Retool for Marketers
Retool is a no-code platform for marketers that enables business users to create unique tools and workflows without the need for coding. It is especially helpful in cases where there’s a need to handle data from numerous sources, act on it, and develop customised reports and dashboards.
For marketers, Retool makes it simple to combine data from several marketing sources, including your CRM applications, marketing automation tools, and social media channels, into one place. It delivers real-time insights into campaign effectiveness by allowing you to create customised dashboards and reports that visualise data in an understandable manner. Retool also automates monotonous operations like data input and report production, freeing your time to concentrate on more strategic responsibilities like data analysis and campaign creation.
What is Retool?
Retool is a versatile no-code/low-code platform that allows users to create personalised internal tools and processes by writing minimal lines of code. It has a drag-and-drop interface that makes it simple to design forms, tables, and other components for data collection and analysis. Retool is intended for people with varying degrees of technical expertise. It has a pre-built component library that can be readily customised and merged to create tailored tools and processes. If you are a developer, you can also create your own components with React or other web technologies.
Retool’s ability to interface with an extensive variety of data sources & third-party apps is one of its primary characteristics. Leading CRM systems, marketing automation tools, and social media platforms are included in this. You can additionally link to databases, APIs, and other data sources to create customised experiences.
Retool offers a comprehensive range of data analysis and visualisation tools. You can create personalised dashboards and reports that give real-time insights into the success of your businesses.
Overall, Retool is an effective platform for streamlining workflows, automating repetitive operations, and building apps that help you gain real-time insights into your business performance.
Why is Retool Beneficial for Marketers?
Retool is a valuable tool for marketers who need to manage large amounts of marketing data, act on it and create custom reports and dashboards. In this section, let’s see how can marketers use Retool:
1. Unifying marketing data sources: Retool enables marketers to centralise data from numerous marketing sources, such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems, software for marketing automation, and social media networks. This simplifies data analysis and provides insights into campaign performance.
2. Personalised reports and dashboards: Retool can enable you to generate customised reports and dashboards that deliver real-time insights regarding your campaign performance. This allows your marketing team to make decisions based on data and appropriately optimise your efforts.
3. No-code platform: Retool is a no-code platform, which implies that you don’t need any coding expertise to create customised tools and workflows. As a result, marketers with low technical ability can also utilise it.
4. Automation: This can automate monotonous operations like data input and report production, allowing you to focus on strategically important responsibilities like data analysis and campaign creation.
5. Team Collaboration: Retool enables marketers to more effectively work with other departments, for instance, sales & customer support. They can create personalized tools that interact with team members from different teams and allow data to be shared across teams.
6. Integrations with other platforms: Retool connects with several marketing platforms, including HubSpot, Marketo, and Salesforce, thereby rendering it simple for connecting and working with third-party systems and apps.
7. Security and Privacy: Retool values security and offers a number of security features and practices to assure the security of apps created on its platform. Retool complies with a number of security standards and laws, including Security Operations Centre Type 2, the General Data Protection Regulation and HIPAA.
What can you build with Retool?
You can easily create distinctive applications for your marketing team with Retool. You can include whatever features you want in your Retool app, whether it’s a simple tool to optimise marketing operations or a more comprehensive solution to address a specific growth challenge. The possibilities for developing unique and engaging applications are endless with Retool. Let’s have a look at what you can accomplish using this.
1. Dashboard based on Real-time Data
You can use Retool for connecting multiple sources of data and construct dynamic visualisations that display real-time data such as key indicators of the performance of your channels and campaigns, data analytics, and metrics.
2. Building Internal Tools
You can also develop customised internal tools to automate operations like using ChatGPT to generate responses to the replies received from outbound marketing. These tools are compatible with your current data sources & workflows, as well as external APIs and third-party apps.
3. Create applications that interact with customers
Retool can also be utilised to create simple customer-facing apps like appointment booking forms and lead generation forms.
4. Automate your Marketing Processes
You can implement Retool to automate a variety of marketing activities, such as fetching all outbound email replies and labelling them positive/negative/neutral.
5. Interactive prototypes
This no-code/low-code platform enables you to quickly create and evaluate interactive versions of your internal web apps without requiring considerable coding or development skills.
How Do Retool Workflows Function?
Retool Workflows allows business users and developers to quickly construct periodic jobs, custom alarms, and ETL processes. You can stop deploying infrastructure and managing one-time scripts and instead concentrate on the workflows that are important.
1. Define your trigger – Workflows are made up of blocks, such as related queries or Javascript. Begin by deciding whether you’d prefer your workflow to operate on a regular cycle or be triggered by an API request or webhook.
2. Get your data – Workflows can connect to any source of data or API. Simply choose a block, explore your data, and instantly visualise pathways on the Retool canvas by linking, reorganising, and duplicating blocks.
3. Use code to personalise – To edit your data, use JavaScript: you may manipulate strings, call operations in-line, import libraries, and handle complicated conditional logic. Workflows allow you to accomplish whatever you can achieve with code.
4. Code or graphical user interface mode – There’s no reason to write down simple reasoning when you can utilise Retool’s already-constructed building blocks. Add structured Loops, filters, or Branch blocks into any process to speed up the assembly of common building patterns.
5. Activate an action – Raise warnings, send alerts, escalate incidents, allocate tasks, change tables, or restore your data sources back automatically. You can also move data to the precise location, where it is required.
What are the popular use cases of Retool?
This tool has the ability to integrate with various platforms, which is why most marketers utilise this tool to get the most out of all these platforms together and take their business to the next level. We’ll look at how Retool can work with certain prominent platforms to provide better outcomes.
A. Monitoring and notifying
You may use Retool to stream data from an endpoint of an API to your data warehouse, to resolve discrepancies between various datasets, or to centralise external information into your own databases. For example,
a. Get a list of expired trials by connecting Retool with PostgreSQL
b. Use JavaScript to filter for business emails
c. Automatically enrich data with individual and company information using endpoints provided by third-party apps
B. Lightweight ELT
You can create out-of-stock notifications, detect suspicious transaction behaviour, and prioritise customer support queries. For example,
a. Connect Retool to Salesforce to obtain your clients’ account names, numbers, and industries.
b. Integrate PostgreSQL to insert metrics into the database.
C. Personalised Notifications:
Marketers can provide consumers with personalised offers, email invoice alerts, or aware their team of new user signups.
a. Use Salesforce to seek Customer IDs.
b. Use the Rest API to obtain a list of customers.
c. Send special promotion emails to customers at organisations with less than 50 workers through SMTP.
D. Reporting Metrics:
You can send daily emails tracking sales forecast progress, report hourly activity on Slack, or discuss company KPIs with investors. Like,
a. Retrieve data from Salesforce on opportunities, sales, and pipelines.
b. Monthly objectives can be obtained from a database created with PostgreSQL.
c. Connect with Slack to deliver notifications about any unfulfilled objectives.
How to Marketers Create Custom Reports and Dashboards Using Retool?
Here’s a more extensive step-by-step approach on how to use Retool to create custom reports and dashboards that give real-time insights into your marketing campaigns:
1. Connect to your data streams:
Connecting to your data sources is the initial step. Retool integrates with over 50 different data sources that include databases, APIs, & third-party systems like Salesforce, Google Analytics, & Stripe. To link to a data source, choose it from the available set of integrations then complete the authentication steps.
2. Build a new app:
After you’ve linked your sources of information, open Retool and create a new app. You can select from a number of existing templates or start from scratch.
3. Construct your own data query:
If you are building your app from scratch, if you’re starting from scratch, you’ll need to construct a new query. Retool has a visual query generator that lets you create queries without having to write any SQL. You may also create customised SQL queries. For example, we’ll write a query to get information on the number of website visits and leads produced by our marketing initiatives.
4. Build a customised report:
After you’ve generated your query, open Retool and add a new table component. This will serve as the foundation for your customised report. Select your query for the data source and the fields you wish to display in the component settings. You can additionally alter the design of the table by including columns, renaming headings, and formatting data.
5. Add charts & visualisations:
Add charts & visualisations: You can add charts and visualisations to your table section in order to make your report visually attractive and simpler to interpret. Line charts, bar charts, and pie charts are all available in Retool. Choose the appropriate chart type for your data and customise the layout using the chart parameters.
6. Create your dashboard:
Once your custom report is complete, you can include this in a dashboard among other reports and visualisations. Just drag & drop your report into the layout and add any additional components you wish to incorporate, like filter elements or a graph that illustrates overall campaign performance, to build your dashboard.
7. Make your Dashboards Interactive:
You can include interactivity to your dashboard components to make them more usable and versatile. For example, apply filters to examine data for certain campaigns or time frames or examine data at a more detailed level. You can additionally configure alerts and notifications to be triggered when particular circumstances are satisfied, such as when a campaign reaches a certain performance level.
Share your dashboard: After you’ve created your dashboard, you can circulate it with other team members. You may share this as a link or integrate it straight into your web page using Retool. You can also configure permissions and access restrictions to limit who can view or change your dashboard.
If you’re a marketer looking to set up custom apps using Retool for your team, we can help you out with it. We can help you get started with Retool, create custom reports and dashboards to match your unique needs and ensure you’re making the most of this powerful tool. Our Retool and no-code app development experience may assist you in streamlining your marketing efforts, improving campaign success, and making more informed choices based on real-time data. Speak with one of our professionals to find out how we can help you leverage the effectiveness of Retool for your marketing requirements.