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Datorama Data Connectors:
Connect, Integrate, and Unify Your Data

By Ross Jenkins Revised on November 5, 2023 at 7:16 AM EST

Integrating Marketing Data Remains a Challenge

Marketing data is continuously changing with emerging channels, partners and technologies. Every data marketer’s mandate is to measure the success of their campaigns against measured KPIs, and spend against defined business goals. Data-driven Marketers must be agile enough to pivot based on the key insights of their consumers’ engagement. Organizing marketing data can be hard and it’s imperative to quickly clean, collect and unify data from disparate sources – online and offline. Salesforce is fond of saying, “the Magic is in the Middle” and while I agree, this can be easier said than done. You’ll need a plan, patience and talent to unify your data. Just starting? See our Mastering Datorama Learning Series.

Datorama Integration Diagram

Datorama Connectors Simplify Data Integration, Automated Reports and Dashboards

Salesforce Datorama integrates different data sources with the help of AI-powered marketing intelligence and presents reports and customized visuals within attractive, automated dashboards. This is made easier with pre-packaged Datorama connectors, which integrate different data sources to organize, aggregate, perform advanced analytics and generate, AI propelled insights. These data connectors also give marketers a chance to import or export data from the Salesforce Marketing Cloud with basic authentication protocols and a click of a button.

Datorama provides so many ways to safely and securely integrate third party data platforms but unstructured data can remain a challenge.

Let’s discuss about some of the available custom Datorama connectors which make managing unstructured data assembly easier.

Salesforce Datorama’s APIConnect, LiteConnect, Data Lake and TotalConnect capabilities

Datorama offers:

APIConnect allows access to a library of marketing APIs, popular databases, cloud storage platforms, and big data environments. With the supported APIs Datorama provides, you’re covered by a wide spectrum of the MarTech and AdTech ecosystems.

LiteConnect is the one of the easiest ways to connect to any flat file and instantly visualize it in Datorama. This option is best suitable for ad hoc analytics and non-marketing sources such as sales, geographic, or weather data, because they don’t require any upfront model considerations.

TotalConnect automates data cleansing and data model mapping by using Machine Learning intelligence to analyze data files. It helps dynamically organize your data into the right KPIs, metrics, and classification with built-in data model intelligence.

Datorama Data Lake With the release of a new, premium feature called Data Lakes, Datorama users can now onboard millions — or even billions — of rows. This includes the integration of Keyword, Event, Log, and Geo Level Data in their rawest and most granular forms. Datorama Data Lake may be a cost effective option for finally integrating data granularity without significantly impacting your Datorama row consumption rates. 

Salesforce Datorama Marketing Cloud Connectors: Social Studio, Email Studio, and Mobile Studio

Datorama connects data across marketing, advertising, technical, and flat file data sources and maps it to the data model automatically. The marketing cloud connector helps marketers to integrate messaging data for email, journeys, SMS, and mobile push. Following are the connectors available in Datorama marketing cloud:

Social Studio connector helps analyze how social media conversations captured in Social Studio impacts overall marketing performance.

Email Studio connector sheds a light on the performance of email marketing campaigns.

Mobile Studio connector aims to capture the performance of mobile campaigns.

Want to learn how to onboard Datorama data sources?

How Do You Create Custom Datorama Data Connectors?

Custom connectors are basically API connections that have been developed independently of the Datorama Infrastructure. Datorama API streams integrate with external code based a set of configurations managed from inside the platform. Using independent code, it pulls data from external providers and uploads it to Datorama.

The creation, updates, and management of custom connectors’ configuration and permissions can be performed in the Marketplace connectors screen in Datorama.

datorama data connectors



Some examples of custom connectors configuration files:

{
  “imageUrl”: “url-to-connector-logo”,
  //authentication
  “userPassDetails” : {
    “loginUrl”: “url-to-user-pass-login”
  },
  //profiles
   “profileDetails”: {
    “profilesUrl”: “url-to-profiles-endpoint”
  },
  //data
  “dataDetails”: {
    “dataUrl”: “url-to-get-data”
  },
 “responseType”: “JSON”,
 //mapping
 “preDefinedMappings”: [
   {
       “dimensions”: [
        {
          “internalName”: “date_id”,
          “externalName”: “Date”,
          “type”: “DATE”
        },
        {
          “internalName”: “campaign_name”,
          “externalName”: “campaignName”
        },
        {
          “internalName”: “ad_key”,
          “externalName”: “creativeId”
        },
        {
          “internalName”: “ad_name”,
          “externalName”: “creativeName”
        },
        {
          “internalName”: “media_buy_external_id”,
          “externalName”: “placementId”
        },
        {
          “internalName”: “media_buy_name”,
          “externalName”: “placementName”
        },
        {
          “externalName”: “clientId”
        },
        {
          “externalName”: “networkId”
        }
      ],
      “measurements”: [
      {
          “internalName”:
          “human_impressions”,

          “externalName”: “maskedImpression”
        },
        {
          “internalName”: “unblocked_impressions”,
          “externalName”: “safeImpression”
        },
        {
          “internalName”: “non_human_impressions”,
          “externalName”: “unmaskedImpression”
        },
        {
          “internalName”: “blocked_impressions”,
          “externalName”: “unsafeImpression”
       },
      ],
      “buckets”: [
        “AD_VERIFICATION”
      ]
    }
  ],
  “schemaMapping”: [
    {
      “schemaField”: “date_id”,
      “schemaType”: “REMOVE”,
      “buckets”: [
        “AD_VERIFICATION”
      ]
    },
    {
      “schemaField”: “campaign_advertiser”,
      “schemaFieldFormula”: “EXTRACT(csv[‘campaignName’],’_’,0)”,
      “buckets”: [
        “AD_VERIFICATION”
      ]
    }
  ],
  “serverErrorSleep”: “2000”,
  “serverErrorTries”: “3”
}

{
  “imageUrl”: “url-to-connector-logo”,
  //authentication
  “auth2Details”: {
    “authUrl”: “url-to-authurization-see-details-eof”,
    “tokenUrl”: “url-to-token”,
    “accountUrl”: “url-to-get-account-details”
  },
  //data
  “pollingDetails”: {
  “requestUrl”: “url-to-start-job”,
  “statusUrl”: “url-to-check-job”,
  “dataUrl”: “url-to-get-data”
},
“responseType”: “POLLING”,
“serverPollingSleep”: 5000, //in milliseconds
“serverPollingTries”: 3,
//extended properties
  “extendedProperties”: [
    {
      “key”: “extendedPropertyKey”,
      “label”: “Extended Property Label”,
      “type”: “COMBOBOX”,
      “note”: “Extended Property Note (may contain Html tags like <br>)”,
    }
  ],
  //mapping
  “manualMappings”: [
   {
      “dimensions”: [
        {
          “externalName”: “Profile Id”
        },
        {
          “externalName”: “Profile”
        },
        {
          “externalName”: “Status”
        }
        ],
      “measurements”: [
        {
          “externalName”: “Users”
        }
      ],
      “buckets”: [“ALL”]
    }
  ],
  “serverErrorSleep”: “10000”,
  “serverErrorTries”: “2”,
}
Source: Datorama.com

Some of the other popular custom, Datorama data connectors include:

  • Baidu API Connector
  • Twitter Public API Connector
  • YouTube Public API Connector
  • Integrate API Connector
  • General CRM Connector
  • Google Analytics
  • Adobe Analytics Custom Connectors
  • Performance Horizon API Connector
  • Amazon Ads API Connector
  • Appnexus Connector
  • Bing API Connector
  • Callrail API Connector
  • Comscore API Connector
  • Crimson Hexagon API Connector
  • Facebook API Connector
  • TikTok API Connector

Need a custom connector built from scratch? No problem.

How Many Connectors Does Datorama Have?

As of October 10, 2023, the actual number of Datorama data connectors is 176. This includes (125) marketing vendors such as Adobe, Google, and Appnexus, (8) connectors for onboarding flat files, like TSV, XLS, and CSV, (5) e-commerce vendors, and finally, (38) for integrating technical vendors like Vertica, SAP, and Oracle.

167 Datorama data connectors

Although the volume of data connectors is often used as a competitive metric, it may not be the correct proof point to consider value. Connectors are only as good as what’s in them. As an example, a vendor might state they have 5 custom, data connectors for Adobe Analytics. Each retrieving various data points. However, if those 5 connectors fail to ingest your specific metrics or dimensions, is it useful? Instead, focus on the ways in which a platform allows you to onboard your specific data needs. As an example, 350 data connectors may mean nothing to a Publisher if none of their SSP partners are supported.

Datorama continues to develop new data connectors for a variety of purposes as the market evolves, but provides the flexibility to create custom API connections of your own using JSON/Python.

Get Expert Datorama Salesforce Implementation Support

Decision Foundry is a tier-one Datorama partner years of hard-earned platform experience, and four Salesforce Marketing champions. We are a certified partner that offers a combination of design, engineering, user experience, and data science, to deliver accurate and insightful dashboards.

Our implementation process increases confidence our clients’ data strategy, dashboard builds, and ability to act on credible marketing insights.

Partner with one of Datorama’s leaders in Visual Communication. We will create custom data connectors, document, build, and automate a new reporting solution for you, or extend the value of your existing reporting infrastructure. Contact us for a discovery call.

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