Marketing measurement is undergoing a fundamental transformation as companies move beyond traditional attribution models toward more advanced approaches that demonstrate marketing’s full business impact.
This shift was highlighted in a recent conversation between Keen’s VP of Strategic Partnerships, Jesse Math, and New Engine’s SVP of Analytics, Andrew Richardson. They explored how leading brands are evolving their measurement frameworks to capture both short-term performance metrics and long-term brand value, enabling more sustainable growth strategies.
The Current State of Marketing Measurement
Recent data shows that 60% of marketers still believe last-click measurement accurately reflects platform performance. While this represents progress from previous years, it highlights the ongoing challenge of shifting toward more sophisticated measurement approaches.
The industry’s overreliance on last-click attribution and ROAS (return on ad spend) metrics has created several problems:
- Short-term focus at the expense of brand building
- Disconnect between reported ROAS and actual business growth
- Marketing being treated as an expense rather than a growth driver
- Average CMO tenure dropping to just 18 months due to pressure for immediate results
Introducing the Innovators:
New Engen: Full Funnel Marketing Agency
New Engen stands at the forefront of digital marketing technology, managing nearly two billion dollars in media spend across multiple channels. Their expertise spans:
- Search and social media marketing
- Influencer strategies
- Creative content development
- Advanced measurement techniques
Keen: Advanced Measurement Solutions
Keen has transformed marketing analytics through its unified platform that connects marketing investments directly to business outcomes. As a comprehensive marketing mix modeling solution, Keen measures the incremental contribution of all marketing channels at the brand P&L level, providing clear visibility into revenue and profit impact. Key capabilities include: comprehensive measurement, advanced analytics, and strategic planning
Case Study: Uncovering True Channel Value
New Engine’s recent work with a major brand highlights the transformative potential of advanced measurement approaches. The brand, like many others, had invested heavily in brand search based on strong last-click performance metrics. However, deeper analysis revealed opportunities for optimization.
The Challenge
Traditional attribution showed brand search as a top performer, but questions arose about its true incremental value. The team needed to understand if these investments were driving new business or simply capturing existing demand.
The Solution
Using Keen’s marketing mix modeling platform, New Engine:
- Analyzed the true incremental contribution of brand search spending
- Identified opportunities to reallocate budget to higher-impact channels
- Implemented a data-driven optimization strategy
Results
The shift from last-click to incremental measurement drove significant improvements:
- 70% increase in overall marketing ROI
- 5% increase in Google search performance, despite reduced spend
- Enhanced budget efficiency across all channels
- Better alignment between marketing investment and business outcomes
Key Learning
By taking a macro view of channel performance and focusing on incremental contribution rather than ROAS, the team uncovered opportunities that traditional attribution missed. This more sophisticated approach to measurement enabled both immediate performance gains and long-term strategic optimization.
Choosing the Right Measurement Approach
Modern marketing measurement isn’t about finding a single “right” solution – it’s about understanding how different methodologies serve distinct purposes and work together to provide comprehensive insights. Key Measurement Methodologies:
Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA)
- Maps conversion paths across channels
- Identifies optimal channel combinations
- Best for understanding customer journey patterns
- Limited in measuring true incrementality
Incrementality Testing
- Measures true causal impact of marketing activities
- Validates channel effectiveness
- Essential for new channel evaluation
- Provides clear proof of marketing ROI
Keen’s Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM)
- Analyzes long-term marketing impact
- Enables future performance forecasting
- Accounts for external factors
- Connects marketing to business outcomes
Integrated Measurement Strategy
Rather than relying on a single methodology, leading organizations are adopting integrated measurement approaches that:
- Combine multiple methodologies to answer different questions
- Validate findings across measurement approaches
- Align measurement with specific business objectives
- Enable both tactical optimization and strategic planning
- Incorporates data point into their MMM
The key is understanding that these methodologies solve different problems at different phases of the measurement journey. While they can be integrated, their results shouldn’t simply be combined – each provides unique insights that inform different aspects of marketing strategy.
The Role of AI in Modern Marketing Measurement
As marketing measurement evolves, AI is transforming how organizations analyze and act on their data. Here’s how leading companies are leveraging AI to enhance their measurement capabilities:
Keen’s AI-Driven Insights:
Keen’s platform uses AI not for attribution calculations, but to help marketers understand and act on their data:
- Automated scenario analysis and forecasting
- Natural language queries for complex questions (e.g., “What happens if I add YouTube?”)
- Executive summaries and data storytelling
- Data visualization and insight generation
- Monte Carlo simulations for risk assessment
The platform makes advanced data science accessible to non-technical users while maintaining analytical rigor through machine learning-based measurement.
How New Engen builds on Keen Platform’s AI:
- Content optimization and advanced analytics functionality
While AI is transforming marketing measurement, it’s important to understand its role:
- AI enhances rather than replaces human strategic thinking
- Focuses on making complex data accessible and actionable
- Enables faster, more informed decision-making
- Helps identify patterns and opportunities humans might miss
Finding the Right Channel Mix
Keen’s partner agencies, like New Engen, plug seamlessly into existing processes to help bridge gaps. Some of the key ways Keen is complimenting agency’s existing capabilities to understand audience media consumption including:
- Maximizing the platforms where brands reach and influence their audience by leveraging Keen to determine which channels to prioritize
- Determining how much to invest per channel
- Discovering budget thresholds that are advantageous to expand the media mix or invest further in the existing mix, based on diminishing returns of profit.
- Identifying performance plateaus
- Using marketing elasticity modeling for forecasting
- Balancing short-term performance with brand building
- Testing into new channels systematically
Moving Forward
As marketing measurement evolves beyond simplistic last-click models, brands of all sizes now have the opportunity to gain deeper insights into how their investments drive business results. With advanced analytics becoming more accessible, companies can finally bridge the gap between short-term performance and long-term brand building.
Take the next step in elevating your marketing measurement by booking a demo to see Keen in action and watching the webinar to learn more.
