Optimize your budget allocation across Meta, Google, TikTok, and LinkedIn based on your goals.
Media Mix Modeling allocates your advertising budget across platforms based on industry benchmarks, budget constraints, and campaign goals. It uses 2025 algorithmic data to determine optimal spend distribution.
Why it matters: Budget dictates strategy, not the reverse. A small budget cannot sustain a complex media mix—it demands ruthless consolidation. This tool identifies the "escape velocity" required for each platform to achieve algorithmic optimization.
LinkedIn is allocated despite its high cost ($30-50 CPM) because it's the only platform that guarantees ads are seen by decision-makers with the correct Job Title and Company Size. This eliminates wasted spend on unqualified audiences.
Google captures 'in-market' demand—users actively searching for solutions. For B2B, this is the highest-converting traffic source, though CPC averages $8.86+ for tech keywords.
Meta is allocated for retargeting and maintaining brand salience. Decision-makers spend significant personal time on Meta properties, making it cost-effective ($8.19 CPM) for nurturing users who've engaged via LinkedIn or Google.
| Platform | CPM | CPC |
|---|---|---|
| 📘 Meta | $8.19 | $0.80 |
| $12.00 | $2.69 | |
| $35.00 | $12.00 | |
| 🎵 TikTok | $6.00 | $0.40 |
Recommended allocations are based on typical platform performance benchmarks. Optimal mix depends on your specific audience, creative assets, and business goals.
Media mix modeling (MMM) estimates how much each marketing channel actually contributes to results like revenue or conversions. The idea is simple: if spend in one channel changes over time, you can analyze how outcomes changed while controlling for other factors.
Why does this matter? Platform dashboards lie. Each ad network reports using its own attribution window and methodology. Add them up and the total often exceeds your actual revenue. MMM cuts through that by looking at the aggregate picture.
MMM runs on weekly or monthly data, so it's better for strategic questions—"Which channels drive incremental revenue?" "Where should we reallocate?"—not tactical ones like "Which ad set should I pause today?" It complements pixel-based tracking by offering a cross-channel view no single platform provides.
An attribution model is a rule set for assigning credit across touchpoints. The simple ones—first-click, last-click—are easy to understand but systematically bias decisions. Last-click overvalues retargeting. First-click overvalues awareness. Neither tells you what actually caused the conversion.
Multi-touch models try to spread credit, but they depend on tracking completeness. Privacy restrictions and cross-device behavior break them constantly.
MMM and incrementality testing ask a different question: not "who got the click" but "what caused incremental lift." When you're deciding where to spend, the best attribution approach is the one that predicts what happens when you change spend. That's the actual decision you need to make.
The moment you're running ads on more than one platform, attribution gets complicated. A customer sees a social ad, searches your brand a week later, clicks a retargeting ad, then converts. If you only look at last touch, you'll conclude awareness "doesn't work"—even when it's creating the demand that search and retargeting capture.
A realistic approach combines:
- Consistent UTM tagging everywhere
- One source of truth for reporting
- A modeling layer estimating incremental contribution
Perfection isn't the goal. Reducing decision error is. Stop reallocating budget based on misleading dashboards. Over time, validate with controlled tests—budget holdouts, geo experiments, creative on/off—to build confidence in your model.
Contribution analysis answers: what do you get from the next dollar in each channel?
Early spend usually performs best. You're reaching responsive segments first. As you scale, performance declines—saturation kicks in, auction costs rise. That's why "spend more on the highest ROAS channel" can backfire. ROAS isn't constant with spend.
A practical contribution analysis looks for diminishing returns and recommends reallocation before efficiency collapses. It also surfaces hidden winners: channels that look weak in last-click reports but correlate with overall revenue growth.
Use contribution analysis to build allocation strategies that stay stable under noise, instead of over-optimizing for short-term dashboard metrics.
Minimum $3,000/month for two channels, $8,000+ for a full media mix. Below $3K, focus on one platform to properly exit the learning phase.
Each platform needs minimum $50-100/day to exit the "Learning Phase" where algorithms optimize effectively. Spreading budget too thin wastes money on perpetual learning.
Recommendations are based on 2025 industry benchmarks and platform CPM/CPC data. Optimal allocation depends on your specific audience and creative performance.
Calculate your ideal ad budget based on revenue goals or plan reach from your budget.
Estimate impressions, clicks, and conversions based on your budget and industry benchmarks.
Calculate your click-through rate and benchmark against industry standards.
Calculate your cost per click and compare against platform benchmarks.
Calculate ROAS instantly from revenue and ad spend to see whether your ads are profitable.
Calculate cost per 1,000 impressions, total ad cost, or impressions from your budget in seconds.
