Top 3 Reverse ETL Use Cases

As BI tools improve, activating data remains a constant challenge for businesses. Using and incorporating action-ready into operational systems comes with a myriad of challenges, which is where reverse ETL tools come in. 

In this article, we’ll dive deep into the benefits of reverse ETL and the top 3 reverse ETL use cases, which industries benefit from it most, and how you can leverage reverse ETL to take your business to the next level. 

What Is Reverse ETL?

From a technical standpoint, reverse ELT is the yin to ETL’s yang. Reverse ELT is the opposite of ETL in terms that rather than extracting, transforming, and loading, reverse ELT extracts, loads, and then transforms data.

Which pipeline a business chooses mainly depends on the system settings and the genuine nature of the data to be extracted, loaded, and transformed. 

What Is ETL?

ETL, short for extract, transform, and load, is a subset of data integration. It pulls data from multiple sources, transforms it into usable formats, and loads the finished data into designated data warehouses or other uniform data repositories. 

What Is Reverse ELT?

In essence, reverse ETL describes harvesting filtered data from data warehouses and feeding it back into business apps. Reverse ETL works wonders for business forecasting and analytics.

Today, reverse ETL is an inseparable part of data stacking, allowing businesses to elevate their operational analytics processes. Ultimately, reverse ETL aims to enhance the customer’s experience through data that companies can use. The reverse ETL meaning lies in the ability to use data repositories as starting points and extract data from that particular source.

How Is Reverse ETL Different From ELT or ETL? 

ETL and ELT are pipelines that transfer data from third-party systems, i.e., business applications (like Salesforce, Hubspot, etc.) and databases (MySQL, Oracle, etc.) to a targeted data warehouse.

On the other hand, reverse ETL sees the data warehouse as the data source and not as a data repository. In this scenario, the target is the third-party system. 

How Can Businesses Benefit From Reverse ETL?

Reverse ETL allows businesses to gain uninterrupted access to precise data from the apps they are using. Simply put, reverse ETL saves enterprises time from switching from one app to another to harvest information. By doing so, businesses are in a position to extract accurate data that’s ready to be converted into actionable business intel.

3 Key Use Cases of Reverse ETL

Regardless of which industry your business is part of, you still depend on your clients. Leading businesses in today’s economy use data analytics as digital weapons to gain an edge. The competitiveness in the business world is fierce, which is why so many renowned organizations and enterprises are turning to data-harvesting tools more and more.

Some industries that could make the most use of reverse ETL are sales and marketing, customer service, and logistics and supply chain management.

Reverse ETL in the Customer Service Industry

A business’s employees are at the forefront of a business; they can easily shape the customer experience for the whole company. Your employees stand for your brand’s mission, societal position, etc. 

The customer service industry is practically nothing without frontline employees. Giving these employees the right tools to understand customers’ needs can boost the overall customer experience. Moreover, they (and your brand) can create a customized customer approach that will show your consumers you take your job seriously.

Reverse ETL in Marketing and Sales

The sales and marketing industry is more of a team effort—more teams are included to achieve a single goal. Everyone within the sales and marketing team has to understand the end goal—reaching a wider audience. 

With that being said, reverse ETL brings customer data closer to employees so they can understand the customer’s behavior and how to transform that information into usable data throughout the whole marketing funnel. Namely, these are the benefits they get:

• The marketing department can outline and create more customer-friendly marketing campaigns that address the right pain points;
• The sales team will gain access to information that will help them transform leads into sales. Increased conversion rates are one of the perks of reverse ETL in the sales and marketing industry.

Reverse ETL in Logistics and Supply Chain Management

In today’s digital-first world, supply chains are evolving as more complex processes. In such an environment, these supply chains simply need more information from diverse sources to complete their goal. In other words, supply chain professionals need access to data to facilitate processes, speed up delivery, minimize expenditures, and so on. 

Companies involved in the supply chain and logistics industries can enhance the following aspects of business:

• The resource-planning strategies and allocations
• Better forecasting features in terms of demand

How Rivery Can Help

Whether you’re looking to better your customer experience or are simply looking for ways to reach a wider audience, data can help. With the right data in your hands, you can quickly gain insight into valuable business intel. And for that, you need a good reverse ETL tool.

Rivery is a complete SaaS platform that can help you with every data challenge—ingestion, transformation, orchestration, and more! With our reverse ETL tool, you can easily push the data to where you want it and eliminate any manual process.

Contact us and try out this tool for 14 days, free of charge!