Article
Contribution versus incrementality: which metric for which budget.
Two good metrics, two different jobs. Using the wrong one is how branding budgets get cut.
Incrementality answers one question: how many visits would not have happened without this campaign. It needs a control group, a short window and a promotional trigger. It is the right read for drive-to-store and promotional budgets.
Contribution answers a different question: out of the people who actually came into your stores, how many did this campaign reach. It needs no control group and works over long windows. It is the right read for branding and awareness budgets, which are usually the larger line and the one nobody measures.
Why mixing them costs money
Apply an incrementality test to a branding campaign and the lift will look small, because branding does not trigger a visit this week. The budget gets cut, and the retailer loses the media that kept it top of mind. Apply contribution to a promotion and you will overstate it. Each budget pocket gets its own metric.
In practice
Split your plan in two pockets. Promotional, drive-to-store: measure incremental visits with exposed versus non-exposed groups. Branding, awareness, offline: measure share of visitors reached and media waste. Report both on the same page.
See your media waste in 20 minutes
Bring your media plan. We’ll show you, live, what Kairos would measure on it and what a pilot would look like for your stores.