DSI & MEDIALINK WHITEPAPER

The Future of Marketing Mix Models in the Age of Retail Media

What’s MMM’s Place and Pace in a Modern Marketing Strategy?

As retail media spending explodes and traditional measurement methods struggle to keep pace, marketing mix modeling (MMM) finds itself at a critical crossroads. 

While 55% of brands have fully implemented MMM and rely on it for strategic insights, the rapid evolution of retail media networks, off-site advertising, and digital commerce investments has exposed significant gaps in how these models measure true incremental impact.

“The Future of Marketing Mix Models in the Age of Retail Media,” new comprehensive research from the Digital Shelf Institute (DSI) and Medialink, reveals that only 10% of marketers feel "very confident" in their MMM's ability to measure cross-channel incrementality, with 50% reporting their models don't adequately account for retail media investments.

The research uncovers key challenges, including: 

• A lack of retailer-specific granularity;
• Infrequent modeling updates that can't match the always-on nature of retail media;
• Data quality issues stemming from fragmented retailer reporting; and
• Organizational silos that prevent holistic measurement.

However, the future points toward promising solutions, including:

• Generative AI-powered analytics; 
• Faster and more sophisticated modeling approaches; and
• Industry-wide standardization efforts

Download the whitepaper to learn how to transform marketing mix models (MMM) from a quarterly planning tool into a dynamic, real-time strategic asset.