Marketing Science12 min read

Causal Identification, Uplift, and Contribution: The Three Pillars of Marketing Mix Modeling

Understanding the critical distinctions between causal identification, uplift, and contribution—and why conflating them leads to bad marketing decisions

Cyril Noirot

Lead Data Scientist

March 7, 2025

About the author

Cyril Noirot

Lead Data Scientist

Freelance data scientist. I design and ship decision systems — forecasting, pricing, marketing measurement, optimization — for teams making high-stakes calls.

ROI Is Not Enough. You Need Time-to-ROI.

Two initiatives can show the same ROI and still deserve very different decisions. The missing variable is time-to-ROI: how fast the initial investment is recovered.

Marketing Science8 min

From Propensity Scores to Learning Systems: What Most CRM Teams Get Wrong

Most CRM organizations don't have a feedback loop. They have a broadcasting system. The shift from propensity to uplift modeling changes everything.

Marketing Science6 min

Your MMM Should Not Predict Revenue

Revenue is a derived quantity. Marketing influences demand, units sold, not price. Modeling revenue directly entangles two mechanisms and produces misleading attribution.

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