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Salesforce is the world’s leading CRM (customer relationship management) software, with a 20 percent market share. The Salesforce CRM software is chock-full of features for business intelligence (BI) and analytics so that you can capture hidden insights and make smarter, data-driven decisions.

The traditional ETL (extract, transform, load) process extracts data from one or more sources and then deposits it into a centralized data repository. But in certain cases, you might want to reverse this process and move data from the centralized repository to a third-party system. In this article, we’ll discuss why and how to migrate data into Salesforce.

Why Move Data from Your Data Warehouse to Salesforce?

Migrating data from your data warehouse to Salesforce (or from another repository, like a data lake) is one example of what’s known as “reverse ETL.” In reverse ETL, the positions of source and target are opposite: The process extracts the information from the data warehouse or data lake and then loads into the target third-party system.

So why would you want to move data to Salesforce in the first place? SaaS (software as a service) applications like Salesforce possess their own data analytics capabilities that can help supplement the BI and analytics workloads inside your data warehouse. Giving Salesforce access to the full suite of your enterprise data can facilitate the discovery of hidden trends, insights, and connections that it wouldn’t have been able to identify with the CRM data alone. For example, you can use this additional information to construct a customer 360 view of your clients and prospects, augmenting each customer profile and making the picture as complete as possible.

Related Reading: Why You Should ETL Your Salesforce Data

How to Migrate Data from Your Data Warehouse to Salesforce

We’ve discussed why you might want to move data to Salesforce. Now we'll cover how you can actually accomplish this task.

The easiest way to get data out of your data warehouse and move it into Salesforce is with the help of a feature-rich ETL platform. Modern ETL and data integration solutions come packed with connectors and integrations to help automatically ingest your data sources, transform the data as appropriate and load it into a target destination. The right ETL tool can also reverse these connectors, enabling reverse ETL out of the data warehouse and into your third-party systems of choice.

Here are the two most important criteria of what to look for when choosing an ETL tool that can migrate data into Salesforce:

Vigorous support for Salesforce: Selecting an ETL tool with a robust Salesforce integration is a must. Some features to look for are support for Salesforce Connect, support for REST APIs like the Salesforce Bulk API, and support for Salesforce to Salesforce connections (i.e. connections between multiple Salesforce org).

Low-code or no-code functionality: Salesforce is popular with sales, marketing, and customer service professionals who lack extensive technical knowledge. In order to support these team members, you should strongly consider an ETL tool with low-code or no-code capabilities, such as a simple drag-and-drop interface that lets you define pipelines with just a few clicks.

Related Reading: Create a Salesforce ETL Pipeline in 30 Minutes

How Integrate.io Can Help Move Data to Salesforce

We’ve shown why and how to migrate data from your data warehouse to Salesforce. The only question left is: How can you find the right ETL tool for the job?

Integrate.io is a powerful ETL and data integration tool for automating your pipelines from data sources to your cloud data warehouse or data lake, and it’s capable of performing reverse ETL as well. Thanks to 200+ connectors (including Salesforce and Salesforce Pardot) and the low-code and no-code functionality, it’s never been easier to migrate data both ways between your Salesforce CRM software and your data warehouse in the Cloud.

Moving data to Salesforce can be a critical step in centralizing your customer data, streamlining sales operations, and enabling real-time analytics. However, many mid-market companies face common challenges in this process: siloed systems, complex APIs, brittle ETL pipelines, and limited in-house engineering resources.

This is where Integrate.io excels.

1. Purpose-Built for Salesforce Integration

Integrate.io supports Salesforce as a native destination, making it seamless to load data from over 100 data sources, including SaaS applications, on-prem systems, databases, and CRMs, directly into Salesforce. Whether you're syncing customer events, transaction history, support tickets, or third-party marketing data, Integrate.io’s ETL and Reverse ETL pipelines can automate the entire process without writing a single line of code.

2. Low-Code/No-Code ETL for Accelerated Time-to-Value

Integrate.io offers a visual, drag-and-drop interface that lets analysts and operations teams build and monitor data flows to Salesforce, without relying on developers. With 220+ no-code and low-code transformations, you can cleanse, normalize, and enrich your data before it ever reaches Salesforce, ensuring high data quality and consistency.

3. Reverse ETL to Activate Data Back Into Salesforce

Traditional ETL only pushes data into warehouses, but Integrate.io also supports Reverse ETL, allowing you to sync enriched or modeled data from your data warehouse back into Salesforce. This is particularly valuable for operational use cases like:

  • Scoring leads based on predictive models

  • Populating custom objects with aggregated metrics

  • Syncing product usage data for sales teams

This two-way sync helps ensure that Salesforce is always a live source of actionable insights.

4. Advanced Connectivity via REST API Support

Not every data source fits a standard mold. Integrate.io offers a custom REST API connector, enabling teams to pull data from virtually any third-party service and transform it for use in Salesforce. This is especially beneficial for companies that rely on niche or vertical-specific tools without prebuilt connectors.

5. Enterprise-Grade Security for Sensitive Customer Data

When dealing with customer data, especially in regulated industries, compliance and security are non-negotiable. Integrate.io provides:

  • SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance

  • Field-level encryption and data masking

  • A CISSP-certified security team to help ensure that customer data moving into Salesforce is handled with the highest level of care.

6. White-Glove Support from Data Integration Experts

Unlike many platforms that offer a “tool-only” experience, Integrate.io provides 24/7 customer support and managed service options. For mid-market companies without large data teams, this means faster onboarding, troubleshooting, and optimization of data pipelines, all handled by integration experts who understand your business goals.

Ready to learn how Integrate.io can help move your data to Salesforce? Contact our team of data experts today to discuss your business plans and to take advantage of Integrate.io’s 7-day pilot program.

FAQs

1. Why would I want to move data from my data warehouse to Salesforce?

Moving data from a data warehouse to Salesforce enables data activation, turning analytical insights into operational action. This allows sales, marketing, and customer success teams to:

  • View enriched customer profiles inside Salesforce

  • Trigger workflows based on product usage or ML model outputs

  • Use lead scoring, LTV predictions, or customer health scores to prioritize accounts

In essence, you’re closing the loop between analysis and action by putting insights where business users live: in Salesforce.

2. What types of data are commonly synced from a data warehouse to Salesforce?

Here are common data types sent from warehouses like Snowflake, Redshift, or BigQuery into Salesforce:

  • Lead & account scoring (e.g., ML model outputs)

  • Aggregated product usage metrics (e.g., feature adoption)

  • Customer segmentation data (e.g., cohort, lifecycle stage)

  • Marketing attribution data (e.g., first-touch / last-touch)

  • Enriched firmographics (e.g., revenue band, employee size from external sources)

These datasets are often stored in modeled tables or views within the warehouse and updated daily or hourly.

3. What are the technical challenges of Reverse ETL into Salesforce?

Several challenges can arise when syncing data back into Salesforce:

  • Rate limits: Salesforce API quotas can throttle large syncs.

  • Data model mismatches: Warehouses are relational and flexible; Salesforce has a strict object-schema structure.

  • Field validation: Salesforce enforces strong validation rules (e.g., required fields, picklists).

  • Upsert logic: You need to maintain reliable primary keys (like LeadId or AccountId) to avoid duplication or errors.

Platforms like Integrate.io help abstract away much of this complexity by offering a low-code interface, transformation logic, and prebuilt Salesforce connectors.

4. How often should data be synced from the warehouse to Salesforce?

The ideal sync frequency depends on your business use case:

  • Real-time or hourly: For operational tasks like usage-triggered alerts or lead scoring updates

  • Daily: For dashboards, enrichment jobs, or executive reporting fields

  • Weekly: For less time-sensitive data, like onboarding completion rates or support ticket aggregations

Tools like Integrate.io support scheduled and event-based pipelines, allowing flexibility based on latency and performance needs.

5. What’s the difference between ETL, ELT, and Reverse ETL in this context?

  • ETL (Extract, Transform, Load): Data is pulled from source systems (e.g., Salesforce) and transformed before being loaded into the data warehouse.

  • ELT (Extract, Load, Transform): Data is extracted and loaded first, with transformations occurring within the warehouse (e.g., using dbt).

  • Reverse ETL: This is the opposite direction, moving data from the data warehouse to business applications like Salesforce, often to operationalize insights.

While ETL and ELT are about data centralization, Reverse ETL is about data activation.