Media mix

The media mix is the combination of channels a brand advertises on, television, radio, out-of-home, print, paid search, paid social, and the share of the budget each one receives over a period. The media plan records that mix, by channel and by period; the media mix is what the plan decides.

Media mix modeling, MMM, is the method that measures it: a statistical model that explains sales as a baseline plus the contribution of each channel, from aggregate weekly data, online and offline together. Its name puts the emphasis on media spend within the broader marketing mix, which in practice is most of what the model explains; marketing mix modeling and market mix modeling refer to the same approach. A media mix model, fitted on two to three years of history, gives each channel a response curve and the marginal incremental ROAS that ranks channels for the next euro.

Media mix optimization is the comparison of allocations on that basis: a growth scenario that adds budget everywhere and an efficiency scenario that cuts the saturated channels, read side by side with their projected return and its band. What the model needs, how it works and what a brand owns at the end is in the marketing mix modeling pillar.