PPC data pipelines have become increasingly important as leading agencies set out to build custom solutions for their clients.
Companies such as Improvado, Supermetrics, Funnel, Adverity, and Cervinoata have built their businesses by connecting to data APIs from a broad range of sources and delivering standardized data to tools agencies use every day.
Improvado is middleware that gathers data about marketing performance, ad spend, and sales from channels like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and 180+ others into a single destination of their choice. Destinations include databases such as Google Big Query; dashboards including Tableau, Qlik, and Improvado; and even spreadsheet software such as Excel.
In April of 2019, Improvado raised $8M in venture capital to accelerate the adoption and expansion of the company's disruptive data middleware solution.
Improvado was able to raise capital because they target a broad spectrum of in-house and agency marketers. The platform is designed to be useful whether or not you have PPC specific work to do.
The Shape ADI (Advertising Data Infrastructure) is designed for people working with PPC at scale.
From our perspective, the two main differences between Improvado and Shape ADI are:
1. Shape's focus on PPC and ability to push edits back to ad networks.
Improvado is a one-way data pipeline for over 180 data sources. The Shape ADI is focused on just the ad networks that matter most to PPC marketers. Since Shape focusies on the needs of people doing PPC work, our integrations offer more breath and depth of data fields. Likewise, the ADI offers the ability to push changes back to the ad networks, not just collect data.
2. The Shape ADI includes a Fully-Managed Data Warehouse.
Improvado makes it easy to distribute your data to services such as Google BigQuery, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Amazon RedShift, and AWS for data storage. But, Improvado does not offer the design or maintenance of a data warehouse, nor do they assume additional scaling and storage ccosts as part of their offering. The Shape ADI includes a fully-managed data warehouse designed to meet the needs of PPC agencies.
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Improvado is a cloud-based marketing data aggregation system which allows users to connect to a range of marketing platforms, business intelligence (BI) tools, and data visualization systems, without needing help from developers.
Image Source: Improvado "How it Works" Page
Improvado is middleware that collects your marketing data and transports it to your data warehouse, BI tool, or spreadsheet of choice.
The ADI is a data management product suite made up of a two-way API and managed data warehouse with connectors to reporting tools used at agencies every day.
With the ADI as a data management foundation, agencies can build custom ppc solutions with fewer (or no) engineers in less time.
Improvado does not list any pricing on their website. But, after you receive a demo from someone on their team you do get a one month free trial.
The Shape ADI pricing includes all data warehousing costs including storage, management, scaling, and transfer costs. With Improvado, you are responsible for setting up, maintaining and paying for additional storage fees tied to your data warehouse.
Shape ADI “Basic” - Free
Shape ADI - “Starter” Tier - $449/month
Shape ADI - “Enterprise” Tier - Contact for Pricing
Note: Improvado requires a demo before onboarding.
Improvado: Getting Started Guide
Shape ADI: Overview | Help Guides and Support
Improvado connects with an incredible 180+ of marketing and sales data sources.
Shape is focused on data sources that represent the majority of PPC spend online. Those networks include:
Improvado and Shape are both fully automated and maintained PPC data pipelines. This means if an ad network makes a change to their API, both systems will be adjusted without your team having to make any changes to how data is collected.
Shape also fully maintains the PPC data warehouse that comes as a part of the ADI offering.
Improvado is great at pulling data in from many different sources and sending it to your destination of choice. This is great for reporting and dashboarding solutions.
But at Shape, our products allow users to pull data from and push data back to ad networks. Push changes to bids, budgets, and statuses automatically based on custom rules and your unique best practices using Shape.
Being able to push edits back to campaigns from an automated system allows agencies to automate tasks beyond just reporting and create true competitive advantages for their agency.
Improvado does not offer any specialized consulting services beyond their standard product support.
Beginning with Shape's Starter ADI plan ($499/month), we offer built-in consulting services as part of the pricing. Our engineering team can assist your team with needs such as project scoping and data requirements. Leverage our years of domain expertise to build your perfect PPC technology solution!
Fuel your PPC data analytics engine with Shape's ADI. Uncover business-changing insights when you combine robust advertising data from Shape's cross-channel API with the speed and power of full maintained marketing data warehouse.