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The Madison Avenue Field GuideA field guide to marketing & advertising, by Brandon Mina

GlossaryData & Martechdbt (data build tool)

Data & Martech

dbt (data build tool)

An open-source tool that lets analysts transform warehouse data with version-controlled SQL models, tests and documentation.

By Brandon MinaCEO, BrandPilot AIUpdated November 2026

Short answer

dbt, or data build tool, is an open-source tool that lets analysts transform data inside a warehouse using version-controlled SQL models, along with tests and documentation. It brings software engineering practices to analytics work, making transformations reproducible and reviewable, and is widely used to prepare marketing and customer data.