Google launches marketing mix model ‘Meridian’
Google has launched its own open-source marketing mix model (MMM), made available to all marketers and data scientists.
Designed to help marketers better allocate budgets in today’s challenging landscape, Meridian which has been tested with hundreds of brands globally, has now been made available for public use.
Google’s vision of a “more transparent, innovative, and actionable approach” to a MMM comes to life via Meridian, as it differs to traditional MMMs.
According to Google, MMMs have historically been unable to fully measure performance media, such as search ads or AI-powered campaigns. They “lack a modern approach”, may not update assumptions based on experiments, or do not provide granular insights, which may lead to inaccurate budget decisions.
Meanwhile, Meridian is described to blend prior knowledge with real-world data, revealing the true incremental impact of a brand’s marketer.
It also features customisation, redefined reach and frequency, more accurate budget decisions, and uses experiments as “powerful priors”.
For companies like Australian financial business Finder, Meridian’s customisation can allow it to garner actionable insights, providing “much more confidence”.
“At Finder, our mission is to help people make better financial decisions and we try to apply that approach to everything we do — including our own marketing,” said Jennifer Snell, general manager of marketing and loyalty at Finder.
“With Meridian, we now have much more confidence in our ability to measure the impact of our investments. This has moved us from investing time and resources into creating linear regression models from scratch, to an agile, best-in-class solution that our team can still own and manage. The insights we’ve gained have reinforced the additional value that YouTube drives beyond what’s visible with standard conversion tracking.”
Google has also introduced a partner program with over 20 measurement partners, trained and certified on Meridian.
Among these partners is Analytic Edge, which will apply its extensive MMM experience to the new platform.
Founder and director of Analytic Edge, Santosh Nair, said the measurement vendor is excited to partner with Google.
“Meridian integrates technical innovations to assess the indirect impact of search on marketing channels in the consumer journey. It enhances the measurement of ‘reach’ and ‘frequency’ for YouTube campaigns, helping advertisers with campaign planning,” Nair said.
The seamless integration with Google Marketing Data Platform boosts productivity in data processing and improves the accuracy of the data used in the model. Our collaboration on Meridian will help advertisers better understand the interactions between channels and improve their campaign strategies.”
Related Content
SUBSCRIBE
Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.
