New research reveals a wide gap between marketers’ ambition and ability to optimize spend across channels.

NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Winterberry Group today released The State of Unified Marketing Measurement, a new research report sponsored by Lifesight, examining how enterprise marketers measure, attribute and optimize spend across an increasingly fragmented media landscape. The research finds that unified marketing measurement (UMM) — bringing together causal marketing mix modeling, geo-based incrementality testing and incrementality-adjusted attribution — has emerged as a leading priority for marketers looking to better understand how investments work together across channels.

The report finds that while marketers are increasingly focused on connecting measurement across the media mix, UMM remains a developing capability. Eighty-three percent of Winterberry’s enterprise marketer respondents identify UMM as a leading priority¹, while only 9% say they can currently practice it “extremely well.”

At the same time, brands are moving beyond first- and last-click attribution, adopting more sophisticated approaches to measurement. Seventy-one percent now use marketing mix modeling, 62% use data-driven attribution and 52% use incrementality testing. The challenge is turning those individual measurement approaches into a connected view of performance across channels.

“Brands aren’t starting from scratch. Most have invested in sophisticated measurement capabilities and are already using those insights to inform their marketing decisions,” said Jonathan Margulies, managing partner at Winterberry Group. “The opportunity now is to move from measuring individual channels to optimizing how those channels work together as part of a seamless media mix. That shift, from better measurement to better optimization, is where we expect to see brands focus most of their investment and effort in the years ahead.”

AI and Third-Party Partners Are Supporting, But Not Solving, Measurement Complexity

As marketers work to connect these measurement approaches, they continue to rely on technology and outside expertise to navigate the complexity. Only 18% of marketers say they have all the people, skills and expertise deployed optimally to meet their measurement objectives, while 74% say they need third-party support, particularly to interpret results, translate them into budget or media recommendations and execute measurement methodologies. To fill this gap, 93% of these marketers are relying on measurement tools built and hosted by media platforms to assess individual channels or campaigns.

“Every platform grades its own homework, and marketers are left reconciling numbers that were never meant to reconcile,” said Tobin Thomas, CEO of Lifesight. “Unified measurement means one independent, causal view that marketing and finance can both plan against.”

AI is also becoming part of the measurement workflow, but marketers are primarily using it to augment, not replace, human expertise. Seventy-nine percent of brands use AI for measurement-related activities, yet only 16% say it plays a central role, citing poor or inconsistent data quality as the leading barrier to acting on AI-generated measurement insights. AI can help manage the volume and complexity of measurement data, but marketers still need reliable inputs and human expertise to turn those insights into action.

The findings are based on Winterberry Group’s survey of 121 enterprise-class brand marketers at the VP level and above, conducted July through August 2026 and commissioned by Lifesight as part of a broader research effort examining how brands measure, attribute and optimize marketing performance across channels.

The State of Unified Marketing Measurement is available for download from Lifesight at https://lifesight.io/resources/cmo-report/.

1 Based on respondents who scored 6 or 7 when asked: “On a scale of 1 (not at all a priority) to 7 (a leading priority), to what extent would you say your organization prioritizes optimizing the allocation of advertising/marketing spend across different paid and owned channels?” 

About Lifesight
Lifesight is the Agentic Unified Marketing Measurement Platform. It unifies causal marketing mix modeling, geo-based incrementality testing, and incrementality-adjusted attribution into a single platform, giving marketing and finance teams one trusted, causal view of what drives business growth, with the ability to forecast outcomes and optimize budgets. More than 300 global brands use Lifesight to measure true incremental impact across online and offline channels. Lifesight is independent of any media-buying platform and is built privacy-first, compliant with GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 standards. Learn more at lifesight.io.

About Winterberry Group
Winterberry Group is a specialized management consultancy that offers more than two decades of experience and deep expertise in the intersecting disciplines of advertising, marketing, technology, data and analytics. Headquartered in New York, WG helps agencies, marketing service providers, technology developers and information companies—plus the financial investors, brands and publishers who support these organizations—understand emerging opportunities, create actionable strategies and grow stakeholder value. Learn more at winterberrygroup.com.

Media Contact 
PANBlast for Lifesight
lifesight@panblastpr.com 

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SOURCE Lifesight; Winterberry Group