Differences between Data Lake and a Data Warehouse

Although many people confuse Data Lake with Data Warehouse, since their fundamental objective is usually similar, there are clear differences between them:

• A Data Warehouse contains processed data in a structured manner,  while a Data Lake contains raw data in an unstructured manner.

• Any user can understand the data in a Data Warehouse,  but in a Data Lake it is necessary to have knowledge about Big Data and understand the data being consulted.

• A Data Lake stores all the data that comes in,  while a Data Warehouse only keeps the essential data.

• Data Lakes are versatile and can adapt to changes in resources easily,  but Data Warehouses are more rigid and require much more effort to adapt to changes.

• The Data Lake has a lower storage cost  than the Data Warehouse, which consumes many more resources due to the structuring of the data in it.

• In a Data Lake you can access data quickly and directly,  while in a Data Warehouse you must first go through the structuring process.

Data Lake Benefits

Once we have seen the differences between a Data Lake and a Data Warehouse, we can understand more clearly the benefits that a Data Lake can provide: 

• Storage and access to a large amount of information  that can be important at key moments.

• Reduced storage costs  by not structuring your data.

• Quick adaptation  to changes.

• Greater capacity and agility in analysis  thanks to the high volume of data that can be counted on.

The Data Lake in marketing strategy

Information is power and, the more information, the better you will be able to plan your marketing strategy. For example, if your e-commerce stores data about its sales or its wish lists, you will know more accurately the products that users prefer or the trends that users follow and you can use it to your advantage when carrying out email marketing campaigns that really interesting.  

There are specific applications such as Hadoop or Marketing Data Lake that perform analysis of that Data Lake and allow you to find patterns, as well as analyze all the data to then have a solid foundation on which to establish the digital marketing strategy.  

As we have seen, Data Lake can be very beneficial when developing a digital marketing strategy, since it offers a unified vision of the entire customer process, their experience in e-commerce and you can take advantage of the data obtained to adapt your entire strategy or create it from scratch. Of course, it requires programs or qualified personnel to be able to interpret the data correctly.