Google Launches No-Code Scenario Planner to Make Meridian MMM Accessible to Non-Technical Teams

Google just made its most significant move yet to turn Meridian from a data science tool into a planning platform. On February 19, the company launched Scenario Planner, a no-code interface that lets marketers test budget allocation scenarios and view real-time ROI estimates without writing a single line of code.

Why This Matters

The core problem is well-documented. According to a Harvard Business Review Analytic Services report, nearly 40% of marketers say their organizations struggle to connect MMM outputs to real-world business decisions. Models get built, insights get generated, and then the results sit in a notebook that nobody outside the data science team can interpret.

Scenario Planner attacks this gap directly. The tool pulls historical performance data from channels including Google, Meta, and LinkedIn, then lets marketers drag and drop budget allocations across channels and see projected ROI changes in real time. What previously required 8-12 weeks of analyst work — running scenarios, tweaking parameters, rebuilding charts — can now happen in a single planning session.

What the Tool Actually Does

Scenario Planner sits on top of a trained Meridian model and provides a visual interface for forward-looking budget planning. Key capabilities include:

It is important to note what Scenario Planner does not do. It estimates incremental changes rather than forecasting raw future KPIs like revenue. Models still require historical data training before use, and Google acknowledges that outputs benefit from data scientist involvement for interpretation.

The Broader MMM Moment

The timing is not coincidental. Nearly half (46.9%) of US marketers planned to increase MMM investment within 12 months as of a mid-2025 EMARKETER and TransUnion survey, and US brand and agency marketers ranked MMM as the most reliable measurement methodology at 27.6%. The demand is there — but usability has been the bottleneck.

Google has been building the ecosystem to support adoption. Meridian has been generally available since January 2025 with over 20 certified measurement partners including Adswerve and Kantar, and enterprise clients like Asos, Pandora, and Shopify are already running it. The September 2025 updates added support for non-media variables like pricing and promotions, channel-level contribution priors, and improved upper-funnel measurement.

Scenario Planner is the layer that makes all of that accessible beyond the data science team. As MediaPost noted, the real competitive advantage in MMM is shifting from model-building to scenario planning and forecasting — and Google is positioning Meridian to own that workflow.

What Measurement Teams Should Do

If your organization is already running Meridian, Scenario Planner is an obvious next step — it turns your existing model investment into a tool your marketing leadership can actually use for budget decisions. If you are evaluating MMM platforms, this changes the competitive landscape: Google is now offering not just a modeling framework but a full planning interface, competing directly with commercial platforms from Nielsen, Analytic Partners, and Keen Decision Systems.

The caveat remains the same one that applies to all open-source MMM: the model is only as good as the data and calibration behind it. Scenario Planner makes it easier to use the outputs, but it does not solve data quality, channel coverage gaps, or the need for incrementality testing to validate what the model tells you.