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TapClicks and Improvado both promise to solve the marketing data problem, but they solve fundamentally different problems. TapClicks is a reporting and campaign management layer built for agencies managing dozens of client dashboards. Improvado is a complete data infrastructure platform — extraction, transformation, governance, and delivery — built for enterprise marketing operations teams tired of coordinating five different vendors. This comparison walks through the architectural differences, feature trade-offs, total cost realities, and honest scenarios where each platform wins.
TapClicks vs Improvado: What You're Actually Comparing
TapClicks positions itself as a "Smart Marketing Cloud" — automated data aggregation, multi-channel reporting, AI-driven insights, and ETL capabilities for agencies and marketing teams. It emphasizes 250+ direct integrations, client-facing dashboards, and omnichannel analytics without enterprise complexity. The platform targets digital marketing agencies handling multiple clients, with modular pricing that bundles data connections (TapData) with optional reporting and analytics add-ons.
Improvado is purpose-built as an end-to-end marketing data pipeline: 500+ pre-built connectors, SQL-based transformations, Marketing Data Governance with 250+ pre-built rules, and compatibility with any BI tool or data warehouse. The platform serves enterprise marketing operations managers who need one vendor relationship instead of five, with dedicated customer success management and professional services included.
The core difference isn't feature count. It's architectural intent. TapClicks gives you a reporting interface on top of your data sources — you still need separate tools for transformation, governance, and BI. Improvado replaces that entire stack with a single governed environment.
Full disclosure: We're Improvado, and this page reflects our perspective. We've worked to represent TapClicks' capabilities accurately based on public documentation, user reviews, and vendor materials. If we've misrepresented anything, email us and we'll correct it. Our goal is to help you make the right decision for your team — even if that decision isn't us.
Feature Comparison: TapClicks vs Improvado
This table compares the core capabilities that determine whether a platform can handle enterprise marketing data operations or just surface-level reporting.
| Capability | Improvado | TapClicks |
|---|---|---|
| Platform Type | Full ETL + transformation + governance + BI routing | Reporting and campaign management layer; requires separate BI tool |
| Data Connectors | 500+ pre-built; custom connectors in 2–4 weeks (SLA) | 250+ direct integrations; custom connectors resource-intensive |
| Marketing Metrics | 46,000+ normalized metrics and dimensions | Platform-specific metrics; manual joins required |
| Data Transformation | No-code UI + full SQL access; Marketing Cloud Data Model (MCDM) included | Basic blends and transformations; no SQL layer |
| Marketing Data Governance | 250+ pre-built rules; pre-launch budget validation; compliance monitoring at extraction | No native governance layer |
| Data Destinations | Any warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift) + any BI tool (Looker, Tableau, Power BI) | TapClicks dashboards + limited external BI export |
| AI Capabilities | AI Agent for query automation, anomaly detection, and insight generation | AI persona insights (CMO, analyst views); predictive pacing |
| Support Model | Dedicated CSM + professional services included | Standard support; premium tiers for advanced assistance |
| Enterprise Compliance | SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, GDPR certified | Security certifications not prominently disclosed |
| Pricing Model | Outcome-based; single contract; predictable scaling | Modular (TapData base + analytics add-ons); quote-based; costs scale with clients and features |
What Sets These Platforms Apart
Feature tables show what exists. This section explains what those features actually mean when your team is trying to consolidate 30 data sources, maintain compliance, and deliver weekly executive dashboards without burning out your analysts.
Your Marketing Team Operates the Entire Pipeline — No Engineering Tickets
TapClicks is a reporting interface. Your data flows from connectors into TapClicks dashboards, where you can blend sources and build visualizations. If you need transformations beyond basic joins, you're exporting to a separate BI tool. If you need governance, that's a bolt-on solution. If a connector breaks or an API changes, you're opening support tickets and waiting.
Improvado is the pipeline itself. Extraction, transformation (SQL-based or no-code), governance rules, and delivery to your chosen BI tool or warehouse all happen in one governed environment. Your marketing ops team controls transformation logic without writing tickets to engineering. When an API changes, Improvado maintains the connector and preserves two years of historical data automatically.
The outcome: TapClicks requires your team to coordinate between the reporting tool, a BI platform, a transformation layer (if you have one), and governance tooling (if compliance matters). Improvado eliminates that coordination tax entirely.
Compliance Rules Enforced at Extraction — Not Bolted On Later
TapClicks has no native governance layer. If your team needs to validate campaign budgets against approved spend limits, flag anomalies before they hit executive dashboards, or ensure GDPR-compliant data handling, you're building that separately. Most agencies and brands simply skip governance until an audit or a budget overrun forces the conversation.
Improvado's Marketing Data Governance includes 250+ pre-built rules that monitor data quality, budget compliance, and anomaly detection at the point of extraction. Before data flows into your warehouse or BI tool, governance rules validate it. If a campaign exceeds its approved budget, you're alerted before the dashboard updates. If a metric suddenly doubles overnight, the system flags it as an anomaly worth investigating.
For regulated industries (healthcare, finance) or enterprises with strict compliance requirements, this isn't a nice-to-have. It's the difference between trusting your data and defending your spreadsheet methodology in every meeting.
“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 Contract, One Vendor Relationship
TapClicks starts at $99/month for data connections (TapData), but full functionality requires adding analytics modules, client management tools, and predictive AI suites. Most teams end up paying $1,500–$2,000+/month once they've added the features they actually need. Then you're still paying separately for Tableau or Looker (typically $10,000–$50,000 annually for enterprise licenses), plus any transformation tooling, plus governance.
That's three to five vendor contracts. Three to five renewal cycles your finance team manages. Three to five support teams you coordinate when something breaks. Three to five onboarding processes for new hires.
Improvado costs $30,000+ annually for enterprise deployments, but that includes the entire stack: extraction, transformation, governance, professional services, and dedicated customer success management. One contract. One billing relationship. One throat to choke when something goes wrong. For marketing ops managers whose job is eliminating operational friction, the TCO math often favors the single-vendor approach even when the sticker price looks higher.
SQL-Based Transformation vs Manual Blending
TapClicks offers "SmartCampaigns" and transformation hubs for blending data sources and creating custom metrics. These are no-code, drag-and-drop interfaces — which is great for basic use cases like summing spend across platforms or calculating cost per conversion. But when you need complex attribution logic, multi-touch models, or custom business rules that reference external data sources, you're stuck. TapClicks doesn't support SQL transformations, so advanced logic requires exporting data and building it elsewhere.
Improvado provides both: a no-code interface for marketers who need quick metric calculations, and full SQL access for analysts and engineers who need to build sophisticated transformation logic. The Marketing Cloud Data Model (MCDM) comes pre-built with common marketing schemas, so your team isn't rebuilding the same attribution models from scratch every time.
The practical difference: with TapClicks, your advanced analytics still live outside the platform. With Improvado, everything from extraction to insight generation happens in one environment.
Custom Connector Development: SLA vs Resource-Intensive
Both platforms advertise extensive connector libraries — TapClicks claims 250+, Improvado claims 500+. The difference emerges when you need a connector that doesn't exist yet. Maybe you're using a niche ad platform, an internal BI tool, or a regional data source that isn't in either library.
TapClicks offers custom connectors, but user reviews describe the process as "resource-intensive" with no guaranteed timeline. You're opening a ticket, explaining the API, and waiting for engineering prioritization.
Improvado commits to a 2–4 week SLA for custom connector builds. That's a contractual obligation, not a best-effort promise. For fast-moving marketing teams launching campaigns on new platforms or testing experimental channels, the difference between "we'll get to it eventually" and "you'll have it in two weeks" determines whether the tool enables agility or becomes a bottleneck.
“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.”
When to Choose TapClicks
TapClicks wins in specific scenarios where its agency-focused design and client management features outweigh the need for deep transformation and governance capabilities:
- You're a mid-sized agency managing 10–50 clients who need white-labeled dashboards with permission management, and your clients don't require custom transformation logic or compliance monitoring.
- Your team has no data engineering resources and needs simple drag-and-drop reporting without SQL or complex workflows. TapClicks' no-code interface is easier to onboard non-technical users than Improvado's dual-persona (marketer + engineer) design.
- Campaign lifecycle management is a core requirement. TapClicks includes order management (TapOrders), workflow automation (TapWorkflow), and granular campaign tracking — features Improvado doesn't offer because it's focused on data infrastructure, not campaign operations.
- Budget constraints favor modular pricing. TapClicks starts at $99/month for basic data connections, which can work for small teams with limited needs — though costs escalate quickly once you add analytics modules and scale to multiple clients.
- You're already using a separate BI tool (Tableau, Looker, Power BI) and only need a data aggregation layer to feed it. TapClicks can act as that aggregation layer, though you'll still lack governance and advanced transformation.
If any of these scenarios describe your team, TapClicks may be the more appropriate fit. Where TapClicks falls short is when your team needs the entire data pipeline — extraction, transformation, governance, and flexible delivery — managed in one governed environment without coordinating multiple vendors.
What Customers Say About Improvado
The strongest validation of any platform comes from teams who've implemented it, scaled it, and measured the outcome. Here's what enterprise marketing operations managers and agency leaders report after switching to Improvado:
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."
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.”
Yodel Mobile relies on Improvado for daily budget pacing and campaign optimization. Having centralized, reliable data allows them to make quick adjustments to ensure campaigns stay on track. Read full case study →
“Improvado allows us to have all information in one place for quick action. We can see at a glance if we're on target with spending or if changes are needed—without having to dig into each platform individually.”
These aren't isolated testimonials. Improvado maintains a G2 rating of 4.6/5 stars with a Quality of Support score of 9.4/10 — a metric that reflects the dedicated CSM and professional services model that's included in every enterprise contract, not sold as an add-on.
Pricing: Modular vs Unified Platform Economics
TapClicks uses modular pricing: a base TapData package (starting at $99–$349/month for data connections) plus optional add-ons for analytics, AI insights, and advanced features. Most teams end up paying $1,500–$2,000+/month once they've bundled the features required for full functionality. Pricing scales with client count, data volume, and connector usage, and final costs require a custom quote from the vendor.
The hidden cost: TapClicks is a reporting layer, not a complete data platform. You still need a separate BI tool (Tableau, Looker, Power BI — typically $10,000–$50,000 annually for enterprise licenses), transformation tooling (if your use cases go beyond basic blends), and governance infrastructure (if compliance matters). Multiple sources confirm that "almost every purpose-built agency reporting tool costs less than TapClicks" once you factor in the full stack.
Improvado pricing starts at $30,000+ annually for enterprise deployments. That includes 500+ connectors, unlimited transformations, Marketing Data Governance, professional services, and dedicated customer success management. One contract. One vendor relationship. One billing cycle your finance team manages.
The total cost of ownership question: is it cheaper to pay TapClicks $18,000–$24,000/year plus Tableau/Looker $10,000–$50,000/year plus governance tooling — and manage three vendor relationships — or pay Improvado $30,000+ and eliminate the coordination overhead?
For teams where vendor coordination is a major operational drag (the first job-to-be-done in this comparison), Improvado's unified pricing often delivers better TCO even when the sticker price looks higher. For small agencies with simple reporting needs and no compliance requirements, TapClicks' entry-level pricing can make more sense.
Both platforms require sales calls for final quotes. Improvado's pricing page is available here; TapClicks pricing details are on their vendor site.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main difference between TapClicks and Improvado?
TapClicks is a reporting and campaign management platform designed for agencies managing multiple clients. It aggregates data from 250+ sources into dashboards but requires separate tools for transformation, governance, and BI. Improvado is a complete data infrastructure platform — extraction, SQL-based transformation, Marketing Data Governance, and delivery to any BI tool or warehouse — built for enterprise marketing ops teams who need one vendor instead of five.
Which platform has more data connectors?
Improvado offers 500+ pre-built connectors with a 2–4 week SLA for custom connector development. TapClicks provides 250+ direct integrations, with custom connectors available but described by users as "resource-intensive" with no guaranteed timeline. Both platforms cover major advertising, analytics, and CRM platforms; Improvado's advantage is connector breadth and contractual SLA for custom builds.
Does TapClicks offer data governance capabilities?
No. TapClicks has no native governance layer. If your team needs budget validation, anomaly detection, or compliance monitoring, you're building that separately. Improvado includes Marketing Data Governance with 250+ pre-built rules that monitor data quality, budget compliance, and anomalies at the point of extraction — before data flows into dashboards or warehouses.
Can I use SQL transformations in TapClicks?
No. TapClicks offers no-code transformation tools (SmartCampaigns, blends) for basic metric calculations and joins, but does not support SQL-based transformations. Advanced logic requires exporting data to a separate BI or transformation tool. Improvado provides both no-code interfaces for marketers and full SQL access for analysts and engineers, with pre-built marketing data models (MCDM) included.
Which BI tools does each platform support?
Improvado is BI-agnostic: it delivers data to any warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Databricks) or BI tool (Looker, Tableau, Power BI, custom dashboards). TapClicks provides its own dashboarding interface and limited export options to external BI tools — meaning you're primarily using TapClicks' native reporting, not integrating with enterprise BI infrastructure.
Is TapClicks better for agencies than Improvado?
TapClicks is purpose-built for agencies managing 10–50 clients who need white-labeled dashboards, client permission management, and campaign lifecycle tools. Improvado serves enterprise marketing ops teams (in-house or agency) who need deep transformation, governance, and flexible BI delivery. If client-facing dashboard simplicity is your primary need, TapClicks wins. If your agency handles complex data workflows for enterprise clients with compliance requirements, Improvado is the better fit.
How long does it take to migrate from TapClicks to Improvado?
Typical enterprise migrations take 4–8 weeks, depending on the number of data sources, transformation complexity, and governance requirements. Improvado's professional services team handles connector setup, data mapping, and transformation logic migration — this is included in the platform cost, not sold as an add-on. For teams currently using TapClicks + a separate BI tool, the migration often simplifies infrastructure by consolidating three vendor relationships into one.
What kind of support does each platform offer?
Improvado includes a dedicated Customer Success Manager and professional services team with every enterprise contract. You have a direct point of contact for troubleshooting, optimization, and feature requests. TapClicks offers standard support with premium tiers available for advanced assistance; user reviews note that support responsiveness varies and most issues are handled via ticketing systems rather than dedicated account management.
Which platform is better for regulated industries?
Improvado is SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, and GDPR certified, with governance rules enforced at the point of data extraction. This makes it appropriate for healthcare, finance, and other regulated industries where data handling compliance is non-negotiable. TapClicks does not prominently disclose security certifications or offer native governance capabilities, making it less suitable for teams with strict compliance requirements.
FAQ
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