LiveRamp Case Study: Using ETL for Redshift to Visualize the Customer Journey with Data

LiveRamp leveraged the power of Matillion and Looker together to accelerate time to insights and help push their business vision forward. From up to 12 reports previously to just one seamless view, the company can now connect data from sales, marketing and product to tell a cohesive story and get a 360 degree view of their customers.
LiveRamp provides the identity platform leveraged by brands and their partners to deliver innovative products and exceptional experiences. Powered by its core capabilities in data accessibility, identity, connectivity, and data stewardship, LiveRamp makes it easy to connect the world’s data, people and applications.
Company: LiveRamp
Location: San Francisco, CA
Industry: Marketing & Advertising
Employees: 1,200
Product: Matillion ETL for Redshift
Use Case: Reporting and Analytics
Reporting & Analytics Tech: Looker
Website: https://liveramp.com/
Chenoy’s first step was to gather stakeholders and get buy-in from each person. He brought together the Marketing Director, Head of Marketing Operations and an Executive Sponsor along with the team from Slalom Consulting that included a Data Architect and Engineer and a Senior Developer.
Together, the team worked out what data could be pulled and the method for doing so. Due to the sensitive nature of the data, they gave close attention to permissions, data governance, and the security protocols necessary for this project.
After evaluating different ETL tools and vendors, the team made the decision to use Matillion ETL for Redshift because of the product’s seamless integration with Redshift, the cloud data warehouse they selected for the project. Matillion offered a cloudnative solution that leveraged the underlying power of LiveRamp’s cloud data warehouse and provided the flexibility the team required. The need to write custom code for queries and perform data transformation, along with data governance concerns, shaped their decision to choose Matillion. “There are many ETL tools that do the E and L parts well. Matillion really does the T very well. We also wanted to write custom code for queries and none of the other tools had this flexibility,” Chenoy explained.
The team at Slalom worked to execute their data transformation plan and build jobs that would meet the needs of the marketing team and the business overall. They envisioned, designed, and implemented a scalable data lake in the cloud to leverage the power and performance of a cloud data warehouse.
If a friend or peer were considering using Matillion, I would tell them that Matillion is going to make their life infinitely easier, blow away their superiors with the reports they can produce after blending the data, and literally help shape the direction of a company. It’s very easy to convince someone to use this tool.
Hoshang Chenoy,
Sr. Manager, Marketing Analytics, LiveRamp
Chenoy determined how he wanted to build the platform but struggled to understand how to make it easy to digest for the entire team. What he found with Matillion’s UI was an easily understood visualization of data sources and workflows. Using Matillion ETL, the team at LiveRamp can fully see the customer journey, consolidate multiple reports and continue to add more and more data sources. Now, the marketing team is able to interact with prospects and customers using the right message, at the right time, at any point in the buyer’s journey. Since the initial implementation, LiveRamp has seen repeated success with Matillion ETL across other cloud data warehouses and analytics tools.
Meeting data demands across the business
After sharing the success of their implementation of Matillion ETL, three more teams have adopted the tool for their own use including Product and Business Intelligence. The Business Intelligence team uses Matillion ETL to help answer data questions for the broader organization. Teams across LiveRamp were quick to incorporate the data transformation software not only for its ease of use but also to take advantage of one of Matillion’s biggest benefits: it works within their firewalls and does not access their data. Chenoy believes LiveRamp will continue to grow their use of data with the help of Matillion. “This tool is so powerful. . . we are now only limited by [the team’s] imagination on what is possible.”
Slalom is a modern consulting firm focused on strategy, technology, and business transformation. In over 30 markets across the US, UK, and Canada, Slalom’s teams have autonomy to move fast and do what’s right. They’re backed by regional innovation hubs, a global culture of collaboration, and partnerships with the world’s top technology providers.