Predictive analytics and big-picture insights make media mix modeling tools invaluable to brand marketers of all industries in 2025.
Can you predict the outcome of your brand marketing campaigns?
Without the proper measurement tools, your media plan could feel like a (very expensive) shot in the dark.
A 2022 McKinsey Global Survey found that only 17% of companies believe they can effectively measure marketing's impact on business outcomes.
And with so many different retailers and media networks to reach customers, measuring the impact of your spending across platforms can be a nightmare!
Fortunately, a suite of media mix modeling tools has recently emerged to help solve those problems more quickly and accurately.
What is media mix modeling?
Media mix modeling, also known as marketing mix modeling (MMM), is a sophisticated analytical method that provides a comprehensive, data-driven understanding of how different marketing channels contribute to overall brand growth.
Unlike user-level attribution, MMM uses aggregated data to evaluate the effectiveness of different marketing channels while maintaining privacy compliance.
Media Mix Modeling offers a comprehensive, data-driven understanding of how different marketing channels contribute to overall brand growth. For CPG brands navigating an increasingly complex digital landscape, MMM is no longer a luxury—it's a strategic imperative.
How does AI power MMM?
In the first month of 2025, several announcements have already brought new MMM solutions to the forefront, all led by AI. AI is revolutionizing MMM in several key ways, making it more accurate, efficient, and insightful. Here's how:
1. Handling Complex Data
AI excels at processing massive datasets, including diverse data types like online behavior, social media sentiment, CRM data, and even weather patterns. This allows MMM to incorporate a wider range of factors influencing marketing performance. Traditional MMM often struggles with complex, non-linear relationships between marketing inputs and outcomes. AI, particularly machine learning, can model these intricate relationships more effectively, leading to more accurate results.
2. Improved Accuracy and Insights
AI employs sophisticated algorithms like neural networks and Bayesian methods to identify patterns and relationships that traditional statistical methods might miss. This leads to more precise estimations of marketing channel effectiveness. AI can analyze data at a more granular level, providing insights into specific customer segments, campaigns, and even individual touchpoints. This allows marketers to understand which tactics are working best for whom and optimize accordingly.
A study by Forrester Research indicates that AI-driven marketing tools can improve marketing efficiency by up to 40%, with predictive analytics significantly increasing conversion potential.
3. Enhanced Efficiency and Speed
AI automates many aspects of MMM, from data cleaning and preprocessing to model building and interpretation. This significantly reduces the time and resources required for MMM analysis. AI enables real-time or near real-time MMM, allowing marketers to adjust campaigns on the fly based on the latest data and insights. This agility is crucial in today's dynamic marketing environment.
4. Predictive Capabilities
AI can be used to forecast the impact of future marketing campaigns, enabling marketers to make data-driven decisions about budget allocation and channel selection. AI facilitates scenario planning by simulating the potential outcomes of different marketing strategies. This helps marketers identify the most promising approaches and mitigate risks.
5. Overcoming Limitations of Traditional MMM
AI can more accurately model the long-term impact of marketing activities, such as brand building, by capturing adstock and carryover effects and can help address the complex challenge of attributing marketing outcomes to specific touchpoints across the customer journey.
What is the difference between MMM and MTA?
Media mix modeling (MMM) analyzes how various marketing elements collectively impact sales or other KPIs, while multi-touch attribution (MTA) identifies the specific contribution of each touchpoint in the customer journey.
MMM relies on historical, aggregated data (like campaign budgets or overall sales figures) while MTA needs more granular, real-time data on individual user interactions.
Learn more about how and when to use each analysis method below:
What are the best media mix modeling tools?
As with most things, it depends - on your needs, budget, and level of technical skill. Recent innovations in MMM tools are making it easier for advertisers to approach and understand statistical regression models.
Take, for example, the collaboration between retail data aggregator Crisp and MMM platform Keen Decision Systems. This partnership represents a significant leap forward, enabling CPG marketers to combine daily, store-level data from multiple retailers with advanced modeling techniques. The result? The ability to plan, measure, and adjust budget allocations in real-time with unprecedented precision.
Another standout tool our own analysts love is Resonate, an AI-powered data platform that goes beyond traditional analytics. By combining consumer data with machine learning, Resonate provides robust audience insights that go far deeper than surface-level demographics.
Meridian is an open-source MMM tool that measures full-funnel performance, integrating incrementality experiments, controlling for organic demand with the inclusion of search query volume data, and making video measurement more actionable by modeling reach and frequency.
Finally, Robyn is an experimental, machine learning-powered, open-sourced MMM package from Meta Marketing Science.
These sophisticated tools do more than just collect data—they illustrate the intricate interconnectivity between media channels. By leveraging advanced algorithms and comprehensive data sets, marketers can now confidently justify every marketing dollar spent, transforming what was once a guessing game into a strategic, measurable process.
And couldn't we all use a little more peace of mind these days?
To ask our media experts how MMM or MTA can help manage your brand's ad budget more efficiently, shoot us a note using the form below!
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