Measurement and evidence
What is marketing mix modelling (MMM)?
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what it means here
Here is what the term means for a UK buyer
The definition above holds anywhere. Buying media in the UK adds the detail below, including where AdBuyMCP does something different.
Attractive because it needs no identifiers and covers television, cinema and out-of-home. Limited because it is correlational, hungry for history, and sensitive to specification: two competent modellers can produce materially different answers from the same data. AdBuyMCP labels anything modelled as modelled and keeps it strictly separate from a powered causal result; a modelled estimate presented as evidence of causation is exactly the failure its evidence labels exist to prevent.
When does MMM make sense?
MMM needs a long history of spend and sales by channel, with enough variation in the spend for the model to separate one channel's effect from another's. It suits an advertiser with years of data and a settled channel mix.
A founder in the first year or two of paid media rarely has that history. A geo-lift test on one or two channels answers a narrower question with more confidence, and it can run on the next flight.
How should a modelled estimate be labelled?
AdBuyMCP uses four provenance labels: provider-reported, observed, modelled and powered causal. An MMM estimate belongs under modelled, and it keeps that label wherever it travels, including into a board pack.
Only a geo-lift test that passed its own power analysis earns powered causal, the one label that supports the word caused. No provenance label advances on the strength of sandbox or API-shaped data, which is why no sandbox campaign has reached a causal grade.
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related terms
These terms sit next to this one
Most confusion in media buying comes from two adjacent terms being used interchangeably, so these are the neighbours worth reading next.
Incrementality
The share of an outcome that happened because of the advertising, measured against what would have happened anyway. It is measured by comparing an exposed group with a comparable unexposed one, which counting the conversions that followed an advert cannot do.
Attribution
Assigning credit for an outcome to the advertising touchpoints that preceded it, according to a rule the advertiser chose. It describes correlation in a conversion path, and it cannot show on its own that the advertising caused anything.
Modelled
A number produced by a formula or an estimate rather than counted directly from observed events, and therefore carrying assumptions with it. Deduplicated reach and frequency across channels are the common examples, since no single seller can observe the others.
Evidence provenance
A label attached to a number recording how it was produced, so anyone reading the number can see how strong the evidence behind it is. The number may be reported by the seller, observed on your own property, estimated by a model, or established by a powered experiment.
same group
These terms are also in Measurement and evidence
What you can prove afterwards, and how to tell a number that means something from one that does not.