This post was created in partnership with Fetch
Key takeaways
- Brands are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the incremental impact of their marketing efforts.
- Attribution is both hard to measure and hard to get a consensus on.
- Getting clean incrementality measurements requires effort and time.
Marketers have more data than ever, yet many still struggle to answer a basic question: Did a campaign change behavior or capture demand that already existed? Incrementality has become a common proof point, but also one of the most debated.
During an ADWEEK House group chat co-hosted with Fetch, industry leaders discussed why measurement often falls short, where teams get it wrong, and what it takes to get closer to the truth.
Incrementality is a contested metric
The panelists began by discussing why incrementality has become such a contentious metric.
Sandra Abla, director of brand marketing, paid media, and marketing operations at CAVA, pointed to organizational pressure. “They want a clean metric to show incrementality. But, we know human behavior is super messy,” she said. “And, unless you do have control, it’s really hard to understand what is driving that incrementality.”
Nicole Lesinski, director of ecommerce strategy at Nestlé, agreed that there’s pressure to prove where growth is coming from. “But we don’t really care where it comes from, because we’re just trying to sell more. I need more units across the register all day, every day, but I have to put that dollar that I’m spending and attribute that to a forecast.”
Melissa Berger, chief solutions officer at Digitas, shared a surprising statistic. “Only 8% of brands actually have a formal incrementality program,” she said. “The pressure to make sure that every dollar counts is so high that taking even a small percentage of customers out is very challenging.”
