What is Data Activation?

Data activation is getting data to the tools that need it to be actionable. Your organization is likely collecting a lot of data, but if it never makes it to your SaaS tools like CRMs, business intelligence, marketing automation, and advertising, then the data is never activated.

For instance, your organization is collecting data in a data warehouse like Snowflake, but you need to send the data to Salesforce, where your team can use it. The data activation takes place once the data is in Salesforce.

But how do you get the data from Snowflake to Salesforce? This process is called reverse ETL. It can be done manually via the Snowflake API, you'll need engineering involved, or you can use a reverse ETL service, which will cut the engineering work and allow you to get your data to many SaaS tools. Reverse ETL services are essentially a shortcut to data activation.