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With 65% of B2B marketing budgets shrinking or staying flat, 2025 will demand that every marketing dollar spent is pulling its weight.
To do this, more teams will need to embrace Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) to pinpoint the actual ROI of each channel they're invested in and optimize spend accordingly.
But fragmented channels and customer journeys are making it harder than ever to connect investment to impact.
In issue 29 of The Grip, we explore how marketers can adapt to the new laws of Marketing Mix Modeling.
Other stories from this issue include:
👉 FTC Report Alleges UnitedHealth Group Charged Cancer Patients 5000% Markup
👉 Meta Could Rake in Billions in Ad Dollars if TikTok is Banned
👉 Is Google Blocking SEO Rank-Checking Tools As Search Volatility Continues?
👉 What to Know About Trump's Executive Orders on U.S Healthcare
👉 OpenAI Launches Operator AI Agent
👉 LinkedIn Sued for Allegedly Using Our DMs to Train Its AI
All this and much more in issue #29 of The Grip!
I Can’t Believe That’s a Keyword
Using Semrush, we hunt down bizarre (and totally real) search queries and try to answer them.
This Week’s Keyword: Why Do Some Animals Ride Alligators?
Avg. Monthly Search Volume: 720
Answer: Can we make gator surfing a thing?
Top Stories We’re Tracking
Essential marketing and healthcare headlines of the week.
Why Marketing Mix Modeling is Crucial in 2025 and Beyond
Marketing mix modeling (MMM) is becoming as vital a tool as ever, thanks to increasing channel and customer journey fragmentation, tightening privacy regulations, AI chaos, and zero-click trends - just to name a few. Does anyone else miss simpler times?
To help marketers adapt their MMM practices to address new challenges, Google created Marketing Mix Modeling: A CMO’s Handbook, which offers these practical tips:
Use aggregated data to overcome privacy limitations and address zero-click trends.
Minimize bias and focus on holistic performance analysis across channels.
Identify the most efficient channel combinations to maximize ROI and reduce waste.
Leverage advanced techniques like brand lift studies, nested models, and carryover effects.
Start with clear business objectives, define KPIs, and ensure accurate data capture.
Prioritize Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER) to align marketing efforts with business goals.
📄 Read Article (Source: MSN)
FTC Report Alleges UnitedHealth Group Charged Cancer Patients 5000% Markup
A Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report revealed that UnitedHealth Group’s Optum, CVS Health's CVS Caremark, and Cigna Healthcare’s Express Scripts by Evernorth collectively earned $7.3 billion from 2017 to 2022 by marking up lifesaving medications like leukemia and cancer drugs by thousands of percent.
The report highlights how these PBMS inflate prices and direct profits to their affiliated pharmacies, raising concerns about rising healthcare costs and patient impact. While PBMs dispute the findings, the FTC is considering legal action to address these practices.
📄 Read Article (Source: Newsweek)
Meta Could Rake in Billions in Ad Dollars if TikTok is Banned
The US is officially playing musical chairs with this TikTok ban. Assuming the ban actually happens (and Mr. Beast doesn't save the day), Meta is poised to benefit significantly.
Analysts estimate that TikTok's ad revenue losses, projected between $6.17 billion to $8.64 billion, could leave billions up for grabs, with Meta potentially capturing up to $3.38 billion.
TikTok users, who spent nearly an hour daily on the platform in 2024, may shift their attention to Instagram, boosting Meta’s earnings. To sweeten the deal, Meta has has been luring TikTok creators with bonuses, content deals, and free verification - a deal that would absolutely make the cast of Shark Tank lime green jell-ous.
While Meta is seen as the biggest beneficiary, platforms like YouTube and Snap Inc. would undoubtedly stand to gain as well.
📄 Read Article (Source: Business Insider)
Is Google Blocking SEO Rank-Checking Tools As Search Volatility Continues
Google has ramped up efforts to block the scraping of its search results, disrupting major SEO tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Similarweb. New measures, such as advanced IP blocking and enhanced CAPTCHA requirements, have created temporary tracking issues across the industry, with platforms like ZipTie.dev reporting drops in AI Overview detection rates.
The timing is notable as Google heavily promotes its AI Overviews feature, claiming it sends “a lot more traffic to a wider variety of sites.” However, by blocking tracking data, Google has made it difficult to verify these claims, raising skepticism about their validity.
Despite Google’s claims about the impact of AI Overviews, it has no plans to integrate this data into Google Search Console, adding to concerns that the feature perpetuates the “zero-click” problem by keeping users on Google’s platform.
This lack of transparency, coupled with widespread criticism of AI Overviews, highlights the challenges marketers and SEOs face in an ecosystem increasingly controlled by Big Google.
📄 Read Article (Source: Search Engine Roundtable)
What to Know About Trump's Executive Orders on U.S Healthcare
President Donald Trump has issued executive orders significantly reshaping U.S. health care policy, including withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) again.
This decision, driven by dissatisfaction with the WHO’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and financial concerns, could hinder the nation’s ability to collaborate on global health challenges. Additionally, changes to prescription drug policies under Medicare and Medicaid have rolled back initiatives aimed at reducing drug costs, potentially increasing out-of-pocket expenses for patients.
In another sweeping move, Trump issued an executive order defining sex strictly as male or female based on biological characteristics at birth, effectively removing federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary identities. This policy shift has raised concerns about its impact on civil rights and access to health care for transgender individuals and is likely to face legal challenges.
📄 Read Article (Source: KFF Health News)
OpenAI launches Operator AI Agent
OpenAI has launched Operator, an AI agent designed to automate tasks like booking travel, shopping, and making reservations by independently interacting with websites. Currently, it’s available as a research preview exclusively to U.S. users subscribed to ChatGPT’s $200 Pro plan and will eventually roll out to other subscription tiers as well.
While Operator shows promise, it has limitations. It struggles with complex interfaces, like CAPTCHA-protected sites, and requires user oversight for sensitive transactions, such as entering credit card details. This is probably a good thing for obvious reasons.
Why Marketers Should Care: ChatGPT is the undisputed frontier LLM, which means Operator is set to be many people’s first experience with AI agents (aka the “third wave” of AI). These agents hold immense promise for marketers, automating and streamlining tasks across operations. While the technology is still rough around the edges, Operator offers a valuable trial run for users to explore the strengths and limitations of AI agents firsthand.
📄 Read Article (Source: TechCrunch)
LinkedIn Sued for Training AI Using Our Private Messages
LinkedIn is being sued by Premium users who claim the platform shared their private InMail messages with third parties to train AI models without consent.
The lawsuit alleges LinkedIn quietly updated its privacy policy in 2024, allowing user data to be used for AI training. Plaintiffs argue this violated LinkedIn’s promise to protect user privacy and seek damages, including $1,000 per person under federal data laws.
While LinkedIn denies the claims, this raises a lot of questions about the ethics behind AI training. I’m all for advancing AI, but it’s clear we need stricter safeguards and greater transparency around how models are trained and what happens to our content and privacy in the process.
Regardless, is it really a good idea to train AI on unsolicited cold messages from self-proclaimed sales and marketing gurus? I’ll let you be the judge of that.
📄 Read Article (Source: Reuters)
Our Latest Podcasts
Recent episodes of the podcasts that we produce.
2025 Healthcare Policy Predictions Recap
No doubt 2025 will be a wild year for healthcare.
But what can we expect from AI, GLP-1s, and a second Trump administration?
In this episode of HealthBiz Briefs, host David E. Williams dives into his predictions for 2025, looking at the coming changes to the biggest stories in healthcare.
Expanding Health Care Access with Portable Care Solutions
Health care access, especially rural health care, has long been defined by systemic challenges, including limited access to specialists, provider shortages, and geographic barriers hindering patient care.
These obstacles continue to strain health systems and impact outcomes in underserved communities.
But what if new technologies could address these challenges by combining the convenience of telemedicine with the familiarity and comfort of an in-person doctor’s office?
In this episode of Health Care Rounds: A Darwin Research Group podcast, Karthik Ganesh, CEO of OnMed, shares insights on how their OnMed Care Stations transform health care access and deploy tech-enable hybrid care to underserved communities nationwide.
Bridging the Gap Between Medical Knowledge and Practice with Rob Brisk from Eolas Medical
Healthcare professionals access over 5 million medical references annually through Eolas Medical's platform.
In this episode of the AWS Health Innovation Podcast, Alex Merwin, Head of Growth for Healthcare & Life Science Startups at AWS, sits down with Rob Brisk, Former Chief Scientific Officer of Eolas Medical.
Eolas provides a digital platform that organizes medical information, helping healthcare providers quickly find answers to clinical questions at the point of care. This conversation explores the intersection of technology and healthcare, offering valuable insights into the future of medical knowledge management.
What We’re Listening To
New music that has been inspiring us.
Vincent's Pick: Tokyo Tea Room - No Rush
Tokyo Tea Room's debut LP, No Rush, is the first new release of 2025 that I've fallen in love with. Chill, dreamy, groovy pop that permeates a swaying mood fit for a late-night wind-down or deep focus session. This record is a vibe - don't sleep on it.
Sal's Pick: Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Vincent’s throwback pick from last week got me thinking about my own favorites, and I couldn’t resist revisiting Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. This iconic album’s dark, meditative vibe feels perfectly suited for the cold and gloomy days of January.
From the haunting melodies of Otherside to the introspective beauty of Scar Tissue, Californication is packed with classics that still resonate. It’s the kind of record that reminds you why the Chili Peppers are legends, blending raw emotion with unparalleled artistry. If you’re looking for the perfect soundtrack to reflect or escape during these winter days, this album is worth a replay.
Thanks for reading! See you next week! 👋
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