How Marketfuel got to proof of concept on their in-app reporting in under 30 days

The Challenge: With years of experience in the promotional marketing industry, Marketfuel’s founder and CTO, Brian Urso recognized the lack of technical solutions for agencies to maintain on-brand storefronts, manage inventory, and fulfill orders with integrated analytics features. Existing solutions offered basic dashboards with limited customization, leaving agencies underserved. Their vision for Marketfuel was to provide a highly customizable eCommerce interface—think Shopify but with significantly broader branding options.

The Solution: The Embedded Analytics SDK provided Marketfuel with the flexibility to selectively embed Metabase UI components, apply dynamic theming, and seamlessly integrate these components into their interface. Adopting a low-risk, experimental approach, the team integrated Metabase quickly and efficiently.

The Results: Using the Embedded Analytics SDK, Marketfuel launched their product faster than they could have by building the analytics infrastructure themselves. By focusing on customer engagement instead of technical hurdles, the team reached critical milestones ahead of schedule.

"Using Metabase saves us time and resources. It allows us to focus on what we do best without reinventing analytics. It’s been a game-changer for us. "

Brian Urso
Co-founder and CTO

Why Metabase?

Brian first discovered Metabase in a YouTube video on the top 10 open-source products. Although they didn’t have an immediate use case at the time, Metabase stayed on their radar.

When Marketfuel began development, the team knew tightly integrated analytics would differentiate their product. Attending a webinar on customer-facing analytics solidified their decision to adopt Metabase.

“We were chatting on Slack during the webinar, and we were blown away by the capabilities. The Embedded Analytics SDK was the icing on the cake.”

Seamless in-app reporting that maintained a cohesive branded experience was a non-negotiable feature. To achieve this, Marketfuel needed a scalable and customizable embedded analytics solution to enhance their product, deliver an exceptional user experience, and maintain a competitive edge. Partnering with Metabase helped them accelerate their time to market, increase customer engagement, and focus on their core strengths without building analytics infrastructure from scratch.

The data

Marketfuel’s in-app reporting focuses on two key areas:

• Inventory management: Insights into inventory levels, stock turnover rates, and reorder thresholds.
• Order fulfillment: Metrics on processing times, on-time deliveries, and shipment statuses. These analytics enable end-users to optimize supply chain performance and enhance overall eCommerce operations.

How Marketfuel team uses Metabase

Marketfuel uses Metabase in several ways:

• Client-facing dashboards: Agencies can create and manage dashboards for their clients, embedding them seamlessly into storefronts. Agencies can choose from ready-to-use dashboards or create dynamic, interactive dashboards tailored to their end-users.
• Internal use: Static dashboards in their admin application help their team monitor key metrics.

“We have a fail-fast mentality. If a tool doesn’t work, we move on. But Metabase impressed us right from the start. With the SDK, we could grab components, tailor them to our needs, and integrate them seamlessly.”

The results

Marketfuel achieved proof of concept for their in-app reporting in under 30 days, with a single developer using the Embedded Analytics SDK. Most of this time was spent setting up DevOps for self-hosting.

The team finds Metabase intuitive and developer-friendly. Brian notes: “If it excites a developer, it’ll look great and be easy for our clients and end-users to use as well.”

Although still early in their journey, Marketfuel is confident in their path. The interactivity and customization of their dashboards are key differentiators that enhance their value proposition.

“Metabase has made our product stickier and more valuable to customers, which is a huge competitive advantage.”