Last week, Google open-sourced its Marketing Mix Model (MMM), called Meridian.

Why does this matter?

Because MMM helps you figure out which of your marketing efforts are actually driving results. It’s a powerful statistical technique that analyzes how different marketing channels, such ads, social media, email, and even offline, impact your bottom line.

But, traditionally, using MMM meant hiring a data scientist or statistician to build the model and interpret the results. This generally made it harder for smaller brands to use as they didn’t have the resources or expertise to implement it themselves.

So, does Meridian change that?

First, what does an MMM actually tell you? Simply put, it gives you a clearer picture into your marketing efforts. With it, you can better understand:

• Which marketing channels drive the most revenue (social, search, email, etc.).
• How much each channel contributes to sales and how they interact with one another.
• The impact of external factors (e.g., seasonality, competition, economic conditions).
• Your optimal budget allocation to maximize return on investment.
• Revenue incrementality – how much additional revenue was generated due to marketing efforts.

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And don’t confuse it with Media Mix Modeling (also MMM…), which focuses only on media spend and just adds to the acronym overload.What’s new with Meridian?Meridian tries to be the best of both (three?) worlds: powerful, transparent, and easier to use. It brings together all the latest MMM techniques into a single tool, is designed to be as actionable as possible, and is open source so you can see exactly how it works (here is the GitHub repo).

So does this make Marketing Mix Modeling easy?

The short answer is no.

You still need to have someone with a strong statistical background to implement the model and interpret the results.

However, Meridian does make MMM significantly more accessible. Instead of building a model from scratch or relying on a third-party black box that you don’t fully understand, marketers now have a transparent, open-source solution that delivers better insights with less effort.In the right hands, it can be a powerful tool.