetran's setup is straightforward — connect your sources, configure your warehouse, start syncing. The complexity comes when you realize that raw marketing data isn't analysis-ready. You still need to build dbt models for campaign mapping, attribution logic, and cross-channel aggregation. If your team doesn't already have dbt expertise, that's a multi-month learning curve.
Improvado includes professional services and a dedicated customer success manager as part of the platform, not as an add-on. The onboarding process includes connector configuration, pre-built data model deployment, governance rule setup, and dashboard creation. Most customers are live within 2–4 weeks, not 2–4 months.
The difference isn't just speed. It's certainty. Improvado's implementation is a defined deliverable. Fivetran + dbt's implementation is as complex as your team makes it — and without a dedicated CSM, you're figuring that out on your own.
When to Choose Fivetran + dbt
Fivetran + dbt is the right choice in specific scenarios. Here's when the platform's strengths align with your needs:
- Your data engineering team already owns transformation in dbt. If you have dbt models for your entire data stack and marketing is just one more source, adding Fivetran makes sense. You're not introducing a new workflow — you're expanding an existing one.
- You need a general-purpose ELT solution, not a marketing-specific platform. Fivetran's 700+ connectors include SaaS tools, databases, event streams, and business applications. If marketing data is 20% of your pipeline and you need one tool for everything, Fivetran's breadth wins.
- You have the SQL expertise to build marketing-specific models yourself. Campaign attribution, cross-channel aggregation, UTM normalization — all of that is possible in dbt. It's just custom work. If your team has the capacity and expertise, you can build it.
- You prefer a documentation-driven support model. Fivetran's documentation is strong, and many teams prefer self-service troubleshooting over managed support. If that's your culture, Fivetran fits.
- Your marketing data governance requirements are minimal. If you're not running multi-region campaigns with complex budget rules and compliance constraints, you may not need Improvado's governance layer. Fivetran's schema consistency might be sufficient.
What Customers Say About Improvado
Improvado powers marketing analytics for over 1,000 brands and agencies. Here's what they've experienced after switching from general ELT platforms to a marketing-native solution.
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.”
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.”
These outcomes aren't anomalies. When marketing teams control their own data pipeline, they spend less time waiting for engineering and more time answering the questions that actually drive business decisions.
Pricing Comparison: Fivetran + dbt vs Improvado
Both platforms use custom pricing, but the cost drivers are different — and so are the hidden expenses.
Fivetran + dbt Pricing
Fivetran uses a consumption-based pricing model measured by Monthly Active Rows (MAR). You pay for the volume of data processed each month. As your marketing campaigns scale and data volume grows, your Fivetran bill grows proportionally. DBT Cloud is billed separately, with pricing based on the number of developers and compute usage.
Hidden costs: If you need custom connectors, you'll build them using Fivetran's SDK — which means ongoing engineering maintenance. If your dbt models become complex, you'll need additional compute resources in dbt Cloud. If you don't have dbt expertise in-house, you'll need to hire or train for it.
G2 reviews frequently cite Fivetran's pricing as steep, especially for teams with high data volumes or low-MAR connectors. The model is transparent, but it scales aggressively.
Improvado Pricing
Improvado uses outcome-based pricing tailored to your data volume, connector count, and support requirements. The pricing includes professional services, dedicated customer success management, and custom connector builds (2–4 week SLA) — services that Fivetran charges extra for or doesn't offer.
Total cost of ownership is often lower with Improvado for marketing-specific use cases because you're not paying separately for dbt Cloud, you're not maintaining custom connectors yourself, and you're not hiring additional headcount to manage the transformation layer.
For detailed Improvado pricing information, visit the pricing page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main difference between Fivetran + dbt and Improvado?
Fivetran + dbt is a general-purpose ELT platform that extracts data from 700+ sources and requires dbt (SQL) for transformation. Improvado is a marketing-specific platform that handles extraction, no-code transformation, governance, and activation in one environment — built for marketers, not data engineers.
Does Improvado integrate with dbt?
Yes. Improvado can deliver transformed data to your warehouse where dbt models can consume it, or you can use Improvado's pre-built Marketing Cloud Data Model (MCDM) and skip the custom dbt layer entirely. Many customers use Improvado for marketing-specific transformations and dbt for broader data stack modeling.
How long does it take to migrate from Fivetran to Improvado?
Most implementations take 2–4 weeks. Improvado's professional services team handles connector configuration, data model deployment, and governance setup. If you're migrating from Fivetran, the timeline depends on how many custom dbt models you've built — Improvado can replicate most of that logic in the no-code transformation framework.
Can Improvado handle non-marketing data sources?
Improvado is optimized for marketing and sales data. While it can connect to some non-marketing sources (CRMs, product analytics tools), it's not designed to replace a general ELT platform for your entire data stack. If you need both marketing and non-marketing pipelines, many teams use Improvado for marketing and a separate ELT tool for everything else.
Does Fivetran + dbt offer marketing-specific data governance?
No. Fivetran ensures schema consistency at the table level, but it doesn't validate campaign budgets, normalize UTM parameters, or enforce cross-channel naming conventions. You can build those rules in dbt, but they're custom SQL logic — not pre-built governance frameworks.
Which platform is better for agencies managing multiple clients?
Improvado is purpose-built for agencies. It supports unlimited accounts per connector (one Facebook Ads connector can pull data from 50 client accounts), includes agency-specific governance rules, and offers white-label reporting. Fivetran charges per connector instance, which becomes expensive when managing multiple clients.
When does Fivetran + dbt make more sense than Improvado?
Fivetran + dbt wins when your data engineering team already owns transformation in dbt, you need a general-purpose ELT solution for non-marketing data, and you have the SQL expertise to build marketing-specific models yourself. It's a scalable, reliable platform — just not marketing-native.
What kind of support does Improvado provide compared to Fivetran?
Improvado includes a dedicated customer success manager and professional services as part of the platform. Fivetran offers documentation and support tickets. For teams that need proactive monitoring, hands-on implementation help, or fast custom connector builds, Improvado's support model is materially different.
Final Recommendation: Pick the Platform That Fits Your Team
The honest answer is that both platforms work. Fivetran + dbt is a strong, reliable ELT solution with a massive connector library and tight integration with modern data stacks. If your data engineering team already lives in dbt and you only need the extraction layer, it's a logical choice.
But if marketing teams are waiting weeks for engineering to add a new metric, if you're spending hours manually mapping campaigns across platforms, if your governance rules are scattered across dbt models and Google Sheets — those are the friction points Improvado eliminates.
The question isn't which platform is better. The question is: does your team need a general ELT tool, or does marketing need a purpose-built platform that handles the full pipeline without engineering dependency?
FAQ
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