Skai vs Improvado: Which Platform Fits Enterprise Marketing Teams? (2026)

Skai and Improvado both promise to solve the fragmented marketing data problem, but they approach it from opposite directions. Skai is built for campaign orchestration — managing bids, budgets, and placements across retail media networks, search, and social. Improvado is built for data infrastructure — extracting, transforming, governing, and delivering clean marketing data to your warehouse and BI tools. If your team needs real-time campaign optimization across Amazon, Walmart, and 200+ retail media networks, Skai handles that workflow natively. If your team needs unified reporting, cross-channel attribution, and governance rules that prevent bad data from corrupting your analytics, Improvado is purpose-built for that. This comparison breaks down where each platform excels, what they cost, and which use cases each one actually solves.

A Note on Perspective

Full disclosure: we're Improvado, and this page is written from our perspective. We've tried to represent Skai's capabilities accurately based on publicly available documentation, user reviews, and expert analysis — 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: Skai vs Improvado

The Core Difference: Campaign Optimization vs Data Infrastructure

The clearest way to understand the Skai vs Improvado choice is to recognize that they solve fundamentally different problems. Skai is a campaign management platform that happens to include reporting. Improvado is a marketing data platform that happens to include pre-built dashboards. If your primary job is managing active campaigns — adjusting bids, shifting budgets, testing creatives, running incrementality studies — Skai's interface is built for that workflow. If your primary job is building reliable marketing analytics — unifying 30+ data sources, enforcing governance rules, delivering clean data to stakeholders who make strategic decisions — Improvado's architecture is built for that.

Most enterprises evaluating these platforms are trying to solve one of two problems. Problem A: "We're spending $50M annually across Amazon, Walmart, Target, Instacart, Google, Meta, and TikTok, and we need one system to manage bids, budgets, and performance in real time." That's a Skai problem. Problem B: "We have 40 marketing data sources, our analysts spend 60% of their time reconciling spreadsheets, our dashboards don't match, and Finance doesn't trust the numbers." That's an Improvado problem.

Skai's 2026 product roadmap reflects its campaign-first philosophy: always-on incrementality measurement, AI-mediated workflows for bid optimization, ecosystem orchestration across retail media networks, and partnerships like Reddit Ads for performance in AI-powered discovery. These are features designed for media buyers and performance marketers managing live campaigns. Improvado's roadmap reflects its data-first philosophy: Marketing Data Governance rules that prevent bad data from reaching dashboards, AI Agents that generate SQL transformations from natural language, and warehouse-native architecture that eliminates data movement risk. These are features designed for analytics teams building the infrastructure that powers strategic decision-making.

Where Improvado Wins: Five Structural Advantages

Your Marketing Team Enforces Data Quality — No Engineering Tickets Required

The single most cited frustration in marketing analytics isn't missing data — it's bad data that makes it into dashboards. Campaigns tagged with the wrong naming convention. UTM parameters that don't match the taxonomy. Budget pacing alerts that trigger too late. Brand safety violations that reach consumers before anyone notices. Skai monitors budget execution and bid performance, but it doesn't validate campaign setup before launch. Improvado's Marketing Data Governance module does.

Marketing Data Governance gives marketing ops teams a no-code rule builder for creating validation logic in plain English. "Flag any campaign where the naming convention doesn't include [brand]_[channel]_[campaign-type]_[geo]." "Alert me when daily spend exceeds budget by more than 15%." "Block any UTM parameter that doesn't match our approved taxonomy." These rules run automatically — before campaigns launch, while they're live, and in your historical data — and violations are flagged with severity tiers (high/medium/low) so your team knows what to fix first.

250+ pre-built rules cover the most common governance scenarios: naming convention enforcement, cross-platform UTM validation, CPA and ROAS threshold monitoring, budget pacing alerts, and compliance checks for regulated industries. Agencies managing multiple clients can create per-client rule libraries and clone them when onboarding new accounts. Enterprises managing multiple brands can enforce independent governance rules per workspace. The compliance dashboard shows overall compliance rates at a glance, trend data over time, and audit trails for every detected violation.

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

Skai offers budget monitoring and performance alerts within its campaign management interface, but these are reactive — they tell you when something is already wrong. Improvado's governance rules are proactive — they prevent the error from reaching your analytics in the first place. For regulated industries (healthcare, finance, pharmaceuticals), governance isn't optional. For agencies billing clients based on performance metrics, governance is the only way to prove the numbers are clean. For any team that's ever had to explain to Finance why last quarter's dashboard didn't match this quarter's restated numbers, governance is the difference between trusted data and constant firefighting.

No-Code for Marketers, Full SQL for Engineers — One Platform Serves Both

Most marketing data platforms force you to choose: either you get a no-code interface that can't handle complex transformations, or you get a code-first tool that requires a data engineer for every change. Improvado is the rare platform built for dual personas — marketers who need to move fast without tickets, and engineers who need full control when the logic gets complicated.

The no-code transformation UI lets marketing ops teams build recipes by dragging fields, applying filters, and mapping dimensions — no SQL required. Need to deduplicate records by user ID? There's a block for that. Need to normalize channel names across 15 different source formats? Pre-built mapping templates handle it. Need to attribute conversions using a custom multi-touch model? The recipe builder walks you through it. For 80% of transformation tasks, marketers never write a line of code.

When the use case gets complex — custom attribution windows, audience overlap calculations, forecasting models that combine CRM data with ad spend — engineers can write SQL directly against the data warehouse, and those transformations become reusable recipes that marketers can clone and customize. Improvado's Marketing Cloud Data Model (MCDM) provides pre-built schemas for common marketing entities (campaigns, ad groups, keywords, audiences, conversions) so you're not starting from scratch every time. The AI Agent can generate transformation SQL from natural language: "Create a recipe that calculates cost per conversion by campaign, excluding branded search, for the last 90 days."

Improvado review

“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

Skai's data flows are optimized for campaign performance tracking, not for arbitrary transformations. If you need to join ad spend data with SKU-level inventory data, or calculate customer lifetime value segmented by acquisition channel, or build a custom attribution model that weights touchpoints based on conversion proximity — those transformations happen outside Skai's platform, which means exporting data, processing it elsewhere, and importing results back in. Improvado handles the entire pipeline in one environment, which eliminates the hand-off risk and version control nightmare that comes from stitching tools together.

500+ Connectors with a 2–4 Week SLA for Custom Builds

Connector count is a vanity metric unless it includes the platforms you actually use and a commitment to maintain them when APIs change. Improvado's 500+ pre-built connectors cover advertising platforms (Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, DV360, Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect), analytics tools (Google Analytics 4, Adobe Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude), CRMs (Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics), and marketing automation (Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot). If a connector doesn't exist, Improvado's professional services team builds it in 2–4 weeks with an SLA — not a vague estimate.

Connector maintenance is where most platforms fail silently. APIs change without warning. Field names get deprecated. Rate limits tighten. Authentication flows break. Improvado monitors every connector 24/7 and patches issues before they affect your pipelines. When a platform sunsets an API version, Improvado migrates your data to the new endpoint and preserves 2 years of historical data so your year-over-year comparisons don't break. You're not managing API keys, debugging OAuth flows, or filing support tickets when a connector stops syncing — that's Improvado's job.

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

Skai's connector library focuses on high-spend advertising channels — retail media networks (Amazon, Walmart, Target, Instacart, Kroger), search engines (Google, Bing), social platforms (Meta, TikTok, Pinterest), and commerce signals (digital shelf intelligence, competitive pricing, promotional calendars). For brands spending heavily on retail media, that focus is an advantage. For enterprises with diversified marketing stacks that include webinar platforms, affiliate networks, podcast hosting, influencer marketplaces, and niche B2B channels, Skai's connector library has gaps. Improvado's breadth means you can unify all your marketing data in one pipeline, not just the high-spend channels.

Dedicated CSM and Professional Services — Included, Not Sold Separately

Enterprise software purchases often hide the true cost of ownership in add-on fees. "Professional services available for an additional fee." "Premium support tier required for dedicated account management." "Implementation services billed separately." Improvado includes a dedicated Customer Success Manager and professional services in every enterprise plan — not as an upsell, but as the default support model.

Your CSM isn't shared across 50 accounts. They know your data stack, your governance rules, your transformation recipes, and your reporting deadlines. When you need a custom connector built, a new transformation logic validated, or a governance rule tuned to catch edge cases, you're working with the same person who onboarded you. Weekly sync meetings, proactive health checks, and direct Slack access mean you're not waiting in a support queue when a pipeline breaks the day before a board meeting.

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

Improvado's G2 Quality of Support score is 9.4 out of 10 — consistently ranked in the top 5% of all B2B SaaS products reviewed on the platform. User reviews repeatedly cite responsiveness, technical depth, and proactive communication as differentiators. Skai's user reviews on G2 note that support is "very helpful when an issue does arise" and "usually very quick to respond," but also flag higher fees compared to competitors and occasional concerns about staff turnover. The difference isn't just response time — it's ownership. When something breaks in Improvado, the team that built your pipeline fixes it. When something breaks in a tool where support is ticket-only, you're explaining your setup to a new person every time.

AI That Operates the Platform — Not Just Optimizes Campaigns

Both platforms market AI capabilities, but they solve different problems. Skai's AI optimizes campaign performance: bid adjustments, budget pacing, keyword recommendations, incrementality measurement. Improvado's AI operates the data platform: generating transformation recipes from natural language, creating governance rules from plain-English descriptions, troubleshooting data discrepancies, and answering analytics questions via chat.

Improvado's AI Agent functions as a data analyst that never sleeps. Marketing ops managers can describe what they need — "Create a recipe that deduplicates user records by email, then attributes conversions to the first paid touchpoint within a 30-day window" — and the AI generates the SQL transformation recipe, validates it against the schema, and schedules it to run daily. Analysts can ask natural-language questions — "Which campaigns drove the highest ROAS in Q4, excluding branded search?" — and get answers with drill-down links to the underlying data. The AI can query external tools via MCP integrations (Salesforce, Google Ads, internal databases) and synthesize findings into executive summaries or technical reports.

Improvado review

“I use Improvado AI Agent to get basic analytics and quick solves. I just enter the question, and it gives me the answer I need.”

Beau Payne

For teams onboarding new hires, the AI Agent serves as an instant training resource: "How do I create a governance rule that flags campaigns with CPA above $50?" The AI walks them through the rule builder, generates the SQL if needed, and explains the severity tier logic. For teams debugging data issues, the AI identifies discrepancies, suggests fixes, and documents the resolution in an audit trail. This is AI as a platform operator — reducing the cognitive load on your team and making the tool more accessible to non-technical users.

Skai's AI focuses on campaign-level intelligence: pacing alerts, product intelligence, competitive benchmarking, and incrementality measurement. These are valuable features for performance marketers managing active campaigns, but they don't reduce the operational burden of running the data platform itself. If your team's constraint is campaign optimization, Skai's AI is built for that. If your constraint is pipeline maintenance, transformation logic, and governance enforcement, Improvado's AI is built for that.

When to Choose Skai

Skai is the right choice in specific scenarios where its campaign-first architecture delivers more value than Improvado's data-first approach:

• Your primary spend is retail media — If the majority of your advertising budget flows through Amazon, Walmart, Target, Instacart, and other retail media networks, Skai's native integrations and retail-specific optimization features (SKU-level performance tracking, digital shelf intelligence, competitive pricing data) are purpose-built for that workflow. Improvado can extract and report on retail media data, but Skai manages the campaigns directly within the platform.
• You need real-time bid optimization — If your team adjusts bids hourly based on inventory levels, competitive pricing, or promotional calendars, Skai's AI-powered bidding engine operates at the speed required for always-on optimization. Improvado delivers data for strategic analysis; Skai executes tactical changes in real time.
• Incrementality measurement is a top priority — If proving incremental lift to Finance is a frequent requirement, Skai's built-in incrementality testing framework (causal measurement, holdout groups, cross-channel lift analysis) is designed to answer "Did this campaign drive net-new revenue?" questions. Improvado supports attribution modeling and MMM integration, but incrementality testing isn't a native feature.
• Your team is primarily media buyers, not data analysts — If the people using the platform day-to-day are focused on campaign execution — launching new ads, adjusting budgets, testing creatives — Skai's interface is optimized for that persona. Improvado's interface is optimized for analysts building pipelines and marketers consuming reports.
• You're a CPG brand or retailer managing commerce media — Skai's positioning as a commerce media orchestration platform makes it a natural fit for brands and retailers navigating the fragmented retail media landscape. If your challenge is coordinating campaigns across 200+ retail networks while tying spend to sales, Skai's domain expertise in commerce media gives it an edge.

What Customers Say About Improvado

Improvado serves 300+ enterprise brands and agencies across e-commerce, SaaS, financial services, healthcare, and media. Here's what customers report after migrating to Improvado from fragmented data stacks:

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

Case study

At ASUS, Enhanced data availability not only enabled faster experimentation but also allowed teams across regions to "speak the same language." This increased transparency in global marketing efforts provides a strong foundation for innovative, data-driven strategies that maximize the impact of global marketing investments. Read full case study →

"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

ASUS

Improvado holds High Performer and Leader badges across five G2 categories: Marketing Analytics, ETL Tools, Marketing Data Aggregation, Data Pipeline Tools, and Marketing Reporting. The platform maintains a 4.5-star overall rating based on 370+ verified reviews, with Quality of Support scoring 9.4 out of 10 — higher than 95% of products in the marketing analytics category.

Pricing Comparison: Skai vs Improvado

Pricing transparency varies significantly between the two platforms. Improvado publishes tiered pricing aligned to business scale and feature requirements. Skai operates on custom enterprise pricing with no public rate card.

Improvado Pricing

Improvado offers three tiers:

• Growth: Designed for mid-market teams with 10–30 data sources; includes core ETL, pre-built connectors, no-code transformations, and dedicated CSM. Starting pricing available on request.
• Advanced: Adds Marketing Data Governance, AI Agent, custom connector SLA, and professional services for complex transformations. Typical for enterprises managing 30–100 sources.
• Enterprise: Full platform access including white-glove implementation, custom MCDM schema design, multi-workspace governance, and priority support SLA. For organizations managing 100+ sources or multi-regional operations.

Pricing is based on data volume (number of sources, API call volume, transformation complexity) and feature set, with annual subscription contracts. No usage-based surprises — your cost is predictable and scales with planned growth. Full pricing details available here.

Skai Pricing

Skai does not publish pricing publicly. Based on G2 user reviews, customers report that Skai's fees are approximately 28–32% higher than the average for marketing analytics platforms in its category. Pricing is likely structured around media spend managed through the platform, number of retail media networks connected, and feature modules activated (incrementality measurement, AI optimization, competitive intelligence). Implementation and onboarding are handled as part of the enterprise contract, but specific SLAs are not detailed in public documentation.

Total Cost of Ownership Considerations

When evaluating total cost, factor in hidden expenses that don't appear in the platform subscription:

• Engineering time: If the platform requires a data engineer to maintain custom connectors, write transformation SQL, or troubleshoot pipeline failures, calculate the fully-loaded cost of that headcount. Improvado's managed service model eliminates most of that burden; Skai's campaign-focused architecture assumes your team handles data engineering separately.
• BI tool licenses: Improvado is BI-agnostic and delivers data to Looker, Tableau, Power BI, or any warehouse-connected tool you already own. If Skai's integrated dashboards don't meet your needs, you'll need to export data and pay for a separate BI license.
• Connector gaps: If the platform doesn't support a data source you need, you're either paying for a custom build or manually exporting/importing data. Improvado's 500+ connectors and 2–4 week custom build SLA reduce this risk; Skai's narrower focus on advertising and retail media means more gaps for diversified marketing stacks.
• Governance and compliance: If your industry requires audit trails, data lineage, and compliance dashboards (healthcare, finance, pharmaceuticals), platforms without dedicated governance modules force you to build that infrastructure separately. Improvado's MDG is included; Skai has no equivalent feature.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main difference between Skai and Improvado?

Skai is a campaign management and optimization platform designed for media buyers managing active campaigns across retail media networks, search, and social channels. Improvado is a marketing data platform designed for analytics teams building end-to-end data pipelines — extraction, transformation, governance, and delivery to BI tools. Skai excels at real-time campaign optimization; Improvado excels at unified reporting and data governance.

Can Improvado replace Skai for retail media campaign management?

No. Improvado extracts and reports on retail media data, but it doesn't manage bids, budgets, or campaign activation within retail media platforms. If your team needs to adjust Amazon Sponsored Products bids in real time or run incrementality tests across Walmart Connect and Instacart, Skai's native campaign management features are purpose-built for that workflow. Improvado is the right choice if you're managing campaigns directly in each platform and need unified reporting across all channels.

Does Skai offer data governance features like Improvado's MDG module?

No. Skai provides budget monitoring, bid guardrails, and performance alerts within its campaign management interface, but it does not offer a dedicated Marketing Data Governance module. Improvado's MDG includes 250+ pre-built rules for naming convention enforcement, UTM validation, budget pacing alerts, and compliance monitoring — capabilities designed to prevent bad data from corrupting analytics before campaigns launch.

Which platform has better data connector coverage?

Improvado offers 500+ pre-built connectors covering advertising platforms, analytics tools, CRMs, marketing automation, e-commerce platforms, and niche B2B channels. Custom connectors are delivered in 2–4 weeks with an SLA. Skai focuses on 200+ retail media networks, search engines, social platforms, and commerce signals — strong depth in high-spend advertising channels, but narrower breadth for diversified marketing stacks. If your data sources extend beyond paid media (webinars, podcasts, affiliate networks, influencer platforms), Improvado's connector library is more comprehensive.

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

Migration timelines depend on the number of data sources, complexity of existing transformations, and whether you're running both platforms in parallel during transition. Typical implementations take 2–4 weeks for core pipeline setup (data extraction, transformation recipes, initial dashboards) and 6–8 weeks for full deployment including governance rules, custom connectors, and team training. Improvado's professional services team handles the technical migration work; your team focuses on validating outputs and configuring business logic.

When does Skai make more sense than Improvado?

Skai is the better choice when your primary need is managing active campaigns across retail media networks with real-time bid optimization, incrementality measurement, and SKU-level performance tracking. If your team consists mainly of media buyers and performance marketers who need to execute campaigns directly within the platform, Skai's interface and feature set are built for that persona. Improvado is built for analytics teams, marketing ops, and agencies that need unified reporting, data governance, and transformation capabilities across a broad marketing stack.

Can I use both platforms together?

Yes. Some enterprises use Skai for campaign management and Improvado for unified reporting. In this architecture, Skai manages campaigns across retail media networks and exports performance data, which Improvado extracts alongside data from other sources (organic channels, CRM, offline events) to create a single source of truth for cross-channel reporting. This dual-platform approach works when campaign optimization and data governance are owned by separate teams with different priorities.

What kind of support does Improvado provide compared to Skai?

Improvado includes a dedicated Customer Success Manager (not shared across accounts), professional services for custom builds and complex transformations, and a 99.99% uptime SLA. G2 reviews consistently rank Improvado's Quality of Support at 9.4 out of 10. Skai offers enterprise support, and user reviews note responsiveness, but also cite higher fees relative to competitors and occasional staff turnover concerns. The structural difference is ownership: Improvado's CSM model means the same person who onboarded you handles your ongoing requests; ticket-only support means explaining your setup to a new agent every time.

Making the Right Choice for Your Marketing Data Stack

The Skai vs Improvado decision isn't about which platform has more features — it's about which problem you're solving. If your constraint is campaign performance — you need faster bid adjustments, better incrementality measurement, and retail media orchestration across 200+ networks — Skai's campaign-first architecture delivers that. If your constraint is data infrastructure — you're drowning in spreadsheets, your dashboards don't match, Finance doesn't trust your numbers, and governance violations corrupt your analytics — Improvado's data-first architecture solves that.

Most enterprises that choose Improvado over Skai do so because they've already solved the campaign management problem (either with platform-native tools or a different vendor) and need to solve the data problem. They need one platform that extracts from 500+ sources, transforms with marketing-specific models, enforces governance rules that prevent bad data from reaching dashboards, and delivers clean outputs to any BI tool their business uses. They need a dedicated CSM who knows their data stack and professional services included in the subscription — not sold separately. They need AI that operates the platform, not just optimizes campaigns. And they need predictable pricing with no usage-based surprises.

If that describes your situation, the next step is a 30-minute working session where you see Improvado operate with your actual data sources. No generic demo deck — a live walkthrough of how your data flows from extraction to transformation to governance to delivery.