Alli Insights Blog
Data, AI, and growth, examined
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MediaOpenAI ads: strong early returns for eight brands, at small spendSeven of the eight brands we measured earned more per OpenAI dollar than on their average media dollar, and the eighth broke even. Spend is still tiny, so how far that goes is the open question.
ResearchSynthetic research: what to trust, and when to add real peopleAI estimates landed about four points from real survey results on average. That's close enough for a first look, and not close enough for every decision.
AI engineeringDrift is the bug nobody filesA broken feed throws an error. A drifting model keeps producing numbers that look fine. Nobody files a ticket, and the decisions built on it get a little worse every week.
AI searchHow brands show up in AI answers, and what to measureThe same question rarely gives the same answer twice, so one AI answer says little about your brand. How often you appear, across many runs, says more.
MeasurementThink Bayesian without the equationStart with what you already know, ask how well new evidence fits each explanation, and adjust your confidence. One brand search question shows the whole habit.
AI agentsMost agent failures are evaluation failuresTeams test their agents, the agents pass, and then they fail in front of customers. The problem usually sits in what the tests asked, which is something a team can fix.
MarketingWhy teams ignore AI insightsAI can now tell a team what to change. Often nobody has been given the job of deciding whether to.
MeasurementWhy your MMM's range matters more than its numberA mix model that says TV returns 2.6 is also saying it might return 1.5 or 3.8. Budget decisions made on the single number ignore most of what the model knows.
AI engineeringYour RAG problem is a chunking problemWhen an AI assistant answers from the wrong passage, teams usually blame the model and try a bigger one. The answer was decided earlier, when the documents were cut up and searched.
AI governanceFour circuit-breakers every autonomous marketing workflow needsApproving everything is too slow, and letting an agent run free is too risky. Finance solved this with limits that stop the system and a person who restarts it.
MeasurementFour systems, one customer: who gets credit for the saleSearch, social, affiliate, and CRM each report the same sale. Tests suggest some of that credit was never earned, though not every time.
MeasurementWhy finance doesn't trust marketing's numbersFinance and marketing expect similar payback. What finance wants is a number it can trace, define, and put a range around.
MeasurementYour highest-ROAS campaign may be selling returnsBidding models learn at checkout. Returns arrive weeks later, and the model never hears about them.Newsletters
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NewsletterWhat's new in Alli: creative fatigue, workflows you build by chatting, and moreCreative Insights flags ads that are wearing out, you can build a workflow by chatting with Ask Alli, and Business Insights tells you what changed between two reports.
NewsletterWhat's new in Alli: Brand Equity, apps built for your account, and moreThe Brand Equity Dashboard is in Alli, you can now open Alli Apps built for your account, and you can add a chart to a Generative Dashboard by describing it. Plus what changed in August.Newsroom
All releases
Product updateAlli Business Insights opens competitor emails as secure, shareable linksCompetitor emails in Business Insights can be shared with a secure link.
Product updateAlli Scenario Planner adds Saved Scenarios to track plans against actualsScenario Planner becomes a place to track plans over time.
Product releasePMG launches Alli Commerce Insights, putting a whole retail market in one viewBrands can size up a category across retailers, and see how they compare with their peer set, in one place.
IntegrationAlli Audience Planner adds StackAdapt as a programmatic partnerStackAdapt joins the Where to Reach Me section of Audience Planner, with segment matching and audience sizing.Customer stories
All customer stories
Customer storyBring a Trailer F1 Las Vegas Case StudyNo sponsorship, no glitz. One real car, one real seller, and one live auction lifted searches 220% and sold at 4x the benchmark.
Customer storyJazwares SquishPillow Launch: 3x SalesSquishPillow sold through at 3x its forecast and sold out its Target pre-order in days. See how Jazwares and PMG did it with Alli.
Customer storySTARRY Gen Z Creator Campaign: 5.3% ShareAn always-on creator ecosystem made a new PepsiCo soda part of Gen Z internet culture, and won 5.3% market share in year one.
Customer storyHow FXTM Lifted Brand Preference 200%How PMG used Alli to plan and launch FXTM's UAE forex brand campaign in three months, lifting brand preference 200% and familiarity 120% among investors.Watch
All videos
▶ 0:52Video tourAlli Alerts in actionA tour of Alli Alerts on a sample retail account: a SQL alert flags day-over-day CPA and ROAS changes, a budget pacing alert is built and scheduled, and a summary card explains what triggered it. Data science models and custom rules catch performance outliers, pacing issues, broken URLs, and feed failures, then notify your team where they work so they can act early.
▶ 0:47Video tourAlli Audience Gateway in actionA tour of Alli Audience Gateway on a sample retail account: a pixel is named, ad platform accounts are connected, allowed origins are set, and the Init tag is generated and copied. One first-party, server-to-server integration sends your site's conversion and audience signals to each platform through its Conversions API, so measurement and targeting hold up as browser tracking gets less reliable.
▶ 0:27Video tourAsk Alli in actionAsk Alli answers a question about campaign returns in Data Explorer, takes a follow-up, opens beside an audience persona in Audience Planner, and starts a workflow from a prompt. It turns a plain-language question into a verified answer, a dashboard, an audience persona, or a finished workflow, using the same governed data your teams already work from.
▶ 0:22Video tourAlli Brand Equity in actionA sample brand's composite score and signal trajectory open in Alli Brand Equity, followed by a period comparison on the chart, a competitive positioning view, and competitor analysis by share of search. The composite score shows where the brand stands each week, and the trajectory of every signal behind it shows what moved it. Brand investment walks into the budget meeting with proof, on equal footing with performance spend.Explainers
The full glossary
GlossaryWhat is programmatic advertising?Programmatic advertising buys ad space automatically through software. Learn how DSPs, SSPs, and real-time bidding work, plus the main deal types and risks.
GlossaryWhat is price elasticity?Price elasticity measures how much demand changes when price changes. Learn the formula, how to read it, what makes demand elastic, and how brand affects it.
GlossaryWhat is a customer data platform (CDP)?A customer data platform unifies data about known customers into one profile each. Learn how a CDP works, what identity resolution is, and how it compares.
GlossaryWhat are reach and frequency?Reach is how many people see an ad, and frequency is how often. Learn how they're calculated, how GRPs work, and how to find the right frequency for a campaign.