Drew AI pulls data from two fundamentally different sources, and understanding the difference helps you ask better questions and interpret answers correctly.
Historical data (our data warehouse data warehouse)
Your Shopify data — orders, customers, products, revenue — is synced daily into Datadrew's data warehouse (Google our data warehouse). This data goes through a pipeline:
our data pipeline syncs raw data from Shopify into our data warehouse
our data transformation layer transforms the raw data into analytics-ready tables (79 SQL models)
Drew AI's SQL subagent queries these transformed tables
Key characteristics:
Freshness: Data is available up to yesterday. Today's data is not yet synced.
Depth: Full historical data — every order, customer, product, and transaction since you connected.
Capabilities: Complex queries, joins, aggregations, cohort analysis, RFM segmentation, LTV calculations, product performance, basket analysis.
Speed: Queries typically complete in 5-15 seconds.
Used for: Shopify orders, customers, products, revenue, RFM segments, LTV cohorts, repurchase rates, basket analysis, blended metrics, product performance, benchmarks.
Real-time data (MCP live API tools)
For ad platforms, email marketing, and web analytics, Drew AI connects directly to the platform APIs to pull live, up-to-the-minute data:
Meta/Facebook Ads: 21 API tools — campaigns, ad sets, ads, creatives, insights, audiences
Klaviyo: 18 API tools — campaigns, flows, profiles, segments, lists, metrics, events, templates
Google Analytics: 7 API tools — sessions, users, pageviews, conversions, source/medium breakdowns
Google Search Console: 4 API tools — search queries, pages, clicks, impressions, positions
Google Ads: 3 API tools — campaigns, ad groups, keywords via GAQL queries
Shopify: 2 API tools — limited real-time product and order data
Key characteristics:
Freshness: Real-time. Data reflects the current state of the platform, including today.
Depth: Depends on what the platform API exposes. Some historical data is available through APIs, but it varies by platform.
Capabilities: Platform-specific queries and metrics as supported by each API.
Speed: Queries typically complete in 3-10 seconds per API call.
How Drew AI chooses which source to use
Drew AI automatically routes your question to the right data source. You generally do not need to specify which one to use. Here are the routing rules:
Shopify data questions (orders, customers, revenue, products) go to the data warehouse.
Ad platform questions (Meta Ads, Google Ads performance) go to live APIs.
Klaviyo questions (email campaigns, flows, subscribers) go to live APIs.
Google Analytics questions (traffic, sessions, conversions) go to live APIs.
Cross-platform blended metrics are calculated using both sources — warehouse data for Shopify revenue and live APIs for ad spend.
Industry benchmarks and external context come from web search.
The key takeaway
If you ask for Shopify data from today, Drew AI will tell you it is not available yet. For ad platform data from today, Drew AI can pull it in real-time. Understanding this distinction will save you time and help you phrase your questions for the best results.
Need help? Reach out to support@datadrew.io or use the in-app chat.
Related articles
Need help?
If you have questions or run into issues, reach out to us at support@datadrew.io or use the in-app chat. We're happy to help.