• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, July 14, 2025

Campaigns that have an overwhelming number of variables, channels and interactions and attempt to model every detail might lead to an unreliable model.

Simplifying the model by focusing on key drivers at a higher level may work better to avoid getting lost in the noise.

At least this may be the case for Alaska Airlines, which began testing Google's Meridian media mix modeling (MMM) platform about three months ago with the help from Adswerve, a Google platform services provider.

In a three-month implementation of Meridian for Alaska Airlines, Adswerve found an 11% projected increase of addressable advertising revenue that could realize $100 million in additional revenue. The data predicted a 3% increase in return on investment (ROI) based on Alaska’s budget optimizations. 

“The model recommends different budget shifts between channels,” said Owen Bickford, paid performance media director at Alaska Airlines.

It's not reliable to depend on last-touch or multi-touch attribution. And with privacy regulations, MMM seems to remove concerns.

Alaska's prior MMM platform didn’t compare the different channels as much, Bickford said. “Meridian is a little easier to use and comprehend, especially for people who do not look at data all the time.”

Adswerve models the campaign for Alaska’s performance campaigns to help the brand make campaign decisions, as well as Microsoft Advertising campaigns.

Luka Cempre, Adswerve’s head of data modernization and cloud strategy, said Meridian lets brands incorporate Google first-party data by dragging and dropping the information. 

Google also incorporated the use of search trend data into the model. Measurement can map results for the brand. Any strong jump in travelers from a particular region or during a period of time, such as summer, it can pay off by identifying the trend.

Alaska also uses Meridian to quantify traditional branding channels like TV, radio and out of home (OOH), as well as account for external factors like seasonality and world events that may impact sales. 

MMM is making a comeback based on privacy concerns of running individual data. 

Alaska has seen success, but if a company does not prepare, there are several challenges and limitations users should be aware of before implementing such as the need for technical expertise, and engineering support.

Data requirements for Meridian, as well as other MMMs, point to heavy reliance on historical aggregated company data and the ability to manage and prepare it for use. For example, how many impressions per channel based on budgets, and how it impacts revenue.

Meridiam does not have real-time feedback, and reportedly it struggles to separate the impact of brand-building efforts for upper funnel strategies and direct response campaigns in the lower funnel.