Cassandra vs Google Meridian

Cassandra is a web-based marketing measurement platform for teams deciding how to invest in growth. It combines marketing mix modeling with incrementality testing, including instant incrementality and performance incrementality reporting. Its models examine how paid media, organic activity, and offline or brand campaigns contribute to business outcomes. Teams can use budget scenario planning and forecasting before committing spend, as well as ROI reporting. Listed data sources include advertising platforms such as Google Ads, Meta Ads, and TikTok Ads, alongside commerce, email, and CRM services including Shopify, Klaviyo, and Salesforce. Scheduled files can bring in data from sources without an API, and custom connectors can be built for a model. Essentials starts at €2,700/mo and includes up to three MMM models and five incrementality experiments per year; it has a six-month minimum commitment. Complete and Scale also require six months, while Enterprise pricing is custom. A 14-day trial is available without a credit card. Cassandra is based in Milan and says it achieved SOC 2 compliance in 2024.

Google Meridian is a free, open-source Bayesian marketing mix modeling library for estimating channel contribution and ROI, modeling response curves and planning budgets. It is designed to estimate causal marketing impact and incremental outcomes for treatment variables. Teams can use geo-level data for media effect estimates, incorporate business knowledge through priors, and include controls such as Google Query Volume. Meridian supports reach and frequency modeling for video and search query volume data to account for organic demand. Its budget optimization and scenario planning features help teams assess channel allocation. Meridian GeoX supports geo experiments whose results can be used to calibrate models; automated calibration and expanded model health diagnostics are also supported. The Scenario Planner notebook requires access to at least one trained model stored in Google Drive or Google Cloud Storage. Meridian Studio is a Google Cloud-powered enterprise platform for managing models, with capacity to run up to hundreds simultaneously. Google describes Meridian as intended for cross-functional measurement teams, including analysts, business users, data scientists and technical practitioners. Support includes community discussions and expert support through Discord, plus technical troubleshooting through GitHub.