The average business operates at 70% marketing efficiency.
That’s 30% of unrealised growth.
We’ve diagnosed over 1,500 businesses across multiple sectors and geographies, and the average Marketing System Efficiency (MSE) score is 70.3%.
We built a platform to find it. Marketing System Efficiency (MSE) is the next great data metric in the global race for customer attention - measurable, comparable and actionable for the first time.
We’ve run well over a 1,500 companies now and the average marketing structure efficiency score is 70%. Learn more about our methodology in our Data page.
MARKETING STRUCTURAL EFFICIENCY
$1T
Global annual marketing spend - the average business wastes 30% of its marketing budget
27.
Marketing levers scored across product, brand and digital
72hrs
Typical turnaround from briefing to full diagnostic output
1.5k
Companies we’ve run our diagnostics on to date
Marketing is the single-minded pursuit of growth. Over 30 years it has become complicated, opaque, subjective and partisan. AI changes that, and for the first time, every business can see exactly how efficiently it is using marketing to drive growth.
THE PROBLEM
The industry has focused on the water, not the plumbing.
Marketing has always generated data. But it has never had a universal, objective framework for measuring how well the underlying structure is working - until now.
Before AI, econometric efficiency models were the preserve of large corporations; slow, expensive and proprietary. Most businesses had no access to them at all.
01
Marketing has become complicated, opaque and partisan - optimised for the interests of those who sell it, not those who buy it. There is now a metric that changes that.
02
PE, boards and management teams spend 10–30% of OPEX on marketing with no rigorous way to quantify its efficiency or its latent growth potential.
03
As marketing services are democratised and commoditised, barriers to entry fall, and the need for a platform that shows how you compare to your competitive set becomes critical.
04
Marketing System Efficiency:
the metric that changes everything.
THE SOLUTION
MSE (Marketing System Efficiency) is an outside-in, cross-category measure of how efficiently any business uses marketing to drive growth. It is borne of human insight, but only made possible at this scale by AI.
The equivalent of data in sport. Within five years, it will be unthinkable for any business running marketing not to track it.
Today, brand owners can measure their MSE in an outside-in, cross-category way, as never before. We estimate that businesses on average waste 30% of their marketing budget. MSE is the metric that identifies it, quantifies it, and tells you exactly what to do about it.
Our diagnostic platform was built on 40 private equity assignments over eight years, then validated against more than a thousand companies. The framework was created by practitioners - CMOs and senior marketing leaders - not career consultants.
It runs entirely on external signals. No internal data, no management co-operation, no access to proprietary systems. For deal teams, boards and brand owners operating under time pressure, this changes the calculus entirely.
Built on 8 years of PE practice,
scaled by AI.
HOW IT WORKS
27 levers: every marketing activity scored.
THE EFFICIENCY FRAMEWORK
MSE is assessed across three domains. Within each, we score nine levers - a structured, comparable view of where efficiency exists and where growth is latent.
PRODUCT MARKETING
The fundamentals of product: what it does, who it's for, what makes it different and how it's priced and promoted.
BRAND MARKETING
What makes a business unique and recognisable: vision, culture, identity, design and narrative. The key driver of price premium and customer loyalty.
DIGITAL MARKETING
How to engage with customers and prospects in the digital economy: campaigns, social media, owned media, digital advertising and AI search.
Every lever is scored, explained and ranked against competitors. The output shows where you lead, where you lag, and what to fix first.
THE FRAMEWORK EXPLAINED
Every diagnostic produces a RAG scorecard across three domains, scored against 27 levers and benchmarked against competitors. Outputs are designed for investment committees, value creation plans and board discussions.
It is borne of human insight, but only made possible at this scale thanks to AI.
Clear, quantified read-outs structured for boards and deal teams.
THE OUTPUTS
THE OUTPUTS EXPLAINED
One diagnostic, different applications.
OUR CUSTOMERS
MSE answers a different question depending on who is asking. The methodology is consistent - what changes is how the output maps to your specific context, decision and growth objective.
- →MSE at due diligence: quantify marketing as a value lever
- →Post-acquisition value creation planning
- →Hold period portfolio benchmarking on a common scale
- →Board-ready MSE reporting across the fund
- →Client MSE diagnostics as a new business tool
- →Ongoing client health monitoring
- →Independent evidence base for strategic recommendations
- →Competitive MSE benchmarking for proposals
- →MSE baseline across 27 levers
- →Cross-market benchmarking for international portfolios
- →Competitor MSE analysis by category
- →Board-level marketing metric, tracked over time
- →White-label and co-branded MSE diagnostic licensing
- →Revenue share and referral arrangements
- →Full onboarding, training and support
- →Access to Bridge F61 IP and methodology
MSE creates value at every stage.
THE PE INVESTMENT LIFECYCLE
From first screening to exit, the MSE diagnostic provides a consistent, comparable read on marketing efficiency across the full lifecycle of a PE investment.
- →Early-stage screening and risk assessment
- →Confirmatory DD alongside traditional workstreams
- →Competitive MSE analysis of the target's market
- →Marketing risk: value driver, risk, or untapped lever
- →Confidence in marketing-led EBITDA assumptions
- →100-day marketing roadmap from diagnostic output
- →MSE baseline for tracking improvement over time
- →Management team alignment on growth priorities
- →Quick wins vs structural fixes clearly identified
- →Agency and partner accountability framework
- →Cross-portfolio MSE benchmarking
- →Board-ready reporting on marketing efficiency
- →Progress tracking against value creation plan
- →Early identification of regression or new opportunity
- →Pre-exit MSE health assessment
22 sectors, one diagnostic framework.
SECTOR COVERAGE
The MSE framework applies regardless of category. We've run our diagnostics across multiple consumer and B2B markets, giving us a cross-sector benchmark that few advisory firms can match.
Bridge F61 is a collective of brand and marketing specialists founded in London in 2018. We are practitioners, not career consultants - CMOs and senior agency leaders who have worked across Intel, Estee Lauder, Huawei, O2, Mars, LVMH, Nokia, Peroni and other major global brands, and who have completed more than 40 private equity assignments since 2018.
We built our diagnostic platform because private equity investors had no fast, independent, rigorous way to quantify marketing as a value lever. We spent eight years building one. MSE is the result - validated against more than 1,000 companies, and now available to any business that wants to understand how efficiently it is using marketing to drive growth.
Bridge F61: value creation partners to the PE industry since 2018.
ABOUT
FOUNDED
2018
HEADQUARTERS
London, UK
PE ASSIGNMENTS
40+
CONTACT
hello@bridgef61.com
Choose the level of engagement that fits where you are. You can move between them at any point.
Three ways to engage.
GET STARTED
01
Review an example diagnostic
Contact us to see a real output. Understand the scorecard format and how it translates into a growth roadmap before you commission anything.
02
Run a free mini diagnostic
Get a lightweight MSE read-out on any business in minutes. No internal data required.
03
Commission a full diagnostic
A complete 27-lever MSE assessment with competitive benchmarking and a 100-day value creation roadmap. Delivered within 72 hours of briefing.
QUESTIONS
What PE investors and brand owners ask us.
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MSE is an outside-in, cross-category measure of how efficiently any business uses marketing to drive growth. Scored across 27 levers in three domains — product, brand and digital marketing — and benchmarked against competitors. Within five years, every business running marketing will track it.
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No. The diagnostic operates entirely on external signals — publicly observable brand and marketing performance indicators, digital presence and market data. No internal data, no system access, no co-operation from the company being assessed.
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A full diagnostic is typically delivered within 72 hours of briefing. This makes it viable for early-stage deal screening, confirmatory due diligence, or any situation where speed and independence are both required.
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Traditional marketing DD is manual, slow, subjective and dependent on management-provided information. MSE diagnostics are repeatable, fast and independent. A consistent 27-lever framework removes subjectivity, making results comparable across companies, markets and time.
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A RAG scorecard across 27 levers, plain-English explanations for each score, competitive benchmarking, prioritised insights and a 100-day value creation roadmap. Structured for investment committees, boards and management teams.
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Yes. Many PE clients run MSE diagnostics monthly or quarterly across their portfolio — creating a consistent benchmark for tracking performance, comparing companies on a common scale, and generating board-ready reporting.
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Large language models process and score data across the 27-lever framework at a scale impossible manually. The framework, scoring logic and interpretation are grounded in 40 real PE assignments and validated against more than 1,000 companies.
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Yes. The diagnostic can assess any business in any market, in any language — particularly effective for consumer-facing, B2B and digitally-led businesses across multiple sectors, markets and deal sizes.
Find business growth from within your existing marketing budget
On average 30% of marketing spend is structurally inefficient. Our diagnostic finds it - for any business, in any market, in any deal context.