Performance Parallels: MMM Concepts Explained from an Athlete's Perspective

Recently, two activities have consumed most of my time and energy: improving a Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) approach I'm developing and enhancing my performance as an endurance athlete. With my head switching continuously between the two topics I suddenly noticed that they have more in common than what I had ever realised.

Different Training Sessions, Different Channels

In endurance training, we engage in various types of workouts—each serving a distinct purpose. Similarly, marketing strategies incorporate different channel activities, each playing a unique role in the overall performance.

Easy runs are essentially the awareness channels of a runner's regiment. They build foundational endurance much like display ads, out-of-home (OOH) media, or video campaigns expand your target audience reach. And both are usually pretty undervalued. No one receives lots of kudos on Strava for completing an easy run—very low "runners-last-click ROI" with this type of session. Yet, deep down, we understand their importance.

Conversely, VO2Max sessions parallel lower-funnel marketing activities. With minimal investment they deliver visible performance improvements. However, we often fall into the trap of overemphasizing these high-intensity workouts or performance marketing channels. Eventually, we hit plateaus; despite pushing harder and allocating more resources, returns diminish. In worst-case scenarios, every additional dollar invested yields no extra conversions—effectively wasting money. Similarly, every additional mile run at that intensity merely exhausts without improving performance.

Both in running and marketing, success depends on identifying what is incremental within your mix and will advance your performance to the next level.

The Saturation Parallel

The concept of saturation presents another straightforward comparison. In sports, we readily grasp the concept of overtraining and recognize there's an optimal threshold for how much training our bodies can productively absorb.

Interestingly, saturation remains one of the most challenging concepts for marketers to embrace. They typically want to increase spending on channels that have historically performed well, reasoning: "If this channel has delivered strong performance so far, why wouldn't spending more yield greater returns?"

The reality is that there comes a point where you need diversification—you need to expand your mix. This means giving top-of-funnel channels a chance. You won't secure easy, immediate conversions; you'll need patience to observe returns. However, this approach will ultimately enhance both your lower-funnel campaign performance and your overall marketing effectiveness.

Finding What's Incremental

Both in running and marketing, success depends on identifying what is incremental within your mix and will advance your performance to the next level. It's about avoiding wasted budget on "miles" that don't contribute meaningfully, as this leads only to exhaustion without progress.

I often wish I had an MMM that refreshed with my latest training data, telling me exactly what I'm missing during race preparation—accounting for seasonality, trends, and my daily life context. Unfortunately, I don't; I must rely on educated guesses.

This is why I still get surprised every time I see companies and teams hesitant to incorporate MMM into their strategy, continuing to rely solely on last-click metrics and intuition. They're missing tremendous growth potential by disregarding a powerful tool, fearing that exploring new marketing approaches beyond conventional methods might compromise their performance.

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