In today’s fast-paced digital marketing world, knowing what works — and what doesn’t — is more important than ever. Kantar worked with Meta to conduct a comprehensive global research study on the state of play for measurement practices among large advertisers, with a deeper focus on Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) adoption dynamics and its role in decision-making.
Based on a total of 1,935 interviews conducted with measurement professionals from companies investing over $1 million in digital marketing annually, we uncovered five important findings:
- MMM is key for decision making: When it comes to decision-making, 34% of large advertisers prioritize MMM over other tools—more than any other method. A strong majority (80%) of MMM users are utilizing or wish to use MMM not only for strategic planning decisions but also for more tactical ad spend optimization, such as setting or adjusting allocations across media channels or campaigns.
- Building a suite of truth: Most advertisers don’t rely on just one tool—they use an average of nearly four different measurement solutions to guide their decisions. For the largest advertisers, that number climbs even higher. Only a small number (3%) use MMM on their own. Over half (51%) combine it with other tools like attribution models and experiments, showing that a blended approach is becoming the norm.
- Opportunities for future MMM improvement: Advertisers are seeking higher granularity and actionability, more practical guidance for optimal integration with other techniques, and lower costs.
- Maximizing accuracy through validation and calibration: More than half (55%) of advertisers often get conflicting results from different tools. To make sense of it all, they frequently use calibration techniques to align the data.
- Growing trend of in-housing: Most advertisers are outsourcing MMM to third parties, however about one-third (31%) of advertisers are now managing MMM internally. Why? They believe it gives them more transparency, higher customization, and lower costs.
For advertisers aiming to get the most out of their marketing investments, MMM is an essential tool for comprehensive measurement of marketing ROI that supports strategic and tactical decision-making. MMM practitioners – whether part of agency or in-house teams - have an opportunity to continue to evolve and improve to meet the needs of advertisers for more granular and actionable outcomes and better integration with other measurement solutions. Meta has termed this a “suite of truth” approach. It’s important to plan the right mix of measurement tools and how they will work together in much the same way a marketer plans their media mix. By embracing the opportunities and addressing the challenges identified in the study, advertisers can sharpen their measurement strategies and drive stronger results.
Click here for a more detailed report on the findings of this study.
View Meta's report: Building a suite of truth: A hybrid approach to measuring incrementality
