Replace spreadsheet-based planning with scenario-driven analysis. Compare promotional plans side-by-side before committing budget.
Every year, CPG sales teams go through the same ritual: pull last year's promotional calendar, copy it forward, make a few adjustments, and send it to the buyer. There's little analysis of which events actually worked, no projection of expected margin impact, and no way to compare alternative plans. According to the POI 2024 report, 56% of CPG organizations say their trade promotion processes are too manual and time-consuming.
The result is a planning process that perpetuates underperforming promotions year after year. Events that looked good on volume but destroyed margin get repeated. High-ROI windows get overlooked. Budget gets allocated based on habit rather than evidence.
Annual promo planning should start with a question: based on what we know about last year's performance, what's the optimal promotional calendar for next year? Strata CPG makes this possible by connecting historical promotion performance data to forward-looking scenario analysis.
The workflow is straightforward: select a customer, review their prior-year promotional performance, then build multiple scenarios for the upcoming fiscal year. Each scenario projects baseline volume from billing history, applies lift estimates based on historical promo patterns, and calculates expected revenue and gross margin using current COGS. You can model up to three plans side-by-side and rank them by total gross margin, revenue, or promotional ROI.
Planning typically begins months before the fiscal year starts, giving you time to iterate, pressure-test assumptions, and align with buyers before commitments are made.
Start every planning cycle with a clear picture of what worked and what didn't. See every prior-year event scored by ROI, volume lift, and margin impact.
Model up to three promotional plans per customer. Adjust timing, mechanics, products, and discount depth. See projected results update in real time.
Rank scenarios by gross margin, revenue, ROI, or trade spend rate. Make an evidence-based decision about which plan to execute.
Export your finalized plan as an editable PowerPoint calendar for buyer presentations and an Excel workbook with full event details.
Annual promo planning is most powerful when it's part of a closed-loop system. Promotion ROI analysis measures what happened. Margin intelligence shows the profitability context. And annual planning uses those insights to build the next year's calendar. The cycle repeats: measure, learn, plan, execute.
This connected approach means your planning improves every year. Each cycle adds more historical performance data, sharper baseline estimates, and better lift projections. The brands that commit to this discipline consistently see trade spend efficiency improve year over year.
Ready to plan next year's promotions with confidence? Schedule a demo and we'll walk you through the process with your own data.