Your customer data is full of insights that can make your notifications more personal and useful. Reverse ETL tools like Census and Hightouch can take the information in your data warehouse and use it to power smarter product notifications.

In this guide, we'll explore different reverse ETL options and show how they work with Knock to create engaging notification experiences. We'll also look at common use cases you can implement with reverse ETL in your product. By the end, you'll know which reverse ETL approach works best for your team and how to get started quickly.

What is reverse ETL?

Reverse ETL works like a data irrigation system for marketing, sales, and support tools. One ideal use-case is channeling information from your data warehouse to your go-to-market apps to enhance your customer communication with relevant context and insights.

Initially, companies used Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) to centralize data from various sources into unified profiles for analysis and segmentation. CDPs solved the fragmented customer information problem. Soon after, companies realized that while CDPs excel at collecting and organizing data, they needed a way to push these enriched insights into the tools where customer-facing teams make decisions and interact with users. This is why Reverse ETL emerged.

The leading Reverse ETL vendors

Census

Census stands out in the reverse ETL market because of its user-friendly design built for marketers. It has an intuitive point-and-click interface that enables non-technical users to create complex customer segments without writing code.

Census offers "Computed Columns," a feature that lets non-technical users manipulate data without SQL knowledge. This tool enables marketers to combine fields, convert timestamps, or create conditional logic through a visual interface.

Hightouch

Hightouch has the broadest integration ecosystem with over 250 destinations and 34+ data sources. Hightouch serves marketers, but also data engineers who need precise control over data workflows through SQL-based modeling and advanced integration capabilities.

The platform offers observability tools that engineers would appreciate. Its live debugger exposes detailed API information. Customizable alerts and sync logs give users the visibility they need to maintain reliable data pipelines.

CDPs with reverse ETL features

While dedicated reverse ETL tools specialize in moving data from your warehouse to operational systems, you may have access to similar capabilities if you already use a CDP. Vendors like Rudderstack and Segment serve as both data collectors and activators.

Rudderstack

Rudderstack positions itself as a complete customer data infrastructure platform rather than just another CDP. A few years ago the company expanded vertically and began offering ETL and reverse ETL features.

Unlike reverse ETL tools for marketers, Rudderstack is “built for engineers” who need power and control, but do not want to manage the infrastructure required to extract and transform customer data and route it to GTM tools.

Segment

Segment stands as the market-leading customer data platform, powering data infrastructure for major companies like IBM, Gap, Intuit, and Peloton.

In late 2022, Segment expanded and launched their reverse ETL capabilities. In contrast to purpose-built reverse ETL solutions, Segment offers a customer data suite “so you can have one vendor and one tool for all of your data.”

Integrate reverse ETL with Knock

Knock offers a direct integration with both Census and Hightouch so you can populate Knock with customer data from your warehouse. This enables you to create targeted and rich notification experiences based on defined user segments.

Within Knock you can start by building an Audience, a group of users who share common traits or behaviors like "active users" or "at-risk customers." Audiences in Knock can be synced with Hightouch Models and Census Segments. You can then use audiences to trigger workflows when new users join, or conditionally route notifications based on membership.

You can also trigger workflows from CDPs like Rudderstack (read docs) and Segment (read docs).

Reverse ETL and Knock use cases

You can use reverse ETL to power relevant and timely notifications that result in higher engagement rates. Below are a few examples of notification experiences you can build with Knock.

Product onboarding sequences

First it's important to note that because data warehouse syncing often has some lag time, reverse ETL isn't ideal for triggering a user’s very first onboarding notification. However where reverse ETL truly shines is in powering the ongoing onboarding sequence that follows.

As users begin to explore your product, their behavior data flows into your warehouse. You can then use Census or Hightouch to add these users to different audience segments in Knock based on their progress. For example, users who completed their profile can receive different guidance than those who haven't. Or enterprise customers can receive specialized content about team features and admin controls through the same workflow.

Feature adoption notifications

Reverse ETL can be used to increase product adoption by sending targeted notifications to users who would benefit from specific features. Your tool can model users who have a high propensity for adopting a feature based on similar users who've done the same. You can then use these audiences to trigger and conditionally route notifications about the feature’s benefits.

For example, if your CDP identifies that users who frequently collaborate on tasks are highly likely to adopt your new video collaboration feature, reverse ETL can sync this segment directly to an audience in Knock. You can then trigger personalized email or in-app notifications specifically to this group, highlighting how your video feature would help speed up collaboration.

Churn prevention notifications

When users are in danger of churn you can use reverse ETL and Knock to nudge them with notifications before they decide to leave. First you’d identify at-risk customers using your warehouse data. This can be based on warning signs like missed key milestones in their customer journey or decreasing usage patterns.

Then you can use Census or Hightouch to add users to a "churn risk" audience in Knock. When a user joins this audience, it can trigger proactive outreach notifications with targeted content to re-engage them, offer assistance, or highlight unused value. By connecting your customer data directly to your notification workflows, you can intervene at just the right moment to improve retention.

Start sending data driven notifications

Reverse ETL is a powerful tool for creating impactful notifications, whether you choose Census for its marketing-friendly interface, Hightouch for its technical depth, or an all-in-one CDP like Segment or Rudderstack.

By connecting your customer data to Knock, you can create data-driven notifications that will increase your product's adoption and retention rates.

Check out Knock's documentation to learn more about these integrations, then sign up for a Knock account to start building reverse ETL powered notifications.