If return on ad spend is the most common metric for retail media advertisers, then incrementality is the “holy grail,” as Riku Laitasalo, VP of Client Services at Pacvue, likes to say. The research backs it up: Emarketer reports that 71% of advertisers say that incrementality is the top KPI for their retail media advertising efforts.
This year, Pacvue unveiled our industry-leading incremental return on ad spend tool (iROAS). We recently caught up with Riku as well as Clare Hogan, our Head of Retailer Partnerships, and Anne Harrell, our Head of Product Evangelism, to talk about why incrementality is more important than ever.
Here’s what we found:
1. What are the biggest trends you’ve been seeing around incrementality as we look into 2025?
Anne: Brands often put a lot of emphasis on ROAS, but agencies have started taking a more holistic approach to measurement. That’s been a refreshing change – and it means that more advertisers are thinking about how to unify the way they measure all the different channels. Nothing happens in a silo, especially in a digital landscape.
Riku: There can’t be silos in measurement – everything has to work together now. This comes down to budget, too. The landscape has been changing so fast that old budgeting philosophies aren’t the best ways for growth. Consumer trends change all the time, so you can’t be locked into last year’s budget.
Clare: There’s a critical need to solve for fragmentation in the market, rather than across just one retailer. The demand for measurement and optimization is moving faster than the ability to connect the dots – it can take time to scale across the funnel.
2. What’s the future of data when it comes to measuring incrementality?
Anne: Multi-touch attribution modeling. When you’re looking at cross-platform analytics for multiple retail media networks, there has to be a way to bring it all together. Building out data clean rooms within retail media networks is a big part of cross-retailer tracking and attribution. Advertisers need a 360-degree view to understand and optimize customer journeys – and with cross-platform analytics made possible by data clean rooms, multi-touch attribution modeling can enable a new kind of incrementality.
Riku: Think of multi-touch attribution modeling when it comes to the shopper: a shopper drives to the store. Sees a billboard on their way. Hears a radio ad. Gets an ad on a website. In the old world, it’s impossible to measure which shoppers got which message along the way. In the digital world, all the data lets us see those touchpoints. Brands want all the data from every retail partner so they can invest in what’s actually working. But there has to be a neutral layer for all the data being processed across retail media networks.
Clare: The future of data is consolidation and recommendations. If you can bring all the disparate data together and connect the dots, then it’s easier to see what will drive performance. And it’s easier for the platform itself to identify the best opportunities going forward.
3. What’s the one thing that brands want the most going into 2025?
Anne: If you’re talking to hands-on-keys users, they’re still looking for efficiencies. Today, that means automations that make manual things easier. If you’re in retail media and you have four campaigns running across four retail media networks, you have to do the same thing four times. People at the top want more accurate measurement capability.
Riku: More control over the budget – and more visibility into how it’s spent. If you’re a brand with half a million dollars, you might need to pulse investment into Kroger, Amazon, Walmart – incrementality helps you make the decision.
Clare: I definitely think it’s all about more control. More control over budget, more control over campaigns, audience, objectives. Even creative. There’s a lot of demand for getting smarter about how creative impacts audience.
The New Era of Measurement
All three Pacvue leaders in our incrementality roundtable kept coming back to one theme: the difference between insights and action. The world of retail media has no shortage of data – but turning it into action is the real challenge. And the real opportunity going into 2025.
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