Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) is experiencing a renaissance in the age of outcomes. The single most important development may be the ingestion of AD CREATIVE.
Here’s why.
We spend all our time at Adverteyes.ai building the Creative Intelligence system of record for the advertising industry. Our purpose is simple: to make every ad drive more sales growth and ROI for CMOs. With the majority (51%) of Internet traffic now comprised of bots and machine-generated, we care about real outcomes by real humans.
At the core of our work are two questions every marketing leader ultimately must answer:
- How will every single one of my ad creatives perform?
- What must I do to improve performance, before a single media dollar is spent?
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Creative is the single largest driver (50%-70%) of sales outcomes in advertising. It's remarkable it took this long to become first-class data within MMM systems.
That’s why I’m drawn to CMOs and effectiveness leaders whose true north is sales growth and ROI, the language of the boardroom. It’s why I deeply respect the new generation of MMM leaders, both inside brands and among suppliers, who are disciplined about understanding how advertising actually drives business outcomes. Especially those embracing the explosion of platform-native ad content fueled by video creators, commerce media and GenAI.
From Rear-View Mirror to Forward-Looking Engine
Not long ago, MMM was often dismissed—sometimes jokingly—as little more than a rear-view mirror. Models focused heavily on aggregate media-spend tonnage, optimized to justify past investment decisions to CEOs and CFOs rather than shape future ones.
That era is ending.
Today’s MMMs are evolving rapidly. They now ingest far richer inputs across platforms, channels, devices, formats, and increasingly, creative itself. This matters because creative is the single largest driver (50%-70%) of sales outcomes in advertising. It’s remarkable it took this long to become first-class data within MMM systems.
Moreover, MMMs are becoming always-on, granular and forward-looking. The goal is no longer broad directional insight alone, but the ability to inform everyday decisions that influence growth and ROI. AI is accelerating this shift by enabling more sophisticated data ingestion, faster analysis, and interfaces that business leaders can actually use. This evolution is underway across both in-house teams and agency partners.
Today's MMMs are evolving from rear-view mirror to forward-looking engine - now capable of attributing credit to individual creatives and forecasting sales impact before launch.
When MMMs Meet Creative Intelligence
We view this transformation from a unique vantage point: creative effectiveness.
Last year, we calibrated Adverteyes’ ad-creative performance predictions against dozens of large-scale MMM programs, and alongside other outcome methods such as multi-touch attribution and incrementality testing. When MMMs and creative intelligence are integrated, four important things happen:
Clear ROI thresholds emerge at the individual-creative level, increasing confidence in both the MMM and creative scoring.
MMM accuracy improves, with previously unexplained performance patterns becoming explainable. At the same time, MMM benchmarks help calibrate creative predictions—often tuned to specific brands.
The role of MMM shifts from general and retrospective to granular and forward-looking—capable of attributing credit to individual creatives in past campaigns and forecasting sales impact and ROI before launch.
Creative strategy itself becomes predictive of sales growth. When MMMs correlate with our creative predictions, Brand Playbooks can forecast growth based solely on creative patterns across large portfolios.
The future of MMM is not just better math. It's better creative intelligence: deeply integrated, forward-looking, and grounded in human truth.
Proof in Practice
Our global fin-serv partner AXA, together with its MMM partner Ekimetrics, generously shared results from one of the industry’s first major pilots integrating MMM with ad-creative scoring. The work demonstrates how creative intelligence can materially improve business outcomes when embedded inside MMM frameworks. (See the full case study.)
A Clear Call to Action
If you are a CMO or advertising effectiveness leader who is serious about maximizing creative for sales growth and ROI, this is the next frontier.
The future of MMM is not just better math.
It’s better creative intelligence: deeply integrated, forward-looking, and grounded in human truth and real business outcomes.
If that resonates, let’s talk.