TRUE ROI Analysis

The Only ROI That Captures Margin Erosion on Base Volume

Traditional promo ROI only measures incremental lift. TRUE ROI also captures the margin you lose on units that would have sold at full price. Every event scored: Scale, Maintain, Adjust, or Kill.

Why Traditional ROI Misses the Full Picture

Most promotion ROI models only measure incremental lift - the extra units you sold because of the deal. But they ignore a critical cost: the margin you gave up on units that would have sold at full price anyway. A promotion that lifts volume 30% sounds like a success. But if you discounted thousands of units that were going to sell regardless, the net margin impact can be deeply negative.

According to the POI 2024 State of the Industry Report, 70% of CPG organizations don't feel their promotions can be effectively evaluated or optimized. The problem isn't a lack of data - it's using the wrong formula. TRUE ROI captures both sides: incremental margin gained and base margin lost.

What Makes TRUE ROI Different

Traditional promotion analysis asks one question: how many extra units did the deal sell? TRUE ROI asks a harder one: after accounting for the margin you gave up on units that would have sold anyway, did this promotion actually make money?

Our proprietary methodology models baseline demand, measures incremental contribution, and quantifies the margin erosion on base volume that every other ROI framework ignores. The result is a single, honest number that tells you whether a promotion created value or destroyed it.

Every event is then automatically classified: Scale the winners, Maintain the solid performers, Adjust the marginal ones, or Kill the events that are costing you money. No more gut-feel decisions about which promotions to repeat.

What You'll See

Event Scorecards

Every promotion scored on TRUE ROI, incremental volume, base margin erosion, and cost-per-unit. Each event classified as Scale, Maintain, Adjust, or Kill.

Forward-Buy Detection

Not all promotional volume is real demand. Our analysis identifies events where volume was pulled forward rather than genuinely incremental, so you can adjust your planning accordingly.

Break-Even Analysis

Know the minimum performance threshold every promotion needed to justify its cost. See which events cleared the bar and which fell short.

Professional PDF Reports

Export formatted ROI reports by customer, category, and subcategory with full event economics, charts, and executive summaries.

From Measurement to Action

TRUE ROI analysis feeds directly into smarter commercial decisions. Events scored as "Scale" get more investment next year. "Kill" events get cut or renegotiated, freeing budget for proven winners. The classification system removes the guesswork from annual planning conversations.

Our ROI analysis integrates directly with trade promotion analytics for complete spend visibility and feeds into AI-powered annual promo planning so that historical TRUE ROI data drives forward-looking strategies. Combined with margin intelligence, you get a complete closed-loop system: measure, classify, plan, execute.

Ready to see which promotions are actually making you money - and which are destroying margin? Let's talk.

Know Which Promotions to Scale and Which to Kill

TRUE ROI captures what traditional analysis misses. See the full margin impact of every event.

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