Marketing Mix Optimization

A marketing mix is made up of many different elements. The elements of a marketing mix are all the different factors that affect the marketing mix’s business outcomes. Let's think of marketing mix elements in statistical terms. We can call the elements the independent variables and the business outcomes the dependent variables because the marketing mix elements influence and correlate to the business outcomes.

Just like a good investment portfolio example contains varied financial assets, an effective marketing mix model example is made up of multiple variables (elements) that can provide a detailed picture of how different types of marketing actions interrelate and lead to different business outcomes. 

For instance, a thorough marketing mix model could examine how search, display, and social marketing efforts perform individually and how they affect one another. MMM tools make it easy to take multiple variables into account and analyze how different combinations of elements lead to different business outcomes.

Marketing mix optimization requires careful collection and analysis of a large amount of complex data. Extracting any usable insights from this data without the right tools is nearly impossible. However, tools like Proof MMM make it much easier to make sense of your marketing data and use it to drive impactful changes to your marketing strategy.

There are a lot of different benefits to using marketing mix modeling for planning and monitoring marketing campaigns. Here are some of the benefits of using Proof MMM for marketing analysis:

Unify data

Marketers typically store marketing data across various siloed locations. When marketing data is split between different websites, platforms, devices, spreadsheets, and more, it can become very difficult to get a comprehensive view of your marketing campaigns. Proof MMM enables teams to break down the silos and unify marketing data into one source of truth.

Cut through the noise

Large-scale marketing campaigns generate a ton of data. It’s not always simple to link data points with specific questions about marketing outcomes. Effective marketing mix modeling software can quickly index business questions to the specific data sets that are relevant.

Gain visibility

Proof MMM provides a transparent method of connecting marketing activities to business outcomes. The automated multivariable analysis provides long-term visibility into factors like time lag impact. This is extremely helpful not only the marketing team, but also for non-marketing members across the organization, particularly the C-Suite. The CMO can give the CEO, CFO, and other executive team members visibility into marketing spend and performance.

Identify relationships

The best marketing mix modeling examples help marketers identify and describe cause and effect relationships between activities and outcomes. A marketing campaign is a complex combination of factors (marketing and non-marketing) that all affect one another. MMM software can make it easier to understand these relationships.

Marketing campaigns require careful analysis to keep them on track. Marketing mix analysis is a strategy marketers use to help them determine which marketing actions have the largest return on investment. In other words, which marketing actions are worth investing more money into based on performance? With Proof’s marketing mix modeling, step-by-step analysis can simplify discerning the most valuable marketing actions to pursue.

We can break down marketing mix modeling analysis into four basic steps:

Step 1: Select the outcome you want to understand.

The first step is to determine which specific question you are trying to answer. The question you choose should revolve around a dependent variable. Your marketing campaign’s dependent variables are the business outcomes that result from marketing efforts. Some common examples of dependent variables (business outcomes) in a marketing context are customer retention and revenue growth. If a marketer wants to use MMM analysis to understand revenue growth better, they could ask, “what marketing actions are most effective at driving revenue?”

Step 2: Identify the factors that may be driving the outcome.

The next step is to figure out which marketing factors you should analyze to get your answer. In other words, which independent variables are the ones impacting your chosen dependent variable? Once you’ve collected this data, you can feed it into an analysis tool like Proof MMM. Usually, the greater amount of relevant data you have, the better.

Step 3: Develop and run the data model

Next, Proof will create a marketing mix model automatically using your input data. Proof’s platform also calculates the level of confidence it has in its predictions. You can re-test the model with different metrics and data sources and adjust it until you get a reliable result with extremely high confidence. 

Step 4: Repeat

Marketers can repeat this simple process over and over again for each different marketing action. Proof MMM can help find correlations between any dependent and independent variables in your marketing campaign wherever they exist. Marketing mix modeling is one of the best ways to better understand the relationships between the different elements of your marketing efforts.

Marketing mix modeling is an extremely complicated process. MMM software like Proof MMM uses detailed statistical algorithms to perform multiple types of analysis on sets of marketing data.

Correlation Analysis - Correlation analysis compares two different variables and analyzes the relationship between them.

Univariate Analysis - Univariate analysis is a statistical analysis of a single variable.

Multivariate Regression Analysis - Multivariate regression analysis is a statistical model that explores how multiple independent variables interact and correlate with multiple dependent variables all at once.

With these kinds of modeling analyses, MMM software provides a mathematically sound source of guidance that can help marketers understand the value of different marketing tactics and decide which to invest in.

For a truly comprehensive understanding of marketing analysis, it’s important to be familiar with marketing mix modeling techniques and challenges the techniques address. Marketing mix modeling techniques can generally be boiled down to the practice of using packages of statistical data to identify relationships between marketing variables. 

The primary function of MMM software like Proof MMM is to automate this process, making it significantly faster and leading to much more reliable results. In many cases, marketing mix modeling is so complex that it may not be feasible without software help. However, with the help of MMM software, a marketing team can create a market mix modeling case study that shows them an in-depth analysis of the algorithm’s conclusions and gives them relevant strategy advice.

Marketing mix modeling software is one of the best solutions to the various challenges posed by marketing analysis. Marketers today need an efficient method of organizing and interpreting marketing data and correlating it to various business outcomes. This process drives effective marketing decisions that lead to positive business results. 

It’s not enough to simply know which marketing actions are effective. It’s important to have a full picture of the specific impact of each marketing element in your campaign and how those elements interact with one another. 

Marketing modeling mix software like Proof MMM can help marketing teams use statistical analysis to gain these essential insights into marketing campaigns. Using an MMM solution to link past marketing performance with predictions for future outcomes is one of the best ways to use data-driven insights to make informed adjustments to your marketing strategy over time.