Marketing Mix Models vs. Attribution Models

Marketing mix models and attribution models are two ways companies figure out how their marketing efforts impact their business results. They both crunch data to suss out what’s working and what’s not. But they go about it pretty differently.

What are Marketing Mix Models?

Marketing mix models, or MMMs for short, take a bird’s-eye view. They look at how the whole kit and caboodle of marketing activities over a stretch of time—we’re talking many months or even years—moved the needle on sales or other key goals.

MMMs are all about the big picture. They lump together lots of different factors that could affect the bottom line, like:

Ad spend across various channels (TV, billboards, online ads, you name it)
Price promotions and discounts
Economic trends and seasonality
Distribution and availability of products

Then, they use fancy math and statistics to untangle how these things likely impacted results.

Pros of Marketing Mix Models

They account for tons of variables, marketing-related and otherwise
They’re good for long-term, strategic planning
They’ve been around forever, so they’re tried and true

Cons of Marketing Mix Models

They don’t get into the nitty-gritty of individual campaigns or tactics
They look at long time periods, so insights can feel a bit stale
Building the models can be slow, complicated, and pricey

What are Attribution Models?

Attribution models zoom way in to track individual customer journeys. They follow people’s interactions with a company’s marketing touchpoints – like seeing an ad, Googling the brand, visiting the website, getting an email – and give credit to each touchpoint for eventually converting that person into a customer.

There are different flavors of attribution:

First-touch gives all the credit to the first interaction
Last-touch gives it to the final interaction before converting
Multi-touch sprinkles credit across multiple touchpoints in between

With attribution, companies can see which specific ads, keywords, and experiences seem to woo customers best.

Pros of Attribution Models

They shine a light on granular customer paths
They’re helpful for optimizing day-to-day tactics
Insights are closer to real-time since they look at shorter timeframes

Cons of Attribution Models

They mostly focus just on digital touchpoints that can be tracked
They have a harder time accounting for outside factors
Choosing the right model is tricky and can skew the story

Putting Them Together

MMMs and attribution are like two buddies with different superpowers. MMMs have the muscle to handle big strategic stuff, while attribution is speedy and agile for tactical ideas.

Using both together is the secret sauce. Companies get a more complete picture with MMM as the sturdy foundation and attribution for nimble tweaks. MMMs can guide high-level budget and channel allocation. Attribution can help quickly test and tinker to find the best combos of creative, offers, and targeting.

The key is getting the models to play nicely and share data back and forth. MMMs can feed attribution info on baseline effectiveness to beef up its accuracy. Attribution can clue MMMs into customer preferences and trends.

The Future of Marketing Measurement

As data, analytics, and tech keep zipping ahead, these marketing models are getting sharper and smarter too.

Some hot areas to watch:

Media mix modeling: the next generation of MMM that’s faster, more granular, and ties to individuals
Unified measurement: blending MMM and attribution into one mega-model
Cross-platform tracking: connecting the dots across devices and blurring the line between online and offline

No matter how the field evolves, the goal will always be to make sense of the zillions of data points and unearth nuggets of wisdom to boost marketing effectiveness and efficiency.

For marketers eager to spend smarter, MMM and attribution are the tag team to bank on. They’re the yin and yang, the peanut butter and jelly of marketing measurement. Sure, there are kinks to work out and gaps to fill. But used in tandem, these trusty tools light the way to the marketing promised land: the right spend on the right channels for the right audiences at the right times. And that’s downright exhilarating.