SQL Combine Text Columns

Assembling a single display value from multiple source columns — CONCAT_WS, applied to real campaign data.

What & Why

A common reporting need: combine several separate columns into one readable string. This reuses the CONCAT_WS pattern from earlier in this series, applied to a genuinely useful combination.

See How It Works

BUSINESS QUESTION

Marketing wants a campaign label containing its name and channel.

id	name	channel	spend	start_date	end_date	status	target_segment
1	Spring Launch	google_ads	55000.00	2024-01-15	2024-03-31	active	smb
2	Retention Webinar	email	45000.00	2024-02-10	2024-04-15	active	enterprise
3	Finance Retargeting	linkedin	50000.00	2024-03-12	2024-05-31	active	enterprise
4	Enterprise Search	google_ads	60000.00	2024-04-01	2024-06-30	active	enterprise

EXAMPLE QUERY

SELECT
  id AS campaign_id,
  CONCAT_WS(' · ', name, channel) AS campaign_label
FROM marketing.campaigns
ORDER BY campaign_id;

RESULT — exact output from the displayed Queryflo rows

campaign_id	campaign_label
1	Spring Launch · google_ads
2	Retention Webinar · email
3	Finance Retargeting · linkedin
4	Enterprise Search · google_ads

The labels concatenate the displayed campaign name and channel.

Now You Try

Practice this concept

Marketing wants a campaign label containing its name and channel.

Available schema

marketing

Prefix tables with marketing.table_name.

campaign_idcampaign_label

marketing.campaigns

Column	Type
id	integer
name	text
channel	text
spend	numeric
start_date	date
end_date	date
status	text
target_segment	text
legacy_id	text

query.sql

Intermediate business practice