Fivetran > Case Studies > Yardzen Streamlines Data Pipelines and Enhances Analytics with Fivetran

Yardzen Streamlines Data Pipelines and Enhances Analytics with Fivetran

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS)
Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Buildings
Cement

Applicable Functions

Maintenance
Sales & Marketing

Use Cases

Building Automation & Control
Time Sensitive Networking

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
Data Science Services

About The Customer

Founded in 2018, Yardzen is an online landscape design firm that pairs homeowners with talented landscape designers to create yard designs that are tailor-made. The multi-million business has changed the landscape design and build process by delivering a fundamentally better experience to homeowners and contractors alike. Yardzen’s Data Engineering Lead Andrea Kyrala is responsible for integrating data from the company’s numerous SaaS tools and product databases into BigQuery as well as establishing a flexible and secure data architecture — which includes sourcing, pipeline creation and maintenance. The company has a size of 150 employees and supports departments such as Marketing, Business Operations, and Leadership.

The Challenge

Yardzen, an online landscape design firm, was facing significant challenges in managing its data pipelines. The company's Data Engineering Lead, Andrea Kyrala, was tasked with integrating data from numerous SaaS tools and product databases into BigQuery, as well as establishing a flexible and secure data architecture. However, building custom pipelines to BigQuery in-house was a time-consuming process, often requiring weeks of work digging through API documentation. Moreover, the ETL pipelines were brittle and frequently required intensive maintenance. Analysts and marketers were manually exporting individual reports from each marketing platform to understand ad and marketing performance, a process that was not only painstaking and time-consuming but also made it difficult for leadership to gain a unified view of advertising spend and performance across platforms. Often, Andrea didn’t have the time for complex transformation and cleanup that would ultimately save the business analyst time in the backend.

The Solution

Yardzen turned to Fivetran to solve its data pipeline challenges. Fivetran's solution was implemented quickly and easily, enabling Andrea to connect the firm’s Google, Twitter, Bing, and Pinterest Ads sources to centralize advertising spend data in a matter of minutes. This allowed Yardzen to set up a modern data stack for the first time, on a budget and with minimal engineering effort, enabling the business to scale its analytics function. With Fivetran, Yardzen was able to build an attribution dashboard and model with the data provided, benefiting multiple teams within the business and enabling rapid leadership decisions. The solution also allowed Yardzen to reprioritize marketing spend across channels to rapidly and effectively prioritize its advertising dollars, and to have an accurate picture of its invoice statuses, giving the leadership team more confidence in making accurate financial decisions.

Operational Impact

The implementation of Fivetran has brought significant operational benefits to Yardzen. The company has been able to establish a modern data stack for the first time, enabling it to scale its analytics function. The solution has also allowed Yardzen to build an attribution dashboard and model, benefiting multiple teams within the business and enabling rapid leadership decisions. The company can now reprioritize marketing spend across channels more effectively, and has an accurate picture of its invoice statuses, giving the leadership team more confidence in making accurate financial decisions. Moreover, Andrea can now focus her time on projects that generate value for the business, scaling far beyond what she was previously capable of as a team of one. With the support of a business analyst, Andrea is building a complex conversion funnel that identifies and groups user profiles into households, determines customers who are more likely to purchase, and looks at the efficacy of marketing in targeting those customers — all projects that will generate business value for years to come.

Quantitative Benefit

Yardzen saved a month in implementation time to build its own marketing and advertising connectors.
Reduced weeks of coding work and maintenance time for every new connector the business set up.
Yardzen is now on Fivetran's Free Plan, enabling them to automate ELT for their sources at no cost.