Marketing takes the wheel

Ten years ago, Matt Scharf, vice president of growth marketing performance at Adobe, faced a fragmented landscape in marketing measurement. Marketing channels operated independently of one another and involved different execution teams for each channel like display, paid search, and social.

Reporting marketing’s contributions to finance was challenging because each channel was measured independently, often with different KPIs. This made it difficult to compare performance across channels or align these KPIs with finance’s primary focus: revenue. Compounding the issue, some KPIs occasionally conflicted with revenue trends, further straining the relationship between marketing and finance.

“This approach led to inconsistent reporting across channels — it wasn’t always apples-to-apples. It also limited our ability to have sophisticated conversations with finance about budget and contribution from marketing, and also to find paths to scale our contribution to the business,” explains Scharf.

Recognizing the need for a more unified approach, Adobe’s marketing organization spearheaded the creation of a solution that has evolved into today’s Adobe Mix Modeler, an AI-powered tool that integrates measurement and planning in a single platform.

With Mix Modeler, Scharf and his team could analyze data across all channels, providing consistent, comprehensive insights into where to invest their marketing dollars for maximum return. This gave the marketing team confidence to make faster, more informed decisions grounded in metrics like revenue and ROI, positioning marketing as a key driver of business growth.

Unifying measurement across a fractured media landscape

Before the advent of Mix Modeler, Scharf’s team struggled to measure the success of emerging advertising platforms like retail media, connected TV, and influencer marketing. “We used to gravitate toward channels that were easily measurable, like paid search, display, and email. However, the lack of sophisticated measurement tools limited our ability to explore newer, high-potential platforms. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to, but we were stuck relying on what we could measure effectively at the time, which held back our contribution to the business,” says Scharf.

Another significant hurdle was the rise of privacy regulations, which made it more difficult to collect accurate data. As third-party cookies were phased out, even established channels like display advertising began to lose valuable tracking insights.

“We realized that our reliance on cookie-based attribution models had taken us as far as it could. As cookies started losing their fidelity, especially on the channels we wanted to explore, we knew we needed to pivot. It wasn’t enough to play ‘whack-a-mole’ with these issues anymore — we had to look ahead to where the industry was going to future-proof our strategy,” Scharf recalls.

At the same time, the marketing landscape was evolving rapidly, and Scharf’s team needed faster insights to keep up with trends, competitor activities, and changing consumer behavior. The pressure to respond quickly to market changes required a new approach to marketing measurement.

Developing a solution

Facing these challenges, Scharf and his team set out to create Mix Modeler, an AI-powered solution that could transcend the limitations of cookie-based measurement and adapt to a shifting marketing landscape. Designed to unify top-down and bottom-up data, the solution enables near real-time performance analysis and provides predictive insights that support the ability to rapidly experiment with new channels that can result in a more diversified media mix. This modern solution equips Adobe’s marketing team to make quicker, more informed decisions, ultimately accelerating growth and resilience in a rapidly evolving market.

The team can now measure incremental impact — a contribution that can be attributed on top of a baseline to marketing activity — across channels, allowing them to optimize media spend with confidence. “Mix Modeler helps us take the guesswork out of channel and campaign measurement, allowing us to explore new channels with greater confidence and accuracy,” says Scharf. The solution’s patent-pending, bidirectional transfer learning technology enables the team to unify data at both aggregate and more granular levels, solving the “apples to apples” issue they initially faced with inconsistent metrics. By aligning top-down and bottom-up insights, they can now forecast campaign outcomes accurately, allocate budgets confidently, and make real-time adjustments to maximize impact.

One of the key outcomes is improved collaboration between marketing and finance teams. Now, Scharf’s team can discuss how their marketing efforts align with quarterly business targets and risk profiles, making marketing a material profit driver and securing the confidence of finance in their budget recommendations and future investment strategies. “We have a much deeper relationship with our finance team. Now, we sit down with them and map out how our targets align with the broader business KPIs,” says Scharf. “It’s gotten to the point where they trust our projections almost as gospel, and we can have sophisticated conversations about what marketing can cover, where there might be gaps, and how we can expand or adjust channels to meet those goals.” By aligning on the same bottom-line metric — revenue — Mix Modeler enables both teams to speak the same language, creating a shared understanding and vision for growth.

Gone are the days when Adobe relied on media agencies for performance data, a shift that has streamlined how insights are managed. Scharf and his team can now take greater ownership of Adobe’s data, ensuring transparency and alignment with overall goals. The tool also allows the team to generate and share more detailed insights with agency partners, empowering media partners to focus on identifying and implementing targeting strategies and tactics that generate outcomes. The solution has served as a helpful catalyst for fostering a more balanced and collaborative relationship between Adobe and its media partners.

“We’ve built a strong partnership with our agency teams, where we bring them into the fold on a weekly basis. Together, we analyze global outcomes from Mix Modeler and collaborate on what's working and what's not,” says Scharf.

Measuring success across channels

Since implementing the marketing measurement and planning tool, Adobe has seen measurable improvements across its marketing operations. This optimization has contributed to an 80% higher return on media spend over the past five years and played a major role in a 75% increase in media’s share of subscription growth for Adobe’s Digital Media products globally.

Leveraging frequent, data-driven insights, the team can adjust strategies to optimize media spend at a much faster pace. This agility has enabled Adobe to maximize ROI across campaigns and establish a foundation primed for scalable success. “Mix Modeler allows us to optimize with precision at both in-quarter and quarterly intervals. By continuously assessing performance data, we can quickly reallocate budgets and fine-tune our strategy as business needs shift, making marketing a consistent, growth-driving force for Adobe,” says Scharf.

Looking ahead

As Adobe continues to evolve its marketing strategies, the solution will play a crucial role in driving innovation.

“Mix Modeler has given us a leading position to expand our investment mix across channels instead of grappling with the measurement challenges all organizations are reacting to. This foundation will allow us to evolve and expand our measurement approaches to address a wider range of business goals, product areas, performance metrics, and customer stages,” says Scharf.

Adobe’s success reflects a broader trend in the industry: the shift toward data-driven marketing measurement that prioritizes agility, accuracy, and transparency. Although Mix Modeler recently became generally available, it originated nearly a decade ago internally and has been continuously refined, supporting the company’s multi-billion-dollar marketing operations. With a commitment to continually advancing their approach, Adobe is well-positioned to meet the evolving needs of the modern marketer.

Read this guide to find how you can maximize marketing ROI with Adobe Mix Modeler.

Then, watch this Adobe webinar to find out how Mix Modeler can enhance your planning and measurement strategies: AI-Driven Marketing: Elevate Your Strategy with Advanced Marketing Measurement.