Canadian Football League's data team's use of dbt and RudderStack for effective marketing strategies from Coalesce 2023

"Data quality was a big sticking point at that time. We spent a lot of time just bringing data in."

- Dave Musambi, Sr. Director of Business Intelligence at the Canadian Football League

Eric Dodds, Head of Product Marketing at RudderStack interviews Dave Musambi, Sr. Director of Business Intelligence at the Canadian Football League. They discuss how marketing teams can connect with data teams to generate powerful results for organizations. Dave also shares the CFL’s journey of overcoming challenges related to data quality and how they leveraged modern tools like dbt to improve their data infrastructure.

The CFL transitioned from a CSV-based system to a centralized and controlled data platform

Dave describes the initial state of data management at the CFL, where there was a lack of governance and scalability due to information being scattered across CSV files. "CSV files of customer information, across the organizations on desktops, is a huge concern. You can't manage that. There's no oversight," he says. The turning point came when they decided to centralize all their data onto a single platform–Snowflake. "The better part of 2022 was about building that foundation, getting all our data onto one platform," Dave recalls.

The CFL established data contracts to ensure consistency and quality of the data collected and implemented version control to maintain historical data

The shift from reactive to proactive data management was marked by the establishment of data contracts and the implementation of version control. Dave explains, "Data contract, to me, is a cross-functional contract that just provides consistency in what you're bringing in." He also emphasizes the importance of maintaining historical data, stating, "Version control is very important for us. We do version control in basically every aspect of our infrastructure."

The CFL's data transformation journey resulted in greater agility, reduced response time to marketing requests, and improved personalization capabilities

The implementation of a more modern and centralized data system allowed the CFL to be more agile and responsive. "Our SLA, in terms of being able to get a ticket for creation, has been reduced dramatically," Dave explains. This new system not only improved their responsiveness but also enabled them to drive personalization at scale. "We want to take advantage of all the data that we have at our disposal and really build that as a foundation for CFL 2.0, 3.0, and where we want to be in the future," he adds.

The CFL's future plans include developing their Customer 360 initiative and exploring machine learning opportunities

Looking ahead, Dave outlines a number of areas the CFL is excited to explore. One key focus will be their Customer 360 initiative–moving from building audiences to building features about those audiences. He also mentions the potential for machine learning to enhance their understanding of their fans and the efficacy of campaigns. Finally, he hints at the possibility of using data clean rooms for partnership campaigns, allowing for greater alignment and accountability. "Data clean rooms will allow that opportunity. It provides more alignment in terms of a shared goal, and it's just a new opportunity," he states.

Dave’s key insights

• Dave and Eric emphasize the importance of having a strong relationship between data and marketing teams for achieving powerful results
• The implementation of a more modern and centralized data system allowed the CFL to be more agile and responsive
• The CFL used dbt to transform raw data into valuable insights for the marketing team
• Dave has future plans to expand the data capabilities of the CFL and explore opportunities for using data clean rooms