The Data and Marketing Association (DMA) has published a comprehensive report on the best media measurement technologies available today. We’re proud to share that our sales uplift methodology was highlighted as a leading approach for measuring the actual business impact of campaigns.
Here’s what the DMA wrote about our solution:
What is it?
Incremental sales uplift measures the additional sales generated directly by a
marketing campaign. It focuses on understanding how much of the sales increase
can be attributed to each element of the campaign distinct from other factors. This
is crucial for evaluating the true effectiveness of any advertising or promotional
effort.
When measuring incremental sales uplift, businesses look at the difference in sales
between those exposed to each element of the campaign and a control group not
exposed to the same campaign. This helps determine whether the sales increase is a
direct result of the marketing activities or would have occurred regardless.
The primary goal of measuring incremental sales uplift is to attribute specific
behaviours — such as website visits or product purchases — to the campaign.
This helps brands pinpoint which marketing activities are driving real-world results.
Understanding incremental uplift allows marketers to optimise their media mix,
allocate budget effectively, and maximise return on investment (ROI).
This form of measurement is particularly beneficial in scenarios where companies
want to understand the effectiveness of both offline and digital channels — such as
linear TV, streaming, and social media — and how they contribute to overall sales.
When you should use it
Measuring incremental sales uplift gives CMOs the data to prove the value of
their media investment, giving them a business case to take to the boardroom for
more investment. It is most useful when evaluating media campaigns to ensure that
resources are being spent efficiently. It is especially valuable for businesses with
significant market penetration — typically those with a market share of over 8% —
as it provides granular insights into campaign performance across multiple channels.
For brands running large-scale campaigns across multiple channels this method
allows them to evaluate the incremental reach and sales impact of each, both in
isolation and in combination. If you’re interested in understanding how each channel
— digital or offline — contributes to key performance indicators (KPIs) like sales and
engagement, this type of analysis is crucial.
Additionally, companies looking to fine-tune their media strategies can benefit by
understanding which parts of their media mix are driving the most value. This is
especially relevant when managing large marketing budgets or when needing quick
feedback on a campaign’s effectiveness to make timely adjustments. Incremental
sales uplift can also help identify whether specific channels work well in synergy, like
linear TV boosting the effectiveness of online campaigns.
How it works
Measuring incremental sales uplift is done via a single-source panel-based
methodology.
Single-source panel-based methods involve recruiting a panel of consumers whose
media and purchasing behaviours are tracked constantly and passively. By splitting
the panel into two groups — those exposed to the campaign (test group) and those
who are not (control group) — marketers can isolate the effects of their campaign
at channel level. Panel data focusses on hard KPIs like website visits and product
purchases, offering a direct link between the marketing activity and consumer
behaviour.
The key benefit of a panel-based approach is its granularity. It delivers real-time
insights, allowing for immediate adjustments to the campaign. It requires no setup
time, and there’s no need to supply extensive data feeds, making it simpler and
quicker to implement. This method captures behavioural outcomes, showing exactly
what happens in the market when your campaign is live. The analysis can also be
done retrospectively.
What are the key deliverables?
The key deliverables from an incremental sales uplift analysis include:
Uplift data: A breakdown of incremental sales attributed directly to each channel
within the campaign, providing insights into how different media channels (e.g.,
TV, social, digital) perform in terms of generating sales.
Cross-media attribution: Detailed insights into how various channels work
together to drive overall campaign performance. For instance, how TV and digital
channels (like YouTube and Instagram) complement each other to achieve
better results.
Competitor insights: A comparison of your campaign’s performance against
competitors. This helps understand how effective competitor strategies are and
where your campaign stands in the marketplace.
Recommendations on how to improve each channel - creative executions and
dayparts
A unique advantage of panel-based methodologies is the timeliness of these insights.
Unlike marketing mix modelling, which can be delayed, panel-based solutions provide
real-time or near real-time results, making it easy to adapt strategies quickly
during a campaign.
How to read the results
The results of incremental sales uplift analysis are straightforward to interpret.
You’ll receive clear data points on how your campaign performed in terms of sales
generated. The uplift data will show the percentage increase in sales due to the
campaign by comparing the behaviour of the test group (those exposed) to the
control group (those unexposed).
These insights can be actioned to optimise future campaigns and channel
investment and refine your media strategy. Channels that deliver higher uplift should
receive more investment, while those that underperform can be deprioritised. By
reallocating budgets to channels that drive a significant portion of sales, future
campaigns are more likely to yield better results, while integrating media cost data
can identify which channels offer the most cost-effective returns, helping to develop
a more efficient media plan moving forward.
Case Study
The Problem
CPG brands have had limited visibility of the impact of their TV campaigns, their
price and promotion campaigns, and the effect of both combined. This information
is critical in enabling them to allocate funds to manage strategic issues such as
maintaining market share and managing the economic impact of a temporary period
of reduced margins. Typically, that would involve costly and lengthy measurement
projects such as econometrics studies. Due to their cost and complexity, such
studies are performed infrequently, leaving brands to lag behind rapidly changing
consumer behaviour.
Brand: Ryvita
Ryvita recognised that ViewersLogic’s single-source data could hold the answers
to these perennial challenges; the platform can isolate different groups’ exposure
to advertisements/promotions and their purchasing behaviour in near real-time,
removing the need for lengthy and expensive studies. Ryvita asked ViewersLogic to
analyse the uplift impact on sales of:
TV only, outside of promotions
Instore price and promotions only, without TV
TV plus price and promotions
Analysis
TV only, outside of promotions: TV increases purchase rates
ViewersLogic analysed shopping baskets that were bought when Ryvita
products were not on promotion to compare customers who had been exposed
to TV with those who hadn’t.
Purchase rates increased by a fifth when TV was introduced but there were no
promotions on.
Price and promotions only: Promotions increase purchase rates by
more than 100% in isolation
ViewersLogic analysed shopping baskets of people who were not exposed to TV,
looking at what difference a promotion made to measure its effect in isolation.
The purchase rate increase from a promotion was significantly bigger than that
of TV, as the measurements covered a relatively short term.
Key checklist
Set clear objectives: Define your key KPIs — whether it’s sales, website
traffic, app downloads, and so on — and ensure the analysis aligns with these.
Generally, it is better to focus on a single KPI to avoid altering too many
variables at a time, which can lead to unpredictable outcomes.
Ensure your brand has sufficient scale. The methodology works best when your
market penetration is greater than 8%.
Filter out biases: A targeted campaign or a campaign that advertises alongside
interest-specific programming will introduce biases in the exposed group. For
example, the exposed group for a TV campaign exclusively run against sports
will look substantially different to the non-exposed group. In this case, the
control group should be filtered to only include sports fans to make both groups
comparable.