Leavened is a marketing-measurement technology company founded in 2016 and headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Its mission is to help brands, agencies, and in-house marketing teams make smarter, data-driven decisions about where to invest media dollars, by replacing guesswork with measurable, transparent insight. As Leavened itself says, it exists to help marketers "cut through the noise to optimize their marketing mix — backed by data, not guesswork."
Origin and name significance
The name “Leavened” comes from the concept of a leavening agent in baking — something that causes dough to rise. The metaphor fits the company’s role: just as yeast causes bread to lift and expand, Leavened’s analytics and measurement capability aim to help businesses grow through effective marketing. The founding team is led by experienced marketing professionals and data scientists who bring over two decades of performance-based media experience.
What they do
In an era of rapidly evolving advertising channels, shifting privacy rules, and an increasing need for measurable ROI, Leavened positions itself as a solution to three major pain-points: long model-build times, high cost, and opaque “black box” analytics systems.
Their product suite is arranged into three core modules: Audit & Assessment, Market Forecaster, and Placement Boost. Audit & Assessment is designed to answer fundamental questions such as: how are my media investments contributing to sales, and how much incremental value is being generated? Market Forecaster uses insights from historical data to help plan future media allocations, enabling scenario planning and “what-if” simulations. Placement Boost gives granular insight down to specific placements, day-parts, channels like OTT/linear/social, enabling weekly optimisation rather than waiting months.
Perhaps most notable is their commitment to transparency and speed. Leavened’s platform, called the “Leavened Iterative Hypothesis Testing Engine” (LIHTE), enables testing of millions of models in hours rather than the typical months of traditional marketing-mix modelling. This means decision-makers can get actionable insight quickly and avoid being locked out of the loop. Crucially, the methodology is built to be auditable, understandable, and free of hidden assumptions – a deliberate antidote to “black box” analytics solutions.
Also important is that Leavened works without relying on cookies or personally identifiable information (PII). Their model aggregates media impressions, cost data, and broad market signals (seasonality, promotions, competitive data) in a way that is compliant with modern data-privacy norms.
Why it matters
The marketing ecosystem is increasingly complex. Brands are juggling media across offline and online channels, dealing with fragmented audiences, uncertain attribution, and pressure to tie spend directly to outcomes. Leavened offers a way to bring clarity: by measuring incrementality (i.e., new value created by media rather than simply conversions that may have happened anyway) and helping shift budgets toward higher-yield investments across all channels.
Further, the democratisation of advanced analytics means that smaller teams or in-house marketers can access sophisticated modelling tools formerly reserved for large agencies or consultancies. Instead of outsourcing to a large vendor and waiting months, users of Leavened can engage directly, iterate quickly, and stay agile in their media planning. This flexibility is especially relevant as brands contend with a cookieless future and the shifting sands of digital measurement.
Leadership and culture
The leadership team is a blend of seasoned media strategists, analytic experts, and technologists. For example, Managing Partner Sara Moorthy brings more than 20 years of performance marketing, media and analytics experience.
Chief Strategy Officer William Parker has a track record of helping large brands with analytics and media optimisation.
Chief Technology Officer Rian Schmidt has hands-on experience in software development and big-data infrastructure from previous roles at Amazon and streaming platforms.
Advising on the analytics side is Dr Amit Bhatnagar, an academic with extensive publication in statistical modelling and marketing for nearly two decades.
Culture-wise, Leavened emphasises transparency, speed, and practical results. The company describes itself as “no BS, no sugarcoating” in how it collaborates with clients. At the same time, though lean (in 2025 their team was about 15 employees) the business has been generating revenue growth and expanding its footprint.
Impact & positioning
Leavened’s clients range from agencies to mid-sized brands and even larger enterprises, and the value lies in bridging traditional channels (TV, linear) with digital, social, OTT and beyond. Their modelling and insight framework allow media planners to ask sharper questions: not just “did my campaign perform?” but “which placements produced new sales, where should I invest the next dollar, and what happens if I shift spend here or there?”
The time saved and transparency gained enable more frequent decision-cycles. Instead of annual reviews, teams can iterate planning, test scenarios, and adjust in-market. This agility gives Leavened an edge particularly in fast-moving consumer-directed (DTC) brands, where media spend and results must be continuously fine-tuned for growth.
Looking ahead
As measurement continues to evolve – with privacy constraints, the demise or reduction of third-party cookies, and an ever-increasing number of channels and platforms – the role of platforms like Leavened becomes even more critical. By offering a toolset that is channel-agnostic, placement-aware, privacy-compliant and fast, Leavened positions itself to help marketers pivot, plan and optimise in a landscape that no longer guarantees stable rules or single-channel dominance.
In summary, Leavened stands out for combining deep marketing and analytics experience with a modern technology stack that enables faster, more transparent measurement. For companies wanting to understand not just what happened but why and how to improve it, Leavened offers a compelling alternative to legacy modelling or opaque attribution solutions.
Michelle Cardinal — Chairwoman and Co-Founder, Advisory Board
Michelle Cardinal, Chairwoman and Co-Founder of the Advisory Board, has spent more than twenty years transforming how advertising performance is understood and measured. Known for challenging industry norms, she championed the use of data, analytics, and strategically tailored creative to drive stronger results—an approach that ultimately led to the development of Transactional Brand Building.
After graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, she began her career in Southern California TV sales before moving into media planning and buying, eventually becoming Media Director at Williams Worldwide. Her entrepreneurial drive later inspired her to found Cmedia and co-found an agency through a merger with Portland-based Respond2. Under her direction, the agency grew to 220 employees and more than $530 million in annual billings, solidifying her reputation as a leader in innovative, performance-focused advertising.
“We address the three biggest frustrations in the measurement and optimization process: the time it takes, the amount it costs, and the lack of transparency.”
