More Than Data

The Daily Struggle of a Media Investment Manager: Budgets, ROAS, and Excel Nightmares

More Than Data
Apr 01, 2025By More Than Data

Being a Media Investment Manager sounds prestigious—until you realize your days are consumed by budget tracking, spend reconciliation, and ROAS calculations, all while racing against the clock. For one newly promoted manager at a media agency, this role became a baptism by fire—until data-driven solutions turned chaos into clarity.

The Challenges: When Numbers Speak Louder Than Words

1. A Financial World Without a Finance Background

Promoted for his media expertise, he now faced financial accountability—tracking millions in ad spend, calculating ROAS, and justifying investments. Without formal training, terms like "margin analysis" and "cost efficiency" felt overwhelming.

2. Data Chaos: When Excel Becomes the Enemy

  • Multiple spreadsheets with conflicting numbers
  • Version control disasters (Was this the final file?)
  • Manual ROAS calculations (Total sales ÷ Total spend = Oversimplified truth)

He needed channel-level ROAS—but extracting performance by platform (TV, search, social) was impossible with his skills.

3. The Client Grilling: "Prove This Spend Worked"

Clients demanded:

  • "Why did we overspend on YouTube?"
  • "Which channels drove the most sales?"
  • "Where should we cut or reinvest?"

With no clear answers, he questioned if he was fit for the role.

The Solution: From Excel Hell to Data Confidence

1. MMM Models That Do the Heavy Lifting

More Than Data (MTD) built custom Marketing Mix Models (MMM) for each brand, breaking down:

  • Channel contributions (e.g., Paid search drove 15% of e-commerce sales)
  • Efficiency metrics (CPM, CPC, ROAS by platform)

Now, he could prove performance—not guess.

2. A Foolproof Data Workflow

MTD replaced his messy Excel sheets with a structured template to: 

✅ Streamline to collect media spend data from platforms 

✅ Standardize reporting (no more version chaos) 

✅ Archive records for audits

What once took 3 days now took half a day.

3. Dashboards & Minute MMM: Instant Insights

  • Minute MMM: In 5 minutes, he could measure a campaign’s impact.
  • Automated Dashboards: Upload MMM outputs from Minute MMM → ROAS by channel, period, and brand auto-calculated.

No more manual math—just real-time answers.

The Results: From Overwhelmed to Overachieving

Before

3 days reconciling data

Manual ROAS guesses

Fear of client meetings

60-hour workweeks

After

Half-day streamlined process

Auto-calculated channel efficiency

Confident, data-backed responses

Focus on strategy, not cleanup

Key Outcomes:

  • Time Saved: Cut reporting time from 1 week → 1 day.
  • Career Growth: Freed from number-crunching, he took on strategic projects.
  • Confidence Boost: No more doubting his role—just delivering results.

Testimonial: The Media Investment Manager’s Turnaround

"I went from drowning in spreadsheets to leading data-driven decisions. Before MTD, I wasted days on manual reports—now I get answers in minutes. The Minute MMM and dashboards gave me back time, confidence, and career momentum. I’m no longer just ‘managing’ investments—I’m optimizing them."

Final Takeaway

Media investment shouldn’t mean Excel nightmares and guesswork. With the right tools, even non-financial experts can master budgets, ROAS, and client trust—all before 5 PM.

Want to transform your media investment workflow? More Than Data makes it possible.