Why The Media Lift Effect is the future of smarter marketing

Ad budgets are soaring, attention spans are tanking, and most brands are still measuring performance like it’s 2015. The game has changed, but many marketing approaches haven’t. 

In the first episode of The Media Lift Effect — a powerful collaboration between SocialMinds and Brave Talk — Brave Bison’s Mark Byrne and SocialChain’s Gareth Harrison joined host Eve Young to address the elephant in every CMO’s dashboard: why more than half of social ad spend is wasted and what needs to change to fix it.

Introducing the Media Lift Effect  

This isn’t another buzzword. The Media Lift Effect is a full-funnel methodology designed to make media work harder by bringing creative, customer journeys, and measurement into one connected system. 

As Mark Byrne explains, “It’s a methodology that helps give brands a competitive edge by connecting three things: your customer journeys, your creative strategy, and your measurement framework. All in all, it’s built to reduce ad wastage and make the work more effective.” 

 The wake-up call: why so much social spend is wasted 

Social ad spend has overtaken traditional media, but more than 50% of that budget is wasted on creative that isn’t fit for the plan. Gareth calls it a planning problem — a growing divide between paid and organic channels running in parallel but rarely syncing up. 

“CPMs are rising, attention is falling, and consumers are spending more time on platforms than ever. But that doesn’t mean they’re seeing more of your content,” he points out. 

 Flipping the script on attention 

The Media Lift Effect starts with one fundamental truth: not all attention is created equal. Mark notes that the average person in the UK now scrolls the height of Big Ben every day. The challenge isn’t just showing up — it’s stopping the scroll and earning the pause. 

That’s why they focus on two critical signals: thumbstop rate (3-second views divided by impressions) and dwell time (completed views divided by 3-second views). “Clicks are dropping,” says Mark. “But if someone stops and watches, that’s value. That’s interest. That’s the beginning of a customer journey.” 

 The measurement revolution 

When it comes to proving success, Mark is refreshingly blunt: “Revenue speaks the universal language. If we can show that a full-funnel, creative-first approach delivers 10x cheaper reach, lower CPMs, and better conversion efficiency, the case makes itself.” 

But traditional last-click attribution is the “arch nemesis” of paid media — giving all the credit to the final touchpoint, usually search, while ignoring all the moments that came before. “It’s like crediting the striker for the goal and ignoring the entire midfield,” Mark says. The industry needs data-driven attribution that reflects how people really buy. 

 Not all content should do all things 

Gareth pushes this further: the obsession with measuring everything at once — reach, engagement, follower growth, conversions — creates confusion. “The job of an asset designed to spark curiosity isn’t the same as one built to drive clicks. So why are we measuring them the same way?” 

 The formula that makes it work 

The Media Lift Effect is built on a simple but powerful formula: (Passive × Active × Buyer) × (Paid + Organic). This isn’t just marketing math — it’s a visual reminder that if one part of your plan is missing, the whole effect collapses. 

 Paid and Organic: A unified system 

When paid and organic work as one, the results multiply. Gareth says, “The best brands don’t lead with the sell — they lead by showing up in culture, showing up in conversation. When something’s working organically, we can see it in the signals. That’s what we should put spend behind.” 

Mark points to creators as a prime example. “Creator content gets better engagement because it feels native. People trust it. But if you want to scale, paid is the amplifier. Done right, it’s the perfect loop: real engagement feeds into performance.” 

 Fighting creative fatigue with variety 

Creative fatigue kills campaigns. Data from Meta shows that by the fourth time someone sees the same ad, conversion rates drop by 60% and click-throughs by 40%. “We’re asking the same people to care, over and over again, with the same asset,” Mark says. “It doesn’t work. The modern media plan needs variety — not just in formats, but in ideas.” 

Brave Bison’s AdStudio helps brands solve this by turning one core asset into multiple fresh variations — reels, carousels, GIFs, stories — so campaigns can keep pace with today’s fast-moving media landscape. 

 The choice for brands moving forward 

Brands have a choice: stick with siloed teams, stale formats, and last-click logic — or embrace a joined-up way of working that treats organic as a testing lab, paid as the amplifier, and creative as the bridge between media and message. 

As Gareth sums it up, “We’ve had to change how we measure. We’ve had to change how we plan. Now we need to change how we connect the dots.” 

The Media Lift Effect is more than a tactic. It’s a mindset shift that could finally close the gap between effort and outcome. 

 Ready to lift your social performance? 

Download The Media Lift Effect white paper now for a deeper dive into our new approach and listen to the full podcast episode to hear from Mark and Gareth.