Prophet guide tackles marketers' measurement blind spots

Prophet has launched a guide on market mix modelling for marketers, designed to help them identify gaps in how they measure marketing activity.

The guide, MMM 101: From Measurement to Rehearsed Reality, includes a checklist for assessing measurement blind spots, an outline of effective market mix modelling, and guidance on building an internal business case for the approach.

Its release comes as marketing teams face growing scrutiny over whether spending can be tied to commercial results rather than channel-level metrics. Prophet cited survey data showing that two-thirds of marketers see proving the financial impact of their work as their biggest challenge.

Market mix modelling, or MMM, is a statistical method used to estimate how different marketing activities contribute to outcomes such as sales, customer acquisition and retention. It is typically used to assess the combined effect of channels over time, rather than focusing on individual user journeys.

Rachel Scott, Head of Marketing Science at Prophet, said the guide was intended to address what she described as a visibility problem in current reporting systems.

"Australian marketers spend billions of dollars each year trying to drive growth, yet industry estimates suggest more than $6.1 billion of digital advertising spend in Australia is wasted annually on ineffective media.

"But the bigger issue is often not wasted spend, but 'invisible' impact. Demand tends to build gradually across multiple channels before a customer ultimately converts," Scott said.

Marketers often rely on attribution dashboards that give more credit to channels that capture demand at the point of conversion, while doing less to show the effect of upper-funnel brand activity. As a result, marketing teams can find it harder to defend broader investment decisions to finance executives.

Scott drew that distinction in a second comment.

"Marketing can show platform performance, but finance is looking for commercial impact. Brand investment often sits awkwardly in the middle of that conversation. CFOs are naturally cautious about spend that cannot be easily quantified, and brand rarely appears clearly inside attribution dashboards," she said.

"The channels that capture demand tend to get the credit, while the activity that created the demand in the first place becomes harder to see. That gap is where marketing credibility quietly erodes, not because marketing is not working, but because the measurement framework cannot demonstrate how it works," Scott said.

Case studies

Prophet pointed to several modelling exercises to illustrate how the approach can change the reading of campaign performance. In an automotive analysis, it modelled more than 300,000 test drives and found that more than a third were directly influenced by marketing activity, with conversions rarely linked to a single interaction.

In a consumer retail campaign, its modelling showed that a video strategy spread across several digital environments was up to three times more efficient than television alone. According to Prophet, that difference would not have been visible until after the campaign had ended without modelling.

It also cited a financial services analysis in which modelling suggested marketing investment not only supported customer acquisition but prevented the loss of up to 33,000 existing customers who might otherwise have churned.

How it works

Prophet said its system builds what it describes as a digital clone of an organisation using internal business data and external macroeconomic factors. The aim is to let clients test scenarios before committing budget.

Scott said the guide was also intended to make the method more accessible to marketers who may see it as opaque or overly technical.

"The real value of MMM isn't just analysing what already happened, but what happens next," Scott said.

"This guide is not about making MMM sound perfect. It's about providing a framework that ensures marketing decisions are measurable, explainable and defensible. Put simply, MMM is maths. It's a statistical model that isolates variables, quantifies their contribution and separates signal from noise. Instead of tracking individual user journeys across platforms, it analyses the entire marketing ecosystem and measures how changes in investment influence business outcomes over time.

"Crucially, it also accounts for the external forces shaping demand," she said.

The guide arrives as Prophet continues to expand across sectors including retail, insurance, automotive, media, on-demand delivery, wagering and cybersecurity. The company was recognised in the media and marketing category of the AFR BOSS Most Innovative Company awards in 2025.

Founded in 2020 by Jordan Taylor-Bartels and Sean Taylor, Prophet positions itself as a decision intelligence business focused on modelling the effects of marketing, sales and operational choices using commercial and behavioural data.