Case Study

Fivetran Discovering
the Need to Automate

Point of Contact:
Marina Nelson
Former Head of Business Ops.

Industry:
Software

Employees:
150+

Platforms Used

Why
Nomad

As a company experiencing hyper-growth, Fivetran needed to find a partner whose expertise they could rely on--- and quickly. Nomad was able to get started immediately, completing a Pardot implementation and helping find quick wins in the marketing org.

Project
Highlights

01

Pinpoints performance issues and root causes across hybrid cloud environment.

02

Provides data to make informed infrastructure scaling decisions.

03

Measures impact of weekly version release, enabling quick response to any performance degradation.

04

Working hand in hand with the company’s content marketing agency

05

Integral part of automated workflow to provision new nodes on the Microsoft Azure cloudonboard. They then began a period of hyper-growth.

Fivetran Discovering
the Need to Automate.

Fivetran is an innovative cloud data integration company based in Oakland, Ca. Founded out of the belief that storing business data shouldn’t be so convoluted, time-consuming, and high-maintenance, Fivetran has streamlined enterprise-scale analytics. They’ve synced some of the largest datasets out there, most notably for companies like Yext, Lime, and NCM.

Good ideas become great phenomenons. So, it comes as no surprise that as Fivetran built their business, companies with a keen interest in simplifying their data management quickly jumped onboard. They then began a period of hyper-growth.

During their hyper-growth, Fivetran realized that their gap was in their marketing operations, and that the gap only grew larger by the day.

They had the sales ops headcount, but found that trying to allocate one person to do both sales and marketing automation management wasn’t a good use of company time or resources. They needed to hire a highly specialized ops expert who could manage the day-to-day automation while scaling it to grow with their fast-paced business. And they needed someone who could start immediately.

Teaming Up With Nomad

That’s when Fivetran brought on Nomad.

Nomad immediately bonded with the team and got to work solidifying their operations strategy. Marina Nelson, Head of Business Operations, says she’ll never forget how quickly Lu proved to be a value-add in the beginning.  

She says, “When we were building out our grading and scoring model in Pardot, Lu was involved in the process all the way through. [Nomad] lent expertise at the beginning, gave recommendations on how to build out the infrastructure, and Lu took the lead on the implementation. She built everything on the backend and continues--to this day--to tweak the model for accuracy every two weeks.”

Nomad even helped with Marina’s own transition into her role. She says, “When I started, I was a team of one. But I quickly realized I was actually a team of two. I had Lu there to help me get through all my objectives and I couldn’t have done it without that support. Now, as we continue growing, and I hire new ops people, it’s nice to have Lu as a consistent source of historical knowledge.”

When I started, I was a team of one. But I quickly realized I was actually a team of two. I had Lu there to help me get through all my objectives and I couldn’t have done it without that support.

Marina Nelson
Former Head of Business Operations
Fivetran

An Established Relationship That Drives Business Outcomes

At this point, Nomad is part of the Fivetran team.

According to Marina, “Lu’s fantastic. She’s truly a member of my team. In fact, when I list out my team members on slide decks, I include her. She works with us every day and fits very seamlessly into our internal processes. She's integral to planning out our different sprints.”

Fivetran says that at this point they’d be unable to function without Nomad.

Lu says the best part of her job is the opportunity to join other teams and drive successful outcomes. “What I like most about our client relationships--especially our relationship with Fivetran--is being able to see the impact we’ve had on their business. It goes from a fast-paced implementation period to a rewarding and fun day-to-day interaction.”

Fivetran saved time, money, and energy by hiring marketing automation experts who already knew what they were doing. Nomad required little ramp-up time, charged no hidden or additional fees--just a flat monthly rate-- and was committed to finding salient solutions to Fivetran’s most persistent problems. Together, they built an invaluable relationship that has furthered the trajectory of Fivetran’s business and helped to scale their marketing operations team.

“We’ve taken Nomad and used them for things that aren’t marketing-specific. Things like building out funnel stages and ad sales automation so our team can move people through the stages more quickly. Nomad has helped us create and launch a bunch of successful projects.”
Fivetran says that at this point they’d be unable to function without Nomad.

Marina Nelson
Former Head of Business Operations
Fivetran