Nederlands 
English Platform, build it yourself
or an agency?
Anyone serious about predictive marketing analytics has three routes: a platform like Datafy, building it yourself on open source (Meta's Robyn, Google's Meridian) or an agency or consulting project. All three can be sensible. Below is the honest comparison, including when you should not choose us.
Three routes side by side
| DatafyPredictive analytics platform | Build it yourselfRobyn / Meridian + your own team | Agency / consultancyOne-off MMM study | |
|---|---|---|---|
| First validated insights | Within weeks | Months to a year: building a team, data pipelines and model choices | Months: project lead time per study |
| Updates | Weekly, automatic | As often as your team runs and maintains it | Per project; a refresh = a new assignment |
| Validation against reality | Built in: every forecast is placed next to the actuals | Set up and monitor yourself | Rarely part of the deliverable |
| Offline media (TV/radio, spot level) | Automated delivery of broadcast schedules | Build your own pipelines per agency format | Manual processing per study |
| Own team required | One point of contact | Data scientists + data engineering, ongoing | Project management per study |
| Independence | No media interest: fixed licence, no % of spend | Independent | Watch out when the agency also buys media: then it is judging its own work |
| Scenarios & budget advice | Built in, yours to run | Build it yourself | On request, per report |
| Cost structure | Fixed annual licence, everything included | "Free" software; the FTEs and lead time are the real price | Project fee, recurring with every update |
When do you choose what?
Build it yourself if…
…MMM has to become a core competence of your organisation, you have a data-science team that can work on it continuously, and lead time is no obstacle. Robyn and Meridian are serious frameworks, the software is not the cost, the team and the maintenance are.
Choose an agency if…
…you are looking for a one-off strategic recalibration (for example during a brand merger or market entry) and have no need for continuous steering. In that case, do choose a party without a media interest of its own.
Choose Datafy if…
…you want to steer weekly on a model that continuously proves itself against reality, without building an internal team for it. The model runs, validates and advises. Your team decides.
Undecided between these routes?
Book a conversation, even if you are leaning towards building it yourself. We will tell you honestly what that takes; we have been building econometric models ourselves for years.