What Is A Customer Data Pipeline?
Tags: cdp, customerdata, etl, datawarehouse
Published: 2021-12-10 06:52:00

You have probably heard about a [customer data pipeline](https://rudderstack.com/blog/build-or-buy-lessons-from-ten-years-building-customer-data-pipelines) before but have always wondered what the concept includes or how it works. This post helps you take a closer look at what a Customer Data Pipeline is, its infrastructure, and its functionalities.

Simply put, a data pipeline works as a processing engine. It directly sends your information by using transformative filters, applications, and APIs.

Think of a data pipeline as a public transportation, with you deciding where your information jumps aboard and when it leaves.

Data pipeline processes are a mixture of various information sources. These apply transformation logic, which is often split into several sequential portions. This service sends the information to a load destination, such as a data warehouse.

With the beginning of digital marketing and the constant development of technology, data pipelines have developed as saviors for conversation, collection, migration, and complex information visualization, especially within the IT sector. Even so, only 35% of marketers believe their customer data pipeline is efficient and fruitful.

What To Look For In A Customer Data Pipeline?
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There are various factors to consider when looking for the [perfect data pipeline solution](https://rudderstack.com/blog/part-1-the-evolution-of-data-pipeline-architecture) for your marketing strategy. Always searching for a tool that can extract, convert and load information from hundreds of marketing platforms into a final destination, like a data warehouse or BI tool.

The sturdy nature of data pipelines provides flexible schemes from fixed and real-time sources. In the long run, this flexibility refers to data pipelines' capability to divide data into small stages.

The connection between the range of information and its impact has become crucial for big business worldwide. Understanding this solid relation helps data scientists resolve problems with inactivity, unidentified sources, restricted access, and data duplication issues.

Nowadays, data pipelines match the system network. So, if the data pipeline is more comprehensive, the network system applicability will perform far better. It will also help combine hybrid applications and cloud services for a seamless performance.

The Rise Of Data Pipelines
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Data pipelines have started to integrate various tools and ingest many large XML and CSV documents. The processing of information in real-time was maybe the culmination of customer data pipelines and their effects on a business. That culmination also enabled the need of the hour to transfer sizable portions of information from one point to another without changing the layout. Because of this, companies have found brand-new freedom to extract, move, segment, or transfer information over a short period.

During the past few years, the objectivity of how companies work has changed a lot. The focus is not on gaining revenue margins but has to do with the way customer data scientists can present potential solutions that link with marketers. No matter the changes, they always have to be transformative, suitable for tracking, and flexible for changing upcoming dynamics. Data pipelines are much more than using flat documents, folders, and databases to deal with services on a platform.

Data Pipeline Infrastructure
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A data pipeline infrastructure includes matching, organizing, tracking, or redirecting vast amounts of data to acquire relevant information. That said, there are quite a few notable yet inappropriate access points for fresh data.

When done right, the process uses the unique pipeline infrastructure that customizes, combines, visualizes, automates, converts, and moves data from various resources, thus achieving set aims.

The architectural structure of a data pipeline requires optimal functionality based on specific business intelligence and analytics. Data functionality means getting insights into clients' behavior, enhancing the automation and robotic process, and gathering patterns of clients' and users' experiences. You can learn more about real-time information and trends via obtaining specified analytics and business intelligence via vast data chunks.

It is always recommended that one forms skilled data engineering teams. By recruiting expert data engineers, you will cover various major stages and tackle possible issues, such as troubleshooting complications, implementing specific data, and recognizing complex tables.

The Functionality Of A Data Pipeline
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The functionality of a data pipeline serves to bring vast information together. Technically, it uses a method of accessing, storing, and spreading gathered information, depending on its structure.

Reducing the data movement, for example, is possible through an abstract layer.

You can design an abstract layer for various file systems using AWS and storage mechanisms.

The usefulness of a data pipeline doesn't have to rely on the merchant's database system. Data pipeline has to collect complete information before storing a device, thus protecting the data system's future and viability.

Moreover, data pipeline usage should provide business analytics instead of creating the network entirely on aesthetics. A streaming structure, for instance, is pretty tough to manage and requires strong business skills and professional experience in managing compound engineering responsibilities.

To design customer data pipelines, you can use a regular container service.

The most common mistake people make during the designing of functional response is distributing operations which then perform unevenly. The general idea is to adjust the CTAS method to set various operations and file parameters.

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