Marketing Cloud Intelligence (Datorama) vs Improvado: Choosing the Right Marketing Analytics Platform (2026)

Marketing Cloud Intelligence (formerly Datorama) and Improvado both promise to solve the problem of siloed marketing data — but they approach it from fundamentally different architectural positions. Marketing Cloud Intelligence is a reporting and dashboarding layer designed for visualization; Improvado is a full-stack platform that handles extraction, transformation, governance, and analytics in one environment. This difference determines which tool fits your organization's maturity, technical capacity, and governance requirements. Both serve large marketing teams managing multi-channel campaigns, but only one was purpose-built for the entire data pipeline without requiring engineering intervention or external tools.

Quick Verdict

Full disclosure: we're Improvado, and this page is written from our perspective. We've tried to represent Marketing Cloud Intelligence'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.

Feature Comparison: Improvado vs Marketing Cloud Intelligence

The Core Architectural Difference

Marketing Cloud Intelligence and Improvado solve different parts of the marketing data problem. Marketing Cloud Intelligence aggregates data from multiple sources into unified dashboards — it excels at visualization and reporting for teams already managing transformation elsewhere. Improvado handles the entire pipeline: extraction, transformation, governance, and visualization in one platform.

This isn't a feature gap. It's a strategic difference in scope. Marketing Cloud Intelligence assumes your organization has data engineering resources to handle ETL and transformation outside the platform. Improvado was built for marketing teams who need to own the entire data stack without engineering tickets, external dbt subscriptions, or hand-offs between systems.

For enterprise teams managing 20+ marketing platforms across regions, this architectural difference determines total cost of ownership, time to insight, and whether your marketers can self-serve analytics or remain dependent on IT.

Your Marketing Team Operates the Pipeline — No Engineering Tickets

Most marketing data stacks require three separate vendors: an extraction tool (Fivetran, Stitch), a transformation layer (dbt Cloud), and a BI tool (Tableau, Looker). Each vendor hand-off creates failure points, delays, and finger-pointing when numbers don't match. Marketing Cloud Intelligence eliminates the BI piece but still requires external ETL and transformation infrastructure.

Improvado consolidates extraction, transformation, governance, and visualization in one platform. Your marketing team builds the entire workflow — from API connection to finished dashboard — without crossing vendor boundaries or opening engineering tickets. When a new channel launches, marketers connect it themselves. When campaign naming conventions change, governance rules update in the same interface. When the CFO asks for attribution analysis, the data lineage from ad spend to revenue exists in one system.

This matters most during the moments that break traditional stacks: API updates that require connector rewrites, cross-channel budget reallocation that needs real-time data, compliance audits that demand end-to-end lineage. With Marketing Cloud Intelligence, those moments require coordination across multiple vendors. With Improvado, they happen in one platform with one support team.

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

Improvado's Marketing Cloud Data Model (MCDM) provides pre-built transformations for common marketing use cases — campaign performance rollups, cross-channel spend reconciliation, attribution modeling. Marketing Cloud Intelligence offers semantic modeling to harmonize field names, but deep transformation logic still requires custom development or external tools.

Marketing Data Governance: Catching Problems Before They Corrupt Analytics

Marketing Cloud Intelligence has no native governance layer. It aggregates data and visualizes it, but provides no mechanism to enforce naming conventions, validate budgets before campaigns launch, or alert teams when spend patterns deviate from targets. For organizations managing global campaigns with multiple agencies, this absence becomes a liability.

Improvado's Marketing Data Governance module monitors 250+ pre-built rules across campaign naming, budget pacing, compliance adherence, and operational guidelines. When a campaign launches with incorrect UTM parameters, the platform catches it before the data reaches dashboards. When daily spend exceeds budget allocations, alerts trigger in real time. When regional teams violate brand safety policies, compliance dashboards surface violations centrally.

Consider three scenarios where governance makes the difference:

• Pre-launch validation: A regional team launches campaigns with inconsistent naming conventions. Marketing Cloud Intelligence displays the data as-is; analysts discover the issue weeks later during quarterly reviews. Improvado's governance rules flag the violation before launch and prevent the campaign from corrupting the data warehouse.
• Budget pacing: A high-spend campaign burns through its monthly budget in 10 days. Marketing Cloud Intelligence shows the overspend in dashboards after the fact. Improvado sends real-time alerts when daily spend exceeds targets, enabling intervention before budget exhaustion.
• Multi-agency coordination: Three agencies manage campaigns for the same brand, each with different naming taxonomies. Marketing Cloud Intelligence aggregates the data but can't enforce consistency. Improvado applies pre-defined rule libraries to all agencies, ensuring global taxonomy adherence from day one.

Improvado review

“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.”

Tyler Corcoran

For enterprises managing compliance-sensitive industries (healthcare, finance, education), governance isn't optional. Marketing Cloud Intelligence requires building governance externally — custom scripts, manual audits, or third-party compliance tools. Improvado integrates governance into the same platform handling extraction and transformation, enforcing rules at the point of data ingestion rather than as an afterthought.

Deep Transformation vs Surface Harmonization

Marketing Cloud Intelligence offers AI-powered semantic modeling to harmonize field names across data sources — mapping "campaign_name" from Google Ads to "CampaignName" from Meta to a unified "Campaign" field. This solves the surface-level naming problem but doesn't address the deeper transformation logic marketing teams need.

Real-world marketing analytics requires deduplication, currency normalization, multi-touch attribution calculation, funnel stage mapping, and custom metric definitions. Marketing Cloud Intelligence lacks native transformation capabilities for these use cases. Teams either accept limited analysis or build transformation pipelines in external tools like dbt Cloud — adding another vendor contract, another integration to maintain, and another skillset requirement for the team.

Improvado's transformation engine handles these scenarios natively. The platform deduplicates conversion events across channels, normalizes multi-currency spend into a single reporting currency, maps campaign identifiers to funnel stages, and calculates custom KPIs like blended CAC or channel-specific ROAS. Marketers configure transformations through a no-code interface; analysts write custom SQL when needed. Both personas work in the same environment without exporting, transforming, and re-importing data.

Improvado review

“Improvado handles everything. If it's a data source of any kind, either there's a connector for it, or we get one created.”

Beau Payne

The outcome difference is measurable. Marketing teams using Improvado report query-to-insight cycles measured in hours; teams using Marketing Cloud Intelligence plus external transformation tools report cycles measured in days or weeks, depending on data engineering backlog.

When Salesforce Ecosystem Integration Matters Most

Marketing Cloud Intelligence's strongest differentiation is native Salesforce integration. For organizations already standardized on Salesforce CRM, Marketing Cloud Engagement, and Data Cloud, the platform connects marketing performance to closed-won deals without custom integration work. Einstein Marketing Insights analyzes campaign performance in the context of Salesforce opportunity data, surfacing which campaigns drive pipeline and which drive unqualified leads.

This integration depth is valuable when Salesforce is your system of record for customer data and your marketing stack operates primarily within the Salesforce ecosystem. Marketing Cloud Intelligence becomes a natural extension of your existing infrastructure, minimizing vendor sprawl and simplifying procurement.

The trade-off: this tight integration locks you into the Salesforce ecosystem's data model and pricing structure. Teams using non-Salesforce CRMs (HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, Pipedrive) or custom data warehouses lose the primary integration advantage. Marketing Cloud Intelligence's visualization layer still works, but the native attribution and CRM connectivity that justify the platform's cost disappear.

Dedicated Customer Success vs Ticket-Only Support

Marketing Cloud Intelligence users report heavy reliance on Salesforce's Customer Success team to build custom visualizations and troubleshoot data issues. This dependency shows up repeatedly in G2 reviews: the platform's native visualization capabilities are described as inflexible, requiring Customer Success intervention for anything beyond pre-built templates.

Improvado includes a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM) and professional services team as part of the base contract, not as an add-on. When connector updates break data flows, the CSM coordinates fixes. When new channels require custom transformations, professional services builds them within the 2–4 week SLA. When dashboard requirements change, the team helps rebuild workflows without ticket queues.

Improvado review

“Having a single point of contact simplifies everything. If we ever need assistance, we can reach out directly to Improvado instead of managing it internally. That's worth something.”

Jonathan Hemnes

EVP of Engineering

This difference compounds over time. Organizations using Marketing Cloud Intelligence report that custom work requests queue behind Salesforce's prioritization system, with resolution times ranging from days to months depending on request complexity. Improvado's dedicated CSM model ensures requests are triaged immediately, with clear SLAs and escalation paths.

Improvado also invests in self-service capabilities that reduce support dependency. The AI Agent allows marketers to ask questions in natural language and receive SQL-powered answers without writing code. Pre-built templates for common use cases (advertising performance, attribution analysis, paid search optimization) provide starting points that teams customize rather than build from scratch.

When to Choose Marketing Cloud Intelligence

Marketing Cloud Intelligence is the right choice for specific organizational profiles. Here's when it wins:

• Your organization is standardized on the Salesforce ecosystem — Marketing Cloud Engagement, Sales Cloud, Data Cloud — and you need native integration that ties marketing spend to closed-won revenue without custom API work.
• You already have a data warehouse with clean, transformed marketing data and need only the visualization and dashboarding layer. Your data engineering team handles ETL and transformation in dbt or BigQuery; you don't need Improvado's full-stack approach.
• Your marketing stack is fewer than 15 channels and doesn't require complex cross-channel attribution, multi-currency normalization, or governance enforcement. Pre-built dashboards meet your needs without customization.
• Enterprise procurement mandates consolidating vendors within existing contracts and your organization already has a Salesforce enterprise agreement. Adding Marketing Cloud Intelligence avoids new vendor onboarding.
• Einstein Marketing Insights' automated recommendations align with your workflow — your team acts on AI-driven suggestions to pause underperforming ads or shift budget, and you don't need deeper custom analytics.

Marketing Cloud Intelligence excels as a reporting layer for teams that have already solved extraction and transformation elsewhere. If those capabilities are gaps in your stack, the platform doesn't fill them — it assumes they're handled by other systems.

What Improvado Customers Say

Improvado serves enterprise marketing teams and agencies managing complex, multi-channel campaigns at scale. Here's how they describe the platform's impact:

Case study

At ASUS, Key features of the solution include: Read full case study →

"Improvado helped us gain full control over our marketing data globally. Previously, we couldn't get reports from different locations on time and in the same format, so it took days to standardize them. Today, we can finally build any report we want in minutes due to the vast number of data connectors and rich granularity provided by Improvado."

Jeff Lee

ASUS

Case study

Automation is a game-changer that helped Signal Theory succeed. Dashboards are set to update daily so teams can access the latest data without manual intervention or submitting requests. This constant cycle—from Improvado to the data warehouse and finally to Tableau—reduces time spent on repetitive tasks and ensures consistency across reports. Read full case study →

“Everything’s just set up and streamlined, and it all just works. The dashboards update automatically, and I don’t even have to touch them most of the time.”

Shayna Tyler

Analyst, Signal Theory

Improvado holds a G2 rating of 4.5/5 with high marks for quality of support (9.4/10) and ease of setup. Customers consistently highlight three differentiators: the breadth of pre-built connectors (500+), the depth of transformation capabilities that eliminate manual data manipulation, and the dedicated CSM model that ensures issues are resolved quickly without ticket queues.

Pricing Comparison

Marketing Cloud Intelligence uses custom pricing based on data volume, number of connectors, and enterprise scale. Salesforce does not publish specific pricing tiers publicly. Prospective customers receive quotes after scoping calls that assess data complexity and integration requirements.

Improvado follows an outcome-based pricing model tied to the value delivered rather than usage-based metering. Pricing depends on the number of data sources, transformation complexity, and support tier. Contracts are typically annual with predictable costs — no surprise bills from data volume spikes or connector additions mid-contract.

When evaluating total cost of ownership, consider hidden costs Marketing Cloud Intelligence's sticker price doesn't show:

• External ETL tool required — Marketing Cloud Intelligence doesn't extract or transform data at depth. Teams need Fivetran, Stitch, or custom API scripts to feed the platform, adding another annual contract.
• Transformation layer subscription — If your team uses dbt Cloud for transformation logic, that's a separate cost on top of Marketing Cloud Intelligence.
• Customer Success dependency — Custom visualizations and advanced use cases require Salesforce's Customer Success team. Heavy reliance on this team can drive up professional services costs.
• Long implementation cycles — Enterprise deployments often take months, during which your team isn't fully operational on the platform.

Improvado includes ETL, transformation, governance, and visualization in a single contract. Professional services and dedicated CSM support are part of the base offering, not billable add-ons. Implementation timelines average 4–8 weeks for standard deployments, with custom connectors delivered within the 2–4 week SLA.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main difference between Improvado and Marketing Cloud Intelligence?

Marketing Cloud Intelligence is a reporting and dashboarding layer that aggregates marketing data for visualization. Improvado is a full-stack platform that handles extraction, transformation, governance, and analytics in one environment. Marketing Cloud Intelligence assumes you have external ETL and transformation infrastructure; Improvado provides the entire pipeline natively.

Does Improvado integrate with Salesforce?

Yes. Improvado integrates with Salesforce CRM, Marketing Cloud, and other Salesforce products through standard APIs. The integration isn't as deeply native as Marketing Cloud Intelligence's, but it works across Salesforce and non-Salesforce systems (HubSpot, Dynamics, custom warehouses) without vendor lock-in.

Does Marketing Cloud Intelligence have data governance features?

No. Marketing Cloud Intelligence does not include a governance layer for enforcing naming conventions, budget validation, or compliance monitoring. Teams must build governance externally through custom scripts or third-party tools. Improvado includes Marketing Data Governance as a native module with 250+ pre-built rules.

How long does it take to migrate from Marketing Cloud Intelligence to Improvado?

Standard implementations take 4–8 weeks depending on the number of data sources and transformation complexity. Custom connectors are delivered within 2–4 weeks under SLA. Improvado's professional services team handles migration planning, connector setup, and transformation logic replication to minimize disruption during the transition.

How many data connectors does each platform offer?

Improvado offers 500+ pre-built connectors covering advertising platforms, analytics tools, CRMs, and custom APIs. Marketing Cloud Intelligence offers 100+ pre-built integrations focused on marketing and advertising platforms. Both support custom connector development, but Improvado commits to a 2–4 week SLA for custom builds.

Can I use my own data warehouse with Improvado?

Yes. Improvado supports delivery to any data warehouse (BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, Azure Synapse) or BI tool (Looker, Tableau, Power BI, custom). You retain full ownership of your data infrastructure. Marketing Cloud Intelligence also supports warehouse delivery but is primarily designed for its native dashboarding environment.

Do I need technical skills to use Improvado?

Improvado is designed for dual personas: marketers use the no-code interface to connect data sources, configure transformations, and build dashboards without SQL. Analysts and engineers have full SQL access when custom logic is needed. Marketing Cloud Intelligence similarly offers no-code workflows but requires Customer Success team involvement for complex customizations.

When should I choose Marketing Cloud Intelligence over Improvado?

Choose Marketing Cloud Intelligence if your organization is fully standardized on the Salesforce ecosystem and needs native integration with Marketing Cloud Engagement, Sales Cloud, and Data Cloud. It's also the right choice if you already have a data warehouse with clean, transformed data and need only the visualization layer. Improvado is better suited for teams that need the full data pipeline — extraction, transformation, governance, and insights — managed by marketing without engineering dependency.