The Secret Sauce that is Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) 🔥

Ever felt like navigating the increasingly complicated marketing landscape is like running with a blindfold? Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) is your GPS, guiding you through the clutter so you're able to make data-driven decisions that amplify your marketing efforts.

Written by
Belle
Lead Digital Analyst

How Double is using the power of Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) to boost our client’s revenue/leads!

Ever felt like navigating the increasingly complicated marketing landscape is like running with a blindfold? Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) is your GPS, guiding you through the clutter so you're able to make data-driven decisions that amplify your marketing efforts.

Imagine having a clear view of which channels drive the most sales/leads (without platform bias - we see you 👀). You’ll see a whole bunch like how to optimise your budget, the lag of top of funnel efforts,  and forecasts for future revenue. You might even find out that the number of millimetres of rainfall directly impacts your sales, suggesting you should increase your budgets on wet weather days.

We’re seeing great results from our current clients, find out more about how MMMs could work for you too!

What is Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM)?

MMM stands for Marketing Mix Modelling. It uses historical marketing, sales, and external data, with the power of statistical analysis techniques to provide a comprehensive view of marketing performance. This helps marketing managers to allocate their increasingly tight (thanks cost of living crisis!) budgets more effectively, make informed strategic decisions, and remove bias toward specific marketing channels.

Why do I need it?

Compare the transition to using MMMs to the transition to using a GPS. Road maps may have been useful when traffic was lighter and slips weren’t so prominent but these days, you’d be silly not to use a GPS to provide real-time updates and optimise your journey from A to B.

The marketing world is changing quicker than ever before, we have new marketing channels popping up each month, new regulations are causing loss of tracking, and consumer behaviours are becoming more and more complicated. MMM is our crucial navigational tool amongst all of this. Here’s why we use them for our clients:

  • Unbiased View: 
Marketing platforms can be biased - they want to make themselves look good so they do anything they can to claim a conversion. MMM provides a clear, unbiased perspective on the effectiveness of your marketing channels, free from platform biases. How? It independently compares marketing spend data to actual sales or lead data, trying to draw correlations.

  • Holistic View: 
All your marketing efforts in one place, integrating data from various channels.

  • Better Budget Allocation / Waste Reduction:
You might have a good overall ROAS, but MMMs help pinpoint areas of overspending and underspending. Adjusting your budgets in both places will take you from good to great to excellent and beyond. 

  • External Impact: 
Depending on your company, you can add relevant macro and micro economic data. Some examples we've used are OCR and rainfall. They may be out of your control, but understanding their impact puts you in a better position to plan and strategise.

Why all of a sudden though?

  • Smarter solutions:
 Modelling has come a long way and is now more accessible than ever. You no longer need huge data teams to implement or train these models. By leveraging advanced tools and AI, businesses can achieve smarter solutions efficiently and effectively.

  • Loss of tracking: 
GDPR, CCCA, who knows what the acronym will be in NZ (but it’s coming). These privacy regulations have seriously impacted the things we can track. MMMs fill in the gaps that they leave.

  • Less budget: 
It’s no secret that lots of companies are doing it tough at the moment. That’s why it’s so important to work smarter, not harder, with your marketing budgets. MMMs are all about optimising what you’ve got, or getting some statistics powered proof that that little bit of extra budget you’ve been begging your boss for would go a really long way in the right places (within a 95% confidence interval of course).

How do you get started?

Facebook has been super generous and made their MMM open source. This means anyone can leverage the hard work of some of the world’s best statisticians to run their own MMMs with some basic coding and data knowledge.

Or you can leave it to us. We can handle the running and interpretation of the models and just provide you with the good stuff. For more info on how MMM can transform your marketing strategy, feel free to reach out for a chat.