Redefining marketing measurement: How incrementality is changing the game

In today's complex digital marketing landscape, understanding the true impact of your marketing spend in an increasingly privacy-conscious world has never been more crucial—or more challenging.     According to eMarketer, U.S. retail media ad spending is projected to exceed $62 billion in 2025 and reach $97.9 billion by 2028, increasing the pressure on marketing teams to justify their investments and prove ROI across a growing number of marketing channels. Additionally, the decline in third-party cookies is compelling marketers to find new, privacy-compliant methods for measuring the effectiveness of their campaigns. 

Moving beyond traditional marketing measurement 

Consider this common scenario: A brand marketer invests in a retail media ad campaign. Naturally, the brand marketer wants to understand, did the ad campaign drive an increase in sales or would the conversion have occurred regardless?    Traditional methods of measuring marketing performance often fall short in answering this question. The marketing mix modeling (MMM) approach, for instance, has significant limitations in today's fast-paced, digital environment. These methods typically: 

• Rely on aggregated, year-long data sets that don't provide timely insights for informed decisions 

• Struggle to handle today’s highly fragmented media environment that consists of numerous platforms and diverse content formats  

• Can't effectively measure cross-channel impacts in real-time 

• Fail to account for the nuanced interactions between different marketing channels 

• Don't adequately capture the impact on customer lifetime value and brand awareness 

This challenge is further complicated by other obstacles, such as privacy regulations and seasonal fluctuations like holiday shopping spikes masking true performance signals. Without solving these critical measurement challenges, brand marketers risk misattributing natural conversions as campaign successes, misallocating marketing budgets and missing opportunities to optimize their true drivers of growth. 

The evolution of incremental sales measurement

This is where incremental measurement comes in. While there is no single measurement solution that accounts for all the variables in an ad campaign, assessing the incremental return on ad spend (iROAS) offers valuable insights.  Incremental sales measurement helps brands accurately measure the genuine lift in sales or conversions that can be attributed to specific marketing efforts, rather than sales that would have occurred naturally.    Kroger Precision Marketing's (KPM) innovative approach to incrementality measurement effectively addresses the limitations of traditional marketing mix modeling, providing a more accurate and actionable understanding of campaign performance. While many programmatic solutions focus solely on basic metrics like CPM (cost per thousand) or ROAS (return on ad spend), KPM's solution goes further by distinguishing between attributable and incremental sales.    KPM's approach utilizes advanced techniques that set a new standard for incremental sales measurement:  

1. Control group matching: KPM creates a control audience that mirrors the exposed audience, ensuring both groups share identical purchase behaviors except for media exposure. This approach to measurement ensures that only true incremental lift is attributed to the campaign, providing marketers with a clear understanding of their real impact. 

2. Real-time optimization: In-flight attributable sales measurement enables advertisers to optimize campaigns in near real-time, while comprehensive incremental analysis provides deeper insights post-campaign. This dual approach ensures both immediate tactical improvements and strategic learning for future campaigns. 

3. Precise insights: KPM’s incremental measurement complements our existing in-flight attributable sales measurement—available since 2023—for near real-time campaign optimization, by providing brands with a comprehensive understanding of impact at the conclusion of each campaign. Our incremental measurement capability offers post-campaign insights into the true lift generated by offsite advertising efforts. This capability includes several key features:  

   • Accessible to self-service clients utilizing The Trade Desk DSP across multiple formats including display, streaming and audio channels 

   • Quantifies both overall and incremental growth in sales (with breakdowns by audience segments and modality), household penetration, units and store visits 

   • Integrates seamlessly into standard campaign summary reports, enabling straightforward analysis and action based on findings 

   • Subject to minimum advertising investment threshold 

Results

Early testing of this approach has demonstrated significant success. The ability to measure the true impact of an ad campaign enables brands to make more informed budget allocation decisions, eliminate underperforming tactics quickly, reinvest in high-performing channels and ultimately build more meaningful connections with shoppers most likely to convert. 

The future of marketing measurement

As digital marketing continues to evolve, incrementality measurement becomes even more critical for successful marketing initiatives. The rise of retail media networks, providing more opportunities for brands to reach shoppers and the increasing complexity of customer journeys make it essential for marketing teams to understand the true impact of their investments across all marketing channels. Successful marketing organizations will be those that embrace sophisticated measurement approaches that can: 

• Provide rapid insights for data-driven decision-making 

• Isolate true impact/incrementality using trusted approaches 

• Accurately measure cross-channel effects on business goals 

• Maintain privacy compliance while delivering actionable insights 

• Connect content marketing and social media efforts to measurable business outcomes 

In an era where marketing budgets are under intense scrutiny, understanding true incrementality is no longer optional—it's essential for successful marketing. By utilizing KPM’s incremental sales measurement reporting, brands can not only justify their marketing investments but also optimize them for maximum impact with audiences that they want to engage. The result is not just better ROI, but a clearer understanding of how each marketing dollar contributes to business goals. 

The brands that thrive in the coming years will be those that master the art and science of incremental sales measurement, using it to make data-driven decisions that drive real business results. In a world where every marketing dollar must work harder than ever, understanding true incremental impact is the key to sustainable marketing success and continued brand awareness growth. 

For marketing teams looking to enhance their measurement capabilities, the time to act is now. The future of successful marketing depends on our ability to accurately measure and optimize the true incremental impact of our marketing efforts across all channels and campaigns. 

Contact us to learn how KPM can deliver precision insights and measurable outcomes for your programmatic campaigns.