MMM: How Data Helps Make Better Decisions About Marketing Investments

In recent years, the marketing landscape has undergone a fundamental transformation. Companies are now investing in an increasingly broad mix of channels – from digital campaigns and television to radio, events, and promotional activities. At the same time, the pressure to deliver results continues to rise: leadership teams expect clear evidence that marketing is generating real business value. This is where Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) comes into play – a methodology that helps marketers answer a crucial question: What actually works in our marketing, and how should we allocate our budget to achieve the best possible results?

What is Marketing Mix Modeling?

Marketing Mix Modeling is a robust econometric methodology that uses historical data to analyze the impact of marketing investments and other external factors on business performance. Unlike traditional online tracking, it does not focus on individual clicks or cookies. Instead, it quantifies the effect of the entire marketing mix – including channels that are otherwise difficult to measure, such as television, radio, or out-of-home advertising.

The output is a clear understanding of how much sales, revenue, or other business value each activity has generated. In this way, MMM translates marketing investments into a language that both top management and finance teams can clearly understand.

Why is MMM Essential Today?

Traditional measurement methods have clear limitations. Online tracking is increasingly constrained by regulations (such as the loss of third-party cookies), and the customer journey often spans multiple channels. As a result, managers are frequently left with only partial metrics that fail to provide a complete picture.

Marketing Mix Modeling delivers:

• Clear proof of marketing’s value – showing how specific investments drive business results.

• A holistic view of the entire mix – covering not only digital channels, but also offline activities and broader market influences.

• A strong foundation for board-level decision-making – replacing fragmented metrics with a unified, numbers-driven language that connects marketing with business performance.

What Benefits Does MMM Bring to Company Leadership?

1. Better Budget Allocation

MMM makes it possible to identify which channels deliver the highest return on investment (ROI). According to data from Revology Analytics, organizations that use MMM for budget optimization typically achieve a 15–20% increase in ROI, and in some cases up to a 50% improvement by reallocating spend from lower-performing channels to more effective ones. This clearly demonstrates the significant potential of budget optimization through MMM.

2. Strategic Planning and Forecasting

MMM enables “what-if” scenario simulations: what happens if you increase investment in television, or if you discontinue specific promotional discounts? This capability significantly simplifies budget preparation and long-term planning.

A case study by Quantzig shows that MMM allowed companies to predict future sales and revenue with greater accuracy by incorporating demand elasticity, competitive activity, and other external factors.

3. Credibility at Board Level

Company leadership typically expects concrete numbers that prove marketing investments are generating real value. Deloitte reports that 44% of advertisers who implemented MMM (including open-source solutions) achieved at least a 10% increase in ROI, while keeping their marketing budgets unchanged.

4. A Holistic View of Business Performance

Marketing does not operate in a vacuum. MMM is one of the few tools capable of quantifying the impact of non-marketing factors that leadership must take into account. The model can distinguish how much of sales performance is driven by:

• Marketing activities – TV, radio, PPC, social media

• Pricing – price changes, promotional discounts

• External factors – weather, seasonality, macroeconomic conditions, competitive activity

• Distribution – opening new locations, product availability

This makes it possible to determine whether a drop in sales was caused by an underperforming campaign—or simply by rainy weather and aggressive competitor promotions.

5. Competitive Advantage and Long-Term Growth

Companies that manage marketing investments based on robust data gain a clear advantage: they make faster decisions, reduce risk, and operate more efficiently. At the same time, an excessive focus on short-term ROI can be harmful. According to an analysis by WARC and Google, over-optimizing for short-term results can lead to losing up to half of potential media returns if long-term brand effects are ignored. MMM therefore supports sustainable growth, not just short-term efficiency.

MMM as a Partner for Strategic Decisions

Marketing Mix Modeling is not just an analytical tool – it is a strategic compass:

• Where should we invest to achieve the greatest impact?

• Which activities build long-term brand value, and which drive immediate sales?

• What channel mix is optimal for different customer segments?

As a result, MMM becomes a core component of modern marketing management. It is not about producing a polished report – it is about providing a foundation for critical decisions that shape a company’s future.

MMM at Marketup

At Marketup, we have already delivered multiple Marketing Mix Modeling projects across various industries – from retail and e-commerce to service-based businesses. Each project is built on a combination of historical data on marketing investments, business outcomes, and external factors, complemented by current data when continuously available.

To ensure maximum accuracy and reliability of the results, we always test and iterate across multiple model variants. It is common for us to develop dozens of different models, which we then compare based on performance metrics, stability, and predictive power. This approach allows us to identify the model with the highest explanatory value and tailor it to the specific context of each client.

A key part of our work is transforming insights into online reporting, accessible to clients 24/7. This interactive dashboard enables continuous monitoring of marketing channel effectiveness and supports budget planning, tender decisions, and long-term strategic planning.

By combining analytical precision with expertise from our teams – spanning strategy, media, social media, and creative – along with intuitive visualization and clear interpretation of insights, we help company leadership understand where marketing truly creates value and how decisions can be driven by data rather than intuition.

In addition to full-scale, comprehensive MMM, we also offer digital MMM. This approach works exclusively with data from digital marketing channels. Its main advantages are speed and lower implementation complexity. However, it is important to note that the model captures only the online portion of the market, not the full picture. Its explanatory power therefore depends on the role digital channels play within the overall media mix. Despite limitations of web analytics (such as GA4 consent mode), digital MMM remains a powerful tool for uncovering optimization potential in online investments. Most importantly, it serves as a fast first step – helping determine whether econometric modeling is the right path before moving on to a robust, full-scope MMM.

Key Risks and Limitations

1. The Need for High-Quality Data: MMM models rely on historical data covering marketing investments, sales, and external factors (such as macroeconomic conditions). Without sufficient data quality or granularity, model outputs may not be reliable.

2. Retrospective Nature: MMM works exclusively with historical data. As a result, it cannot recommend channels or tactics that were not used in the past.