How to leverage ETL for marketing data

Marketing data is everywhere — from ad platforms to CRMs, analytics tools and spreadsheets. But if you don’t have a system that brings it all together, you risk missing out on important insights, making decision-making feel like a shot in the dark. Businesses actually lose about $12.9 million a year because of lousy data quality.

Now, just imagine having all your marketing data — whether it’s from online campaigns or offline efforts — nice and tidy in one spot. That’s the benefit of centralizing your marketing data. With the right approach, you can cut through the chaos, get real-time clarity and turn that raw data into useful insights that fuel your growth.

To make this happen, marketing teams focused on data are turning to ETL tools to help organize, clean and connect their data smoothly. With an ETL solution designed for marketing intelligence, you can ditch the mess and stress, making your decision-making smarter, quicker and more confident. 

What is an ETL?

ETL (extract, transform, load) is essential for marketers to pull data from ad platforms, CRMs and data analytics tools into one clean, organized system. It turns messy, siloed data into reliable insights, giving you a clear view of marketing performance. 

With this centralized data, you can make smarter decisions, track campaign success and fine-tune strategies quickly rather than waiting for manual reports that are out of date as soon as you get them. 

Clean data is the foundation of successful marketing, and an ETL tool makes sure you're working with the highest data quality for better insights and simplified data management.

How do traditional ETL tools work?

Marketing teams deal with tons of data from dozens (or hundreds) of sources. An ETL solution is the platform that connects with all of your data sources, working behind the scenes to make your intelligence analysis-ready. There are three main stages to the ETL process that work together to help you create streamlined data pipelines.

Extract data

The first step in ETL is gathering data from multiple marketing sources. Depending on the sources and the type of ETL solution you choose, this data integration process can be simple, requiring a few API connections between your channels and your ETL solution, or extremely complex, requiring data engineers and analysts to handhold the data normalization process and de-duplicate records for data accuracy. 

In addition to the types of online and offline data sources you need to integrate, your marketing team will typically also rely on two types of data:

• First-party data: This type of data comes from direct customer interactions or your own website. It includes records from your CRM platform, website analytics from your Google Analytics account and transaction data from internal databases and e-commerce platforms.

• Third-party data: This type of data originates from external platforms. It includes data from ad platforms, such as Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads or Facebook Ads, and audience data purchased from external sources.

Without a proper data integration process, managing data from these sources often leads to inconsistent and fragmented insights and poor attribution.

Transform data

Once extracted from your data sources, it needs to be cleaned and prepared for data analysis. To transform data, it is:

• Cleaned: This step involves removing duplicates, fixing errors and discarding irrelevant information.

• Standardized: Data is cleaned and organized but not aggregated. Standardization can include steps like converting time zones, normalizing campaign names or handling missing values.

The transformation stage is critical to ensuring your data is ready for analysis. Imagine you have campaign data from Google Ads in USD, Facebook Ads in EUR and LinkedIn Ads in GBP. Your ETL tool ensures all costs are converted into a single currency, allowing for accurate ROI analysis. 

Load data

The final step is saving the prepared data in a system where it can be accessed and analyzed. Common export destinations include:

• Data warehouses: Platforms like Snowflake or BigQuery store all data in one central location, eliminating silos and supporting collaboration.
• Business intelligence tools: Tools like Tableau, Power BI or Google Data Studio allow teams to build dashboards and analyze trends.
• Marketing platforms: Importing data into platforms like HubSpot or Facebook Ads allows teams to launch targeted campaigns, such as reaching audiences who recently purchased specific products.

Marketing teams that use ETL effectively are far better equipped to make data-driven decisions and improve performance, with companies using these methods being five times more likely to gain actionable insights.

5 reasons why marketing teams should use an automated ETL tool

Poor data costs businesses an estimated $12.9 million annually (per company). For marketing teams, an automated ETL tool is the key to reclaiming this waste. While traditional ETL tools can help you clean data for storage, an automated ETL solution will make it easier to access direct insights faster. Here’s how: 

1. Consolidate data across multiple platforms

Marketing data often comes from multiple sources such as social media, ad networks, CRMs and analytics tools. An ETL tool acts as a central operations hub, pulling in data from all these platforms so you don’t have to rely on manual processes or dedicated data integration tools.

For example, instead of manually exporting LinkedIn Ads data and Salesforce lead records, an ETL tool integrates, prepares, and exports the data to its destination. 

2. Save time through automation

In a traditional ETL process, this data would still need a data team to do the heavy lifting to extract insights and recommendations. Manually managing marketing data is like running an enterprise sales process with spreadsheets instead of CRM software. It is time-consuming, error-prone and limits scalability. 

Modern ETL tools can automate the entire data pipeline, from extracting campaign performance data to transforming it into actionable reports. 

For instance, a marketing team tracking paid media campaigns across multiple channels can save hours every week by automating the data collation and transformation process, allowing them to focus on high-value tasks.

3. Gain deeper insights with accurate reporting

Accurate data is the foundation of meaningful marketing insights, but inconsistencies and errors often get in the way. ETL tools clean and standardize data to make reporting seamless. 

For example, a team analyzing which marketing channels are driving the most pipeline revenue can use an ETL tool to connect data from HubSpot, Google Ads and LinkedIn. This eliminates manual corrections and allows for clear, actionable insights that drive smarter budget decisions.

4. Optimize campaign performance with real-time data

Your marketing team often needs to make adjustments mid-campaign, whether reallocating ad spend or tweaking audience targeting. ETL tools help by connecting to real-time data sources so they can act quickly. 

Two-way communication between your marketing intelligence solution and Facebook Ads, for example, means optimization can be automated.

Or a team running lead-generation campaigns can monitor the performance of Google Ads and LinkedIn campaigns as they unfold. If one channel is underperforming, they can reallocate resources to maximize ROI instead of waiting for weekly reports to identify issues.

5. Empower teams without coding skills

ETL tools are designed to be user-friendly, removing the need for technical expertise. It is like having a no-code CRM that anyone on the marketing team can use. 

For example, a marketing manager might use an ETL tool to merge CRM data with ad performance metrics to build dashboards for leadership without needing IT support. 

This not only removes bottlenecks but also empowers teams to own their analytics and act quickly on the data.

Benefits of ETL for marketing teams

ETL changes the way you interpret insights and make decisions by:

• Helping with security: By centralizing data, ETL keeps your clean and organized data stored in secure systems, protecting sensitive marketing information.

• Aligning the C-suite: By linking marketing performance directly to business outcomes like revenue and ROI, ETL tools help CMOs and CFOs work from the same data and speed up decision-making. 

• Scaling with ease: As marketing grows and new platforms are added, ETL tools handle the increased data complexity without overwhelming the team. Processes stay efficient even as the workload expands without the need to build on or add another spreadsheet to the mix.

Types of ETL tools for marketing

Not all ETL tools are made equal. Different types work to solve different challenges. 

• Batch processing tools: Tools like Apache Nifi or IBM DataStage process large sets of data at scheduled intervals. They are useful for analyzing weekly or monthly marketing performance.

• Real-time processing tools: Tools like Apache Kafka or StreamSets help you monitor live campaign data, allowing you to make quick adjustments on the fly.

• Open-source ETL tools: Talend and Pentaho offer free, flexible solutions for marketers looking to combine data from various sources without a big budget.
  
  
• Self-service ETL tools: Alteryx and Trifacta empower marketers to prep and analyze their own data quickly, reducing dependency on IT and speeding up decision-making.

Should you use a marketing ETL or go traditional? 

If you’re looking for the right ETL tool to streamline your marketing and give you direct insights you can rely on, a marketing intelligence solution is the way to go. A tool like Funnel, for example, offers automated ETL and was purpose-built for marketers. 

This is how a traditional ETL works with a data warehouse:

In a standard ETL workflow, raw data from multiple platforms is consolidated into a data warehouse. This data then requires additional transformation for analysis. Funnel simplifies the process by handling the entire process, normalizing and aggregating the data for you.

This is how Funnel streamlines the ETL process:

• Automates data extraction and transformation: Funnel eliminates manual intervention by seamlessly pulling data from hundreds of marketing platforms and normalizing metrics like costs, currency and fields.

• Prepares data for analysis: After your raw data has been cleaned and structured, your data is ready for use in various destinations, such as data warehouses, BI tools, or any marketing reporting tool.

• Offers flexibility: Funnel allows you to output either aggregated or individual data sources, a capability that is more complex to do in traditional data warehouse setups.

Funnel takes the manual intervention out of the equation. It extracts and transforms marketing data, normalizes costs and fields and loads clean data into your data warehouse, BI tool or marketing platform, making it a complete marketing ELT + L tool. 

But don’t just take out word for it. By integrating Funnel’s marketing intelligence solution, Sephora automated data extraction and transformation across 18 European teams, centralizing everything in one system. This led to a 75% reduction in data processing costs and helped both central and local teams access consistent, reliable data, ultimately improving decision-making and reporting efficiency.

However, if you still want to go for a more traditional ETL solution, there are plenty of great options available. 

Airbyte, for example, is an open-source data integration platform that runs on Kubernetes, providing deployment flexibility but requiring more management. It offers traditional ETL tools along with automated schema handling and robust security features. While it supports modern technologies like dbt and Airflow, it remains rooted in traditional data engineering concepts.

This platform offers extensive connectivity and governance features but requires serious technical expertise to deploy, maintain and operate, especially when self-hosting.

Airbyte and other traditional tools offer control over the ETL process, but with that comes the need for extensive technical resources to ensure smooth operation. It’s useful for teams that require a high level of customization and governance but may not be the best choice for those looking for an easy, plug-and-play solution.

For a detailed comparison of the top ETL tools for 2025, make sure to read our ultimate guide.

Marketing ETL for insights you can build success on 

Marketing teams handle more data than ever, but without the right tools, insights get lost, and decisions take longer than they should. Whether you’re scaling campaigns, refining attribution or optimizing ROI, a well-structured ETL process ensures your data is accurate, accessible and ready for action.

But ETL isn’t just about managing data — it’s about freeing your team to focus on strategy, creativity and growth instead of chasing down reports.

It’s time to take control of your marketing data. See how an automated ETL solution, like Funnel, can simplify your workflow, improve reporting, and help you make faster, smarter decisions. Book a demo today!