Easy access to complex data with the help of Supermetrics API

Kapten & Son is an international fashion accessories brand selling backpacks, suitcases, sunglasses and other accessories. Founded in 2014, Kapten & Son has grown into a 200-employee company headquartered in Cologne, Germany. In addition to their core e-commerce business, Kapten & Son operates retail stores in major cities in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. Furthermore, their products are also available via partner retail stores and online marketplaces such as Zalando and ABOUT YOU.

Michael Schulz joined Kapten & Son in 2020 and today is their Lead Marketing Analytics. "My philosophy is to enable people’s decision making by providing complex yet still easily understandable marketing data and analyses," Michael Schulz explains.

From Looker Studio to a data warehouse solution

When Michael started at Kapten & Son, they were using Looker studio (then known as Google Data Studio) as their BI tool for data visualization. They pulled data with Supermetrics for Looker Studio from different data sources such as Facebook, Pinterest, or Google Analytics. This way, Kapten & Son had been able to build reports conveniently to gain the needed insights into their marketing performance.

But as their business grew, so too did their marketing data and analytics needs, especially with regards to storing, orchestrating, and accessing large sets of data from multiple sources simultaneously. As Kapten & Son were ready to take the next step on their marketing data journey, Michael found the Supermetrics platform had solutions that could be used as their needs became more complex. "Looker Studio is a great tool, but we soon needed something that would allow us to access larger and more complex amounts of data and process them at a much faster speed. We felt that we reached the limits of our tools. Especially with larger data sets blending multiple sources, the process of creating and accessing data in Looker Studio dashboards became too tedious." Michael explains.

Efficiently storing large data with Supermetrics API

Consequently, Kapten & Son started building a more sophisticated environment for its marketing data, involving data warehousing as a repository for all current and historical data. They opted for a new data BI tool for data visualization as well. On the transition, Michael says, “Supermetrics API was the next step as it provides an out-of-the-box solution we’re looking for. It covers many of the marketing data sources we rely on, along with an ease of use in terms of API maintenance."

In his role, Michael works closely with his BI colleagues responsible for their data warehouse. “I’m building requests in the Supermetrics API tool and my colleagues uses those to access all the different marketing data sources to pipeline data into the warehouse. This way, the data is continuously historized and readily available to access,” Michael explains. Currently, Kapten & Son is accessing 10 different marketing data sources via Supermetrics API. “If we weren’t using Supermetrics API, we’d have to oversee and maintain all 10 API separately. That would make things much more burdensome and keep us from focusing on what is much more important: getting value out of the data.”

Validating data that’s easy to access

As another use case, Kapten & Son is using Supermetrics API for direct calling to test and validate the data. As they’d like to build an as solid and robust data warehouse as possible, Michael regularly tests many different configurations of API calls with different combinations of dimensions and metrics to optimize data flow. The aim is to build the most accurate, reliant and performant possible data configuration for every data source.

Supermetrics API is also used to do sanity checks with the data warehouse. Michael says, "I run calls that don't go through the warehouse. Instead, I push them directly into our BI tool to challenge our data warehouse. I call the data directly via Supermetrics API and then compare outputs with the data from the data warehouse. This way, I see if there is a mismatch. That's how we can figure out quite fast if there is a data issue."

Moreover, Supermetrics API is also used to export CSV files. This way, large data sets are easy to access and share with anyone without the extra resources needed. “With a certain number of calls and some lines of code, I can easily create aggregated data files. In the end, you just have one table to access and the data you need is immediately there. It's a very easy and efficient solution for some cases, e.g., statistical calculations or experiments," Michael says.

Data-based decisions at the heart of everything

Kapten & Son is a data-driven company, with multiple of reports and dashboards for different needs depending on people's roles in the organization. The data coming from different departments is very diverse when it comes to structure and quantity. Supermetrics is helping Kapten & Son to bring a large part of its marketing data together in a unified format. This way, people can focus on their areas of expertise instead of having to worry about the data they produce.

The role of data in marketing might be more important now than ever. Michael says, "Over the years, the number of different marketing channels has grown and their importance keeps on changing. This has made the whole marketing world more complex. Marketers need to think of a different strategy for each channel, whether it's performance marketing channels or influencer marketing or social media. It can sometimes be difficult to keep up with all the changes. Thus, it is essential for marketers to understand the development of different channels and how to constantly evaluate them reliably. Having a good understanding of the marketing data is crucial.”

Typically, for an e-commerce business, there is a lot of data available due to the nature of the business model. Accessing, analyzing, and actioning all the data from the website, the online store, ad campaigns, influencer marketing, and so on can be the key to success."

Want to know how Supermetrics can help you easily access large amounts of complex historical data to manage data transfers efficiently? Start your 14-day free trial of Supermetrics.