MADTechBI Frequently Asked Questions

How does it compare to my current reporting and analytics solution?
That depends on what you may be using. A multi-purpose, general BI solution will likely require a great deal of labor, but is unlikely to accomplish the same things MADTechBI does now or can be tasked to do. More specific MarTech or AdTech analytical tools can provide point solutions, but may be more costly and do not offer MADTechBI’s enterprise-grade qualities, flexibility or highly accountable 24/7/365 support.


What is the uptime promise?
Our Service Level Agreement guarantees 99.9%, though our actual experience is closer to 99.999% and is monitored continuously.


You say the product is sophisticated. Sophisticated compared to what?
MADTechBI is considerably more sophisticated if you’re using spreadsheets or single purpose platforms. We have data visualization capabilities, but we also have pre-processing capability as well as a built-in data warehouse that’s already fully integrated. Real time rules-based alerting is built in. There are hundreds of pre-built dashboards and scorecards that are specific to different marketing and advertising roles. MADTechBI is high grade enterprise software that includes robust security.


What does self-service mean?
Self service means the user can log in when they want to, filter data where they want to, and drill down as they wish.


How do these benefits compare to what I’m currently using? (Tableau, Looker, Power BI, Domo, Staq, act)
We have a competitive analysis that we can share with you.


Are realtime website analytics available on the platform?
Yes

Does this system include a data warehouse?
MADTechBI™ includes at no additional cost a full-scale, highly-tuned data warehouse with the staff to support it included.


What do you mean by Data Science?
It is an analytical layer or part of analytics which uses a statistical model to analyze or predict the campaign performance in media & marketing.


Is your data science built in? Or is it provided via managed services?
Both are available on a custom basis.


Where can data source integration information be found?
We have 200+ data integrations. Please see our integration video here.


Why do you say unified data platform?
Because numerous data sources (ad servers, DSPs, SSPs, ad exchanges, web analytics providers, and anything else that can provide performance or analytical data) is centralized into dashboards that are refreshed according to your specifications.


What are your data security protocols?
We have industry leading protocols and standards. We are fully GDPR compliant.


What is data consolidation?
Data consolidation means that disparate data points are combined to provide analytical or predictive results by applying modeling and data science in the background.


What data lakes have you worked with? Are you working with?
We can work with any data lake in the market, and we currently use S3 for our data lake purposes with staging, curated & consumption layers separated.


Do I have to use your data warehouse? Can I bring my own?
You can bring your own. The system is built for you to be able to use whichever data warehouse you want. There is a data warehouse that is built in and included in our existing solution, but if you have an alternative, we’re happy to consider that as well.


Can we manage our own data warehouse/data lake?
Yes, you can. There are administrative privileges which are available under contract.


How will you use my customer and user data?
Your data is your data. iSOCRATES used customer data for internal QA efforts and internal benchmarking purposes. We do not sell your data. We use customer and user data to the extent agreed upon within the scope of our agreement.


Will you set up and manage our data warehouse for us?
Yes, at your option we can, currently do for others, and would be pleased to discuss.


Do you provide data science support services?
Yes, we provide data scientists, data analysts and other positions that can help you build, adjust, set up models, dashboards, views, etc.

How many different pre-built dashboards and scorecards are available?
The platform has 200+ pre-built dashboards and scorecards, and is offered on a monthly managed service basis and is supported 24/7/365.


What is on the product roadmap?
There is extensive investment occurring in developing new dashboards and scorecards, as well as connectors for different kinds of data. We are adding extensive data science capabilities to the roadmap. The goal is to substantially further the pre-built solutions that are of greatest value to the buy side and the sell side of the industry in AdTech and in MarTech.


Is there a limit to the number of dashboards/scorecards that the system supports?
No.

What’s the operating system and where are the servers?
iSOCRATES MADTechBI is home grown, Linux-based, run on the AWS cloud, and mirrored throughout the world for speed and security.


Are there different types of user licenses? If so, what are they (how are they different)?
There are three levels of access and features available: Viewer (read-only), Designer (limited customization) and Administrator (administrative and customization privileges).


How often does the system update?
All client-partners get instant updates continuously with data ingestion, processing and sharing available at regular intervals, on-demand, and real-time to the extent available.


What type of white-label is available?
Depending on the version selected, firms may choose to include their own logo, logo plus look-and-feel, or even multi-tier private label with full parent-child branding.


What doesn’t the system do at this time?
iSOCRATES MADTechBI is not meant for: comprehensive accounting, media strategy (as opposed to media planning which it does offer), turnkey proposal generation, or self-service media activation without the help of human beings. But, it does a superior job at delivering affordable, unified data-driven media, marketing, and advertising reporting and analytics.


How can I see my revenue projections? MTD, YTD, etc.
We can display revenue however you’d like, depending on data availability and frequency of updates.


What if I need data from or need to push to a source for which MADTechBI does not currently have a connection?
No problem. With or without API, structured or unstructured, documented or not, our data engineers and analysts would be pleased to help. Depending on timing, complexity, and the popularity of the resource, there may or may not be additional expense to add a new data resource.


Is there an alert system available?
MADTechBI offers real-time, rules-based alerts that can be pushed virtually anywhere, anytime to anyone. It is hard to overestimate their importance and the positive impact they can have on your business.


Will you build look-a-like/act-a-like/buy-a-like models for us?
Yes.We have executed this for a variety of client partners.


Can your platform analyze outputs from statistical packages, data analysis packages? If so, which ones?
Yes, we can work with most including SAS, SPSS, as well as several open-source solutions. MADTechBI can ingest from them and output to them. In addition, we can also push out to other BI systems, including Tableau, Power BI, Domo, Google Data Studio, and others.


Can I work with any OMS?
MADTechBI works with any Order Management System that provides integration opportunities such as API connectors.


Can my finance team use this revenue forecaster as a source of record for billing?
It depends on the nature of the data that’s being provided, but they should be able to do so on the type of data and the frequency with which it’s being updated.


Can I set the rules for the alerts myself?
Yes, you can build rules and alerts or filters on your own, or we can build them for you. This is also dependent on the user’s access level.


How is bounce rate calculated?
Bounce rates are tracked in web analytics solutions. The data can be pulled into MADTechBI to track landing page engagement. Bounce rate is the percent of users who access a single page on your website and leave immediately. It divides the count of visits on a specific page by the total number of visits on the landing page or at the top of the conversion funnel.


Can performance be tracked by a salesperson or sales channel?
If we have the data available and fed into MADTechBI it is possible to analyze the performance by a salesperson.


How do I track where on my site are people visiting?
Webpage tracking can be imported into MADTechBI from you web analytics solution (Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics, others).


Can I track time spent, CTR and CPC?
Yes, providing your ad server provides that data. These metrics can be pulled into MADTechBI from your web analytics solution, order management system, or ad servers.


Can I login via my cell phone? Can I optimize reports to view them on my phone?
Yes, you can access MADTechBI from Apple or Android devices.


How many alerts can I set per day?
Alerts can push to phone, email, or apps such as Slack or MS Teams. There is no limit to the number of rules-based alerts that can be set. Beyond minimum allowed alerts (as per the SOW agreement) there will be additional charges.


Are you AWS compatible?
Indeed, our solution is readily available and based on AWS. It’s also listed on the AWS marketplace, underlining our partnership with AWS.


What types of logins can I have?
We provide two logins:

  • A Viewer login is for a typical end-user, who can engage with filters and observe the dashboard results.
  • A Designer login is for an advanced end-user, who has been trained to create, design, edit and share dashboards based on the data feeds and models iSOCRATES has provided.

Can I white label MADTechBI?
Yes, MADTechBI can be fully white-labeled. Depending on the version selected, firms may choose to include their own logo, logo plus look-and-feel, or even multi-tier private label with full parent-child branding.


Can we get rid of Tapclicks or other visualization solutions?
MADTechBI is a robust solution that likely can replace Tapclicks and other tools. Contact us to discuss your specific needs.


Can I A/B test demand? How do I do that?
A/B testing is a special module, it is to be configured based on your requirement and data availability.


Can I track house ads?
Yes, provided you have set up tracking pixels for your house ad in your analytics provider.


What are your different access types to the platform?
Our system has built-in role-based access control mechanisms which can enable you to build multiple roles.

How long does MADTechBI typically take to set up?
Set up can be done in one day or up to two weeks, depending upon the complexity of the requirements as specified by the client. Typically, it does not take more than a few days to get a start getting value out of the system.
Does this system include its own ability to consolidate and integrate external data including ETL (i.e., Extract, Transform, and Load) capability?
Uniquely, MADTechBI includes at no additional cost its own custom-built and well-tested ETL and Data Matching Table tools that both: 1) copy data from one or more sources into our system which represents the data differently from the source or in a different context than the source, and 2) provide a single view of a person, device, or household across personally identifiable and non-personally identifiable channels.


What integrations are currently available?
MADTechBI comes with 200+ MarTech, AdTech, DataTech, Operations, Finance, and various general data integrations and outputs with more under development. Learn more here.

What is MADTechBI?
MADTechBI is the unified media and marketing data and business intelligence platform purpose-built for both MarTech and AdTech to serve the supply-side and the demand-side including B2C and B2B publishers, marketers, agencies and their enablers.It is well tested and operates as the heart of the iSOCRATES MADTech Operating System. You can see how it is successfully deployed as a part of a larger omnichannel media and marketing planning, activation and billing system here.

The platform is cloud-based, available on-demand, supports real- and near real-time data, available on-demand, and is composed of six key components:

  • Data Sources (MarTech and AdTech plus disparate data like financials and operations)
  • Data Consolidation (ETL/ELT: data integration, and TEMS: data matching table tool for Single View of a Customer/Audience)
  • Data Lake (High performance AWS Cloud EBS Data Warehouse, multi-node, multi-core, virtually infinitely scalable, secure)
  • Data Science (code-driven data analysis engine)
  • Business Intelligence (Campaign and Enterprise: Analytics, Data Visualization, Reports, and Alerts)
  • Self Service Access

Most importantly, it’s proven successful with more than a dozen publishers, marketers, agencies, and enablers relying on it continuously.


Is MADTechBI a replacement for or augmentation to other BI tools or systems?
This platform can either be a replacement or can serve to augment current BI solutions, depending on specific needs and interests.


Who is it for?
MADTechBI was developed for the use of publishers, marketers, agencies, and enablers like data and tech companies who supply them. It is for those on the buy-side or sell-side needing MarTech and/or AdTech help.


Why do I need MADTech BI?
Consider how much more you and your team can accomplish with the time saved and better decisions brought on by simplifying and unifying your data, reporting and analytical needs.

Know more sooner, with less difficulty, and at lower cost. Get the support you need and deserve from an always-on team that really understands the technology and what it takes to get business value out of this kind of investment.


Is this a Managed Service or Self-Service?
MADTechBI is available full-service with extensive customization and support as well as on a less costly, self-service basis.


What if you go out of business?
We won’t. iSOCRATES has been in business since 2015 and has been consistently profitable with diversified sources of revenue.


How hard is to get started with MADTechBI from scratch or if our firm already have reporting and analytics resources?
From executed contract to launch, typically client-partners are able to be operational within weeks, including training, whether starting from scratch or by transition.


Do you have a community of users?
Typically, our users are not in touch with each other due to the confidential nature of their activities on the platform.


Will you build this as work for hire?
We’d be glad to discuss your company’s needs.


Are you a DMP?
We are not a DMP. MADTechBI is a business intelligence visualization platform with customizable predictive and analytical models, fed by a Data Warehouse that ingests data from numerous sources, including DMPs.


How many B2B and B2C customers are using MADTechBI? Of your total customer base, how many are marketers’ agencies publishers’ enablers?
All iSOCRATES client partners are using MADTechBI. We run our internal business on the system as well. Today, we have more than two dozen active accounts with dozens of concurrent users.


Why haven’t I heard of iSOCRATES MADTechBI?
MADTechBI has historically been an internal platform that we are now making commercially available. We have spent years perfecting the tool, working with our existing customers to do a thorough job of testing, and documenting the tool and de-risking it for the market.


Who are your customers?
Anybody who needs data centralized, automatically updated, and dashboarded! We most frequently specialize in working with partners in the AdTech, MarTech and DataTech domains.


Can I talk to your current clients / references?
Of course! We will provide you with our references.

How much does it cost?
$60,000/Year + 20% annual maintenance and implementation is extra (approx.. $25,000 to $45,000 depending on the number of sources to be integrated).


What is the MADTechBI investment?
The base platform fee is $5,000 a month plus $50-100/mo per user log-in charges based on the number and type of users for whom your company requires access. In addition, there may be set-up costs depending on if there’s some customization needed or pre-build requirements. Due to the wide range of different types of data companies seek to ingest in the system, cloud-related costs are charged to the client. That’s not a part of the platform fee, but is a customer-incurred monthly cost that is variable based on each customer’s actual needs.

Is there a glossary of terms?
Yes, please find our current glossary of terms here:https://isocrates.com/isocrates-madtech-glossary-of-terms/


Where can I find out more about choosing a BI solution, and adopting MADTechBI specifically?
Please see the link here: https://madtechbi.com/guide-to-madtech-bi/.

How long does MADTechBI typically take to set up?
Set up can be done in one day or up to two weeks, depending upon the complexity of the requirements as specified by the client. Typically, it does not take more than a few days to get a start getting value out of the system.
What do you mean by Data Science?
It is an analytical layer or part of analytics which uses a statistical model to analyze or predict the campaign performance in media & marketing.


Do you provide data science support services?
Yes we provide data scientists, data analysts and other positions that can help you build, adjust, set up models, dashboards, views, etc.


Will you build look-a-like/act-a-like/buy-a-like models for us?
Yes.We have executed this for a variety of client partners.


Can your platform analyze outputs from statistical packages, data analysis packages? If so, which ones?
Yes, we can work with most including SAS, SPSS, as well as several open-source solutions. MADTechBI can ingest from them and output to them. In addition, we can also push out to other BI systems, including Tableau, Power BI, Domo, Google Data Studio, and others.


Can I A/B test demand? How do I do that?
A/B testing is a special module, it is to be configured based on your requirement and data availability.

What level of support is available? In what time zones? Can we speak with someone or is this just email?
iSOCRATES is proud to offer 24/7/365 a combination of onshore-offshore technical and client-partner support by an array of highly skilled, specially trained full-time professionals that can be reached online and by phone on a dedicated or shared basis.


What is the Level of Effort(LOE) to maintain MADTech each month for each account?
Very modest, but the Level of Effort depends on how complex your implementation is (e.g., number of users, number of data sources integrated, how often you need changes to data models and/or the UI). Importantly, MADTechBI has teams of full-time specialists that work around the clock to support and build the platform and to be available to provide timely service as needed for our many clients.


Will you set up and manage our data warehouse for us?
Yes, at your option we can, currently do for others, and would be pleased to discuss.


Do you have a support wiki?
Yes, we have a user manual and a technical manual for every MADTechBI deployment.


Do you provide data science support services?
Yes we provide data scientists, data analysts and other positions that can help you build, adjust, set up models, dashboards, views, etc.

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