The news: Companies are turning to marketing mix modeling (MMM) to handle ROI demands, signal loss around changing privacy rules, and channel complexity, per a Harvard Business Review (HBR) survey sponsored by Google.

• 87% of HBR’s global audience involved with their organizations’ marketing department and familiar with their use of MMM say it’s important to gain data-driven insights.
• This interest in MMM could come from the fact that nearly three-quarters (73%) say their organizations are under growing pressure to show the effects of various media channels.

However, they’re struggling to turn MMM information into action.

• Only 22% of respondents are leaders, which HBR defined as organizations that are “very effective” at using MMM to gather insights and act on them in a timely, impactful way.
• Nearly half (42%) are laggards, or respondents who say their organizations are “not very effective” at using MMM.

Organizational and operational barriers present a challenge, with some describing an “actionability gap,” or a disconnect between having insights and acting on them. Nearly half (41%) say this gap is caused by siloed teams, 46% point to slow processes, and 45% cite a lack of expertise.

Zooming in: Top leaders in MMM application are connecting it to real decisions, investing in data quality and integrations, and aligning MMM with overall business goals.

• 55% of leaders are connecting MMM outputs to real-world marketing decisions, compared with just 20% of laggards.
• 51% of leaders are improving data quality and accuracy, compared with 36% of laggards.
• 40% of leaders and only 15% of laggards have integrated MMM with other measurement tools.

The caveat: Gaps that remain mean MMM’s value is theoretical for many companies, not operational.

• Despite widespread adoption, many organizations are not using MMM to actively guide budget allocation or campaign strategy in real time, limiting its impact on performance and ROI decisions.
• Instead, insights stay siloed within analytics teams or appear too late to affect fast-moving marketing decisions.

Implications for brands: A smaller group of “leader” organizations is pulling ahead by integrating MMM into decision-making workflows, improving data infrastructure, and aligning insights with business goals. These companies are better positioned to optimize spend and respond to market changes—turning measurement into a competitive advantage.

Without closing the actionability gap, MMM becomes another reporting layer, rather a growth driver. Brands should tie MMM outputs directly to pre-approved budget reallocation rules—so insights automatically trigger spend shifts—instead of waiting on slow, manual decision-making.

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