How to Build a Data Lakehouse for Your HubSpot Marketing and Sales

In today’s data-driven world, marketing and sales leaders are constantly seeking ways to gain deeper insights into their customers, campaigns, and overall business performance. For those using HubSpot, the idea of a “data lakehouse” may sound like a mysterious, techy concept reserved for data scientists. But don’t worry — building a data lakehouse isn’t as complex as it sounds, and it could be the key to unlocking deeper insights and driving better business decisions.

In this post, we’ll break down what a data lakehouse is, why it could benefit your business, and how to start thinking about building one without getting bogged down by technical jargon. Let’s dive in!

What is a Data Lakehouse?

To keep it simple, a data lakehouse is a way to store and organise all of your business data in one place. Think of it as a super-powered library that combines the best features of two popular storage types: data lakes and data warehouses.

1. Data Lakes: These are like giant storage pools where all sorts of data are kept in raw form, waiting to be analysed. They’re great for storing massive amounts of information, but without a way to organisae or structure the data, it’s often hard to extract meaningful insights.

2. Data Warehouses: These are more structured and organised. They store specific types of data that can be analysed immediately. However, they’re typically more rigid, and storing large amounts of data in this way can get expensive.

3. Data Lakehouse: Combining these concepts, a data lakehouse allows you to store all your data in one place, organised so it’s easy to analyse. This structure is flexible enough to handle the raw data of a lake but structured enough for quick insights, like a warehouse.

Why Would a HubSpot User Want a Data Lakehouse?

For most marketing and sales teams using HubSpot, data is everywhere — from email performance and website traffic to customer details and sales activity. But accessing all that data, connecting it, and using it to get a clear view of your entire business can be a challenge. This is where a data lakehouse becomes valuable. Here’s how it could benefit you:

1. Unified Customer View: A data lakehouse combines data from HubSpot with other sources, such as social media, website analytics, and e-commerce platforms. By centralising this data, you can create a single, unified view of your customer journey, from the first touch to the final sale and beyond.

2. Better Campaign Analysis: Imagine being able to see how a customer interacted with multiple campaigns across different channels before converting. With a data lakehouse, you can track these multi-channel engagements over time to understand which campaigns and channels are most effective.

3. Data-Driven Decision Making: By organising data in a way that’s easy to access and analyse, a data lakehouse enables you to make more informed decisions. For instance, you could pinpoint which regions have the most engaged customers, identify customer segments with high lifetime value, or optimise your budget based on proven success patterns.

4. Cost Savings: Instead of investing in multiple tools or data storage solutions, a data lakehouse is a more cost-effective way to handle and analyse your data, all in one place.

How to Get Started: Building Your Data Lakehouse Step-by-Step

Now that we understand the benefits, let’s look at how you can start building a data lakehouse for your business. You don’t need to be a technical expert to get started — you just need to know what you’re looking to achieve.

1. Define Your Goals and Questions

Start by thinking about what you want to learn from your data. Consider questions like:

• What do I want to know about my customers that I can’t see easily in HubSpot alone?
• Which marketing campaigns have the biggest impact on our sales?
• Are there trends in customer behavior that we’re not currently identifying?

By defining your goals, you’ll have a clear direction when setting up your data lakehouse.

2. Gather Your Data Sources

To build a data lakehouse, you need to gather data from various sources. For HubSpot users, this could mean exporting data on leads, deals, customer engagement, and campaign performance. You may also want to include data from:

• Social media platforms
• Google Analytics or other website analytics tools
• E-commerce data (if applicable)
• Customer feedback and surveys

Most platforms have export options or integrations to make data collection straightforward.

3. Choose a Storage Solution

Next, you’ll need a place to store all this data. There are many platforms that make it easy to create a data lakehouse without needing an IT department. Some popular options for small to medium-sized businesses include:

• Google BigQuery: A cloud data warehouse with simple integration options.
• Amazon Redshift: A cloud-based data warehouse with built-in analysis tools.
• Snowflake: A popular choice for businesses looking for a scalable data warehouse with easy collaboration.

Each of these options can serve as a base for your data lakehouse, allowing you to store and organise data from HubSpot and other sources in one place.

4. Organise and Structure Your Data

Once your data is collected, you’ll want to organise it for easy analysis. Many data lakehouse platforms offer tools to transform raw data into useful insights. For example, you might structure data so you can easily see sales activity by region or analyse campaign performance by customer segment.

This process often involves creating “dashboards” or “reports” — visualisations that display your most important metrics in real time.

5. Set Up Basic Analytics and Automations

Once your data lakehouse is organised, you can set up basic analytics to answer your key questions. Many platforms have built-in tools or simple integrations with analytics software like Tableau or Looker, which can help visualise your data.

Automating your reports can save time and ensure you always have fresh insights. For instance, you could set up a dashboard that automatically pulls in the latest HubSpot data each week and sends a summary report to your inbox.

Final Thoughts: Unlocking Value from Your Data

Building a data lakehouse might sound like a big step, but for HubSpot users in marketing and sales, it’s a way to make better use of all the data you’re already collecting. By unifying your data, gaining deeper insights, and making data-driven decisions, a lakehouse can empower your business to operate with a more holistic, informed approach.

Starting with simple steps — defining your goals, gathering your data, and organising it into insights — will set you up for success. And as you see the value of your data lakehouse, you can expand it to include more data sources and sophisticated analytics, helping you grow and scale with confidence.

So, why not take the first step today? With the right approach, you’ll find that building a data lakehouse isn’t just for tech experts — it’s a practical and powerful tool that anyone can use to unlock the power of their data.