Login
Book a Demo
12 Big Data Analytics Tools for Data-Driven Marketers
Integrate your tech stack and gain powerful insights about your campaigns with these big data analytics tools.
Data is the crown jewel in the kingdom of the digital world.
As W. Edwards Deming famously stated, “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”
This rings especially true for marketers, who rely on customer insights to craft targeted campaigns and measure success.
Data empowers marketers to delve deeper into their audience’s preferences, pinpoint the sources of leads and revenue, and ultimately deliver high-impact marketing initiatives that drive a strong return on investment (ROI).
However, harnessing the true potential of data requires the right set of tools. In this blog post, we dive into the world of big data analytics, exploring the most effective tools that can transform your marketing efforts.
💡 Pro Tip
Why not consider Ruler Analytics? Ruler provides a 360 view of your marketing and sales touchpoints. It tracks every lead and interaction across the full customer journey. This allows you to track where your highest-converting customers come from and make data-driven decisions to improve ROI.
Everything you can discover in Ruler
Data analytics has evolved beyond simple website traffic reports. Today, marketers grapple with vast troves of data encompassing customer interactions, social media sentiment, and even machine-generated logs.
This is where big data analytics tools come into play.
Big data analytics tools pull data from multiple sources and allow companies to examine large quantities of data to uncover hidden patterns, correlations, insights and trends.
Big data analytics tools aim to allow us to make better decisions based on the data we have to improve overall efficiency and ROI.
Related: 5 ROI analytics tools to measure marketing success
With big data analytics, companies can:
When it comes to big data analytics, there are four main types:
There is no perfect tool for big data analytics. Each one has its own unique value and positioning in the marketplace, despite having a lot of overlap in functionality.
There are many types of tools for big data analytics, but some are more effective than others. Let’s take a look at some of these tools and discuss how they can help your organisation.
Ruler opens a world of opportunity for data analysts and marketing ops managers who operate a multi-tech stack.
It tracks every visitor interaction across touchpoints, sessions, traffic sources, and keywords. When a visitor converts (through a form, call, or chat), Ruler sends that rich data to your CRM, enriching each contact with valuable attribution details.
This allows you to track leads throughout the sales funnel and see which marketing channels are driving the most valuable customers.
Ruler goes beyond simple ‘click attribution’. It uses machine learning and robust models like Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) to account for the impact of all marketing channels, even impressions that don’t directly lead to a click. This provides a more complete picture of campaign performance and helps you understand the true value of each touchpoint.
Ruler integrates seamlessly with just about any tool and traffic source in your marketing stack. This ensures a smooth flow of data and accurate reporting across your entire ecosystem. You can even send revenue-attributed data to platforms like BigQuery for even deeper analysis.
Pricing starts at just £199 per month, with plans to suit businesses of all sizes.
💡 Pro Tip: Want more information on Ruler and the services we offer? Book a demo to see Ruler in action and learn how it can help your data-driven decision making and improve ROI.
Adverity is a powerful data integration and management tool designed for businesses of all sizes, marketing agencies, developers, and data professionals. It streamlines the process of collecting, transforming, and analysing marketing data from a wide range of sources.
Imagine a platform that can pull data from your advertising platforms, social media channels, affiliate networks, and internal databases – all in one place.
Adverity does exactly that, allowing you to create a single source of truth for your marketing efforts. This eliminates data silos and ensures everyone is working with the same consistent information.
Marketers can leverage Adverity’s automated data integration to save time and resources. The platform collects and transforms data, preparing it for further analysis and visualisation.
This frees up valuable time for agencies to focus on generating creative ideas, analysing trends, and developing data-driven recommendations for clients.
Adverity offers flexible pricing plans to suit your needs, with options for both individual users and enterprise teams.
For those venturing into the exciting world of data science, look no further than Altair RapidMiner. This powerful platform caters to a wide range of users, from beginners to seasoned analysts. Its user-friendly interface features a drag-and-drop design, making it approachable even for those with limited coding experience.
RapidMiner boasts a vast library of pre-built operators, essentially functioning as building blocks for your data analysis. This eliminates the need for complex coding and allows you to switch seamlessly between tasks, streamlining your workflow and boosting productivity.
Furthermore, RapidMiner empowers you to build more accurate models through its comprehensive data preparation tools, model selection options, and robust validation features.
RapidMiner offers a free, open-source edition, making it a cost-effective solution for individual users and small teams. Additionally, its workflow automation capabilities can significantly reduce development time and resource allocation, leading to further cost savings.
Apache Hadoop might not be the new kid on the block, but it remains a powerful and versatile tool for big data analytics in 2024. This open-source, Java-based framework is a favourite of industry giants like Spotify, LinkedIn, and Ebay for a reason.
It excels at handling massive datasets across clusters of computers, allowing you to unlock valuable insights from customer behaviour, marketing campaigns, risk management, and more.
Hadoop’s strength lies in its fault tolerance. Even with hardware failures, data remains available because it’s replicated across the cluster. While processing is batch-oriented, not real-time, Hadoop’s power and scalability make it a compelling choice for many big data needs.
Being open-source, the software itself is free to download and use. There are however costs associated with running and maintaining the Hadoop cluster hardware and software.
BigQuery excels at running complex queries on petabyte-scale datasets, meaning you can analyse all your data, not just a sample. This eliminates the need for data sampling, a common challenge with traditional data warehouses.
BigQuery integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics 360, allowing you to export your website traffic data directly and query it using a familiar SQL-like syntax. This streamlines data analysis and empowers you to uncover hidden insights from your website visitor behaviour.
BigQuery also boasts built-in machine learning with BigQuery ML. Data scientists and analysts can leverage BigQuery ML to create and run machine learning models directly within the platform using simple SQL queries, eliminating the need for complex data movement and model development tools.
BigQuery offers a free tier with 10GB of storage and allows running queries on up to 1TB of data per month. Paid plans cater to various data volumes and needs, with pricing details available on the Google BigQuery website.
Improvado.io caters specifically to marketers and agencies struggling with siloed data and a constant need for clear, actionable insights. It goes beyond simple data visualisation, functioning as a Marketing ETL platform.
Improvado streamlines the process of gathering data from hundreds of sources, including social media platforms, ad networks, and marketing automation tools.
This eliminates the need to manually collect and consolidate data, saving you valuable time and minimising errors. Improvado’s automated data cleansing and model mapping ensures a unified marketing dataset ready for analysis.
Improvado doesn’t stop at data collection. Its AI-powered features, including the AI Agent, empower you to automate complex campaign reports and leverage advanced analytics to optimise performance and drive ROI.
Pricing starts with a free trial, with paid plans catering to individual and enterprise needs
Mode takes a unique approach to business intelligence, prioritising collaboration between analysts and stakeholders.
They recognize that stakeholders possess crucial domain expertise – the “why” behind the data – that analysts need to fully understand a question.
Ultimately, stakeholders are the ones who make decisions based on these insights, so their involvement is essential.
For these stakeholders, Mode offers Visual Explorer, a powerful tool that empowers them to grasp the bigger picture through a vast array of visualisation options. Imagine an entire visualisation system that unlocks endless possibilities for exploring and customising data.
Visual Explorer simplifies the creation of everything from common visualisations like pivot tables to more intricate charts like combo charts, dual axes with multiple measures, and even funnel charts.
Mode Analytics offers a free trial, and paid plans cater to individual and team needs.
Microsoft Power BI is a business analytics powerhouse that helps you turn your data into actionable insights.
Whether your data lives in an Excel spreadsheet or a complex data warehouse, Power BI simplifies the process of connecting, visualising, and sharing critical information.
Power BI stands out for its user-friendly approach. It empowers not only data scientists but also everyday users to leverage the power of Microsoft AI. This means anyone can prepare data, create machine learning models, and extract insights from a wide range of data formats, both structured and unstructured.
Customisation is another key strength of Power BI. Forget about one-size-fits-all solutions. Power BI allows you to design personalised, interactive dashboards that perfectly align with your specific business needs. The drag-and-drop functionality makes it easy to create customised reports in minutes, fostering a data-driven culture within your organisation.
Power BI offers a significant advantage in terms of affordability, making it an attractive option for small and mid-sized businesses. Compared to other business intelligence and analytics solutions, Power BI delivers exceptional value without breaking the bank.
Qlik Sense eliminates the need for complex coding, making big data exploration accessible to a wider range of users.
Collaboration and knowledge sharing are key to maximising the value of big data.
Qlik Sense fosters this by providing interactive dashboards, data visualisations, and automated reports that can be easily embedded and shared throughout your organisation.
This ensures everyone has access to the latest insights and can make data-driven decisions.
Qlik Sense offers flexible pricing plans to suit your business needs.
Tableau shines in self-service visual analysis, making it easy for anyone to ask questions of governed big data and translate their discoveries into clear, shareable insights.
Beyond its collaborative nature, Tableau is renowned for its extensive data visualisation capabilities.
Often considered synonymous with traditional BI tools, Tableau allows analysts to leverage SQL for in-depth data exploration and build data solutions tailored for business leaders.
These decision-makers can then leverage the platform’s intuitive interface to analyse critical information without the need for coding expertise.
While Tableau’s drag-and-drop visualisations were initially a user favourite, its recent advancements in data management and cloud capabilities have positioned it more as a robust enterprise IT tool.
Tableau offers a variety of pricing options to suit different needs, with individual plans starting at $15 per month.
ThoughtSpot takes a unique approach to data analysis, putting the power of search at your fingertips. Its AI-powered, search-driven interface empowers users at all levels to ask questions and get instant insights through interactive data visualisations.
This natural language processing capability makes it easy to find the information you need quickly. Simply type your question, like “who is our top performing sales representative in Q3 in terms of the deal size won?” and ThoughtSpot will answer it with clear data visualisations to help you understand the story behind the numbers.
ThoughtSpot goes beyond just providing answers. It offers features like AI-assisted data modelling, human-in-the-loop feedback, and verified Liveboards to ensure data accuracy and foster collaboration.
Additionally, a centralised governance system safeguards your data and prevents unauthorised access. With its intuitive interface, ThoughtSpot makes business intelligence accessible to everyone, regardless of technical expertise.
ThoughtSpot offers a tiered pricing structure. The ThoughtSpot Team Edition is available for a flat $95 monthly subscription, ideal for small teams getting started. For larger deployments and advanced features, ThoughtSpot offers consumption-based pricing plans.
Zoho Analytics is a self-service business intelligence and data analytics platform designed for anyone who wants to get more out of their data. Whether you’re a data pro or a complete beginner, Zoho Analytics offers a user-friendly interface and a robust set of features to empower you with actionable insights.
One of the biggest strengths of Zoho Analytics is its versatility in data ingestion. You can import data from practically any source, including local files, cloud storage services like Google Drive, databases, popular business applications, and even your custom applications. This eliminates data silos and allows you to gain a holistic view of your business performance.
Zoho Analytics also takes the complexity out of data analysis. Zia, the platform’s AI-powered virtual assistant, understands natural language queries. Simply ask Zia your questions about your data, and she’ll generate insightful reports tailored to your needs.
Zoho Analytics offers a free plan for personal use, and paid plans with additional features start at just $1 per user per month, making it an affordable solution for businesses of all sizes.
There is no perfect big data analytics tool, each platform has its own distinct features and purpose.
What works for your team, might not work for another.
Ruler, however, is versatile and adaptable.
First, it provides qualitative and quantitative insights to track the interactions and behaviours of your visitors, leads and customers.
Second, you can use it as a standalone tool or in combination with other big data tools to enable the flow of marketing data between your teams.
Don’t take our word for it.
See how we’ve helped Brighttail navigate a complex buying process through attribution and data-driven insight. Or, if you’d prefer, book a demo and see Ruler in action for yourself.
