• DE&I Commitment
  • Careers
  • Locations
  • Book a Meeting
    Book a Meeting
  • Company
    Learn a little more about us, our values, and our team
    Our Values
    We don't just talk the talk; we live by our core values
    About Us
    Empowering brands to realize their potential with data, insights, and technology
    Leadership
    Meet our leadership team
    Secure Data Architecture
    Our promise of data security and privacy. We keep your data safe from publishers, competitors and bad actors
    Corporate Social Responsibility
    We are committed to making a positive impact on our communities and our planet
  • Platform
    Plan, manage, optimize, and measure your campaigns with our omnichannel platform
    Our Platform
    A platform that connects all walled garden media
    Connected Media
    Create and manage campaigns across search, social, retail media and apps, in one platform
    Connected Data
    Make data-driven decisions as you plan and strategize
    See the industries we serve
    Learn how our customizable solutions can help with your unique needs
    Explore our partner integrations
    See the media, retailer, and data partners we work with
  • Clients
  • News and Events
    Check out recent announcements and see what we’re up to
    News
    Check out our recent media coverage
    Events
    Join us for our next conference or webinar
    Omnichannel platform launch
    Read the press release to see how we're helping marketers win the walled gardens
    Let's talk omni at Shoptalk!
    Learn how our omnichannel platform can help you build a winning strategy
  • Resources
    From new releases, to industry trends and best practices, Skai has you covered
    Blog
    Read the latest insights and thought leadership from our industry experts
    Capabilities
    Take your campaigns to the next level by enhancing your platform capabilities
    Research
    Explore our reports and whitepapers so you can keep up on the latest industry trends
    Subscribe
    Sign up to get the latest updates straight to your inbox
    Quarterly Trends Report
    Learn digital advertising campaign performance trends from Q4 2022
Back to Blog

The 4 Ingredients of a Best-in-Class Incrementality Measurement Practice

Moti Radomski, VP, Product @ Skai™

July  01, 2021
incrementality measurement practice

In working with our partners, one of the things we’ve learned is that the difference between a successful transition to an incrementality measurement practice, and repeated struggles, often lies in their internal processes rather than any particular analytical brilliance. 

As I explained in my first post on this topic, incrementality requires marketers to come up with things to test, and I shared some of the kinds of questions incrementality can answer. Like anything else, building an incrementality measurement practice is about the habits you and your teams develop over time. It’s a new way of thinking that everyone will need to get comfortable with, and requires a shift to a proactive approach to measurement. It might feel a little weird at first, but done right, your incrementality program could become a defining competitive advantage for your business, and allow you and your team to make a real difference in the top and bottom line.

Today, I want to share how successful companies are making the switch from multi-touch attribution with a few pieces in place to help facilitate a best-in-class incrementality measurement practice:

  • A project spreadsheet to track ideas on which measurement tests to perform
  • A recurring, cross-functional team meeting to prioritize tests and analyze results
  • An incrementality testing platform to serve as the tech foundation of the marketing measurement practice
  • A knowledge-sharing process to ensure that the insights accrued through the incrementality testing are shared with the broader organization

An Incrementality Project Tracker Spreadsheet 

The test and control approach of incrementality is material here because it means that marketers have to be very discerning about how they prioritize their tests.

It’s analogous to why chemists don’t test 20 different compounds on each other at the same time—they test Chemical A with Chemical B first and then once those tests are concluded, they test Chemical A with Chemical C…and so on. This means that only a limited number of tests can be run at the same time. Tests also take time—a minimum of 2-3 weeks. So, although the organization may have a giant list of things they want to measure, that list needs to be prioritized.

Because the key to incrementality is figuring out which tests to run, it’s important to keep a list of every measurement question that might need answering. This should be a public spreadsheet for any marketing team members to add new ideas and provide a rationale for why their test is important. Even non-marketing folks could be included as part of the brainstorming.

Here’s an example of what this document might look like in your organization:

Incrementality Measurement Practice

the project tracker doc enables anyone on your team to submit measurement tests

You never know where a great idea can come from, so even a junior marketer may have something to contribute. As with any brainstorming process, the goal is to capture every idea and edit it all later. 

A cross-functional testing & prioritization team that meets monthly

Most marketing organizations will have a pretty long list of things they want to test with incrementality and each team may have its own set of very specific tests on their list. 

How does a marketing team figure out where to start? 

After seeing numerous ways that brands have adopted incrementality, Skai’s best practice recommendation is for marketers to build a cross-functional team that meets regularly to prioritize and re-prioritize the list of desired incrementality tests. This team should include at least one member from each channel—ideally, an experienced practitioner if not the most senior channel marketer available. With each test taking 2-3 weeks to complete and, the optimal cadence for new incrementality tests seems to be monthly. This allows for a short setup/ramp-up period at the front end of each test and time to analyze and study each test’s results. 

The incrementality team meeting should begin with an overview of the previous month’s tests because those results may prompt new ideas for tests or change the priority level of tests already on the list. A discussion should follow in which team members debate the merits of each test—especially the ones marked to be most impactful to the entire marketing organization. 

Here’s an example of what an agenda of an hour-long monthly measurement meeting may look like:

incrementality practice meeting

what your monthly incrementality measurement practice meeting might look like

By the end of this meeting, the list of tests should be locked in by prioritization level and the next three incrementality tests identified. For every test planned, there should be a clear agreement on what the test is trying to achieve and the expected results for review against the actual outcome in the next meeting. This “give and take” can often be hard—and sometimes contentious—after all, great marketers know that accurate measurement is the key to driving marketing ROI, so there will certainly be different opinions on how to proceed. This is why this team also needs a key stakeholder at the top that can mitigate roadblocks and make final calls if the team is split.

It makes sense to record these meetings and save them in case there’s a need to go back and review the initial thinking behind a specific test. 

The incrementality testing platform

Incrementality uses the same test & control experimentation methodology we all learned in elementary school; a Test group is exposed to a marketing channel/tactic and a Control group isn’t in order to determine the impact of the marketing element being tested. Those groups can be split geographically or via audience segmentation, but with new consumer data tracking limitations, it’s getting harder to properly regulate an audience segmentation test, so geographic splits are becoming the standard approach. 

Running incrementality tests used to be complex, slow, and expensive. However, new innovations in Artificial Intelligence and machine learning have made it much easier, faster, and cost-effective than ever before. 

Skai’s Impact Navigator platform helps marketers to:

Design cross-channel incrementality experiments that meet their needs. Impact Navigator can measure most any channel or business KPI, allowing marketers to measure the impact of current strategies, validate new ones, and even explore beyond media tactics (ever wonder if your promotions are cannibalizing existing sales?). At the same time, the Impact Navigator platform empowers you to pick the test design that best fits your need for each specific test.

Scale up their marketing programs with confidence. Not only can you validate that your marketing investments are helping grow your business, with Impact Navigator you can identify the optimal level of investment, and identify areas to further optimize your strategies to maximize your impact.

Get to insight and make decisions faster. Go from idea to results and decisions in weeks rather than months. 

Expand their incrementality programs while shifting valuable data sciences to other high priority projects. 

Navigate data deprecation and the complicated post-cookie world. Impact Navigator’s geo-based methodology allows you to measure on and offline investments and KPIs without the need for user tracking or personally identifiable information of any kind. With Impact Navigator marketers can get answers while respecting their customer’s desire for privacy.

Knowledge sharing is key to extracting the most value from your incrementality measurement practice

The final piece of the puzzle is to circulate the results from your tests to the wider marketing organization. Of course, if it’s a test about social advertising, the Social team is clearly a primary audience for those insights. However, it’s important for the entire marketing team (and probably even close partners like freelancers, the ad agency, and your leadership and executive teams) to be looped in as well. These insights are going to change the way your practitioners make data-driven decisions on how to best steward your campaigns so everyone needs to be on the same page.

As well, the results from some tests may spark ideas into other things your teams may want to test. For example, if the Display team just ran a test on how YouTube ads impact its effectiveness, the Search or Email teams may be interested to run similar experiments. 

Knowledge sharing can be hard—especially for extremely large organizations—and could potentially be the most difficult item on the list. But, the bigger the company, the most impactful and important these insights can be because of how much marketing budget they can affect. 

This is a key part of the process—after all of the work of brainstorming, meetings, and tests, the only way to extract the full value of your measurement practice is to make sure everyone is on the same page about what is truly working or not working with your marketing investments.

Do you have an incrementality testing platform?

Skai’s Impact Navigator measures the real-world effectiveness, or incrementality, of a marketing tactic in the only place that matters: the real world, with real people, as part of a real marketing test measuring business responses that matter like revenue impact, client acquisition, and brand engagement. 

Leave the guesses and hunches to your competition, and speed ahead with your own growth strategy powered by real consumer insights.

Schedule a quick demo today. In fifteen minutes, you can see how an incrementality testing platform can serve as the foundation of your new marketing measurement practice.

Request a Demo of Skai

Related Posts

  • Putting Incrementality Measurement Into Action: How to Figure Out What to Test
    Read More
  • A Day in the Life of a Measurement Marketer Using Incrementality Testing (vs. Multi-Touch Attribution), Part 2
    Read More
  • Online/Offline Marketing Measurement Isn’t As Impossible As It Once Was
    Read More
  • Marketing Measurement Cannot Be Reliant on Individual Customer Journeys: Incrementality is the Fix
    Read More
  • Life Without Multi-Touch Attribution: How Your Marketing Measurement Program Will Change Under Incrementality
    Read More
  • Team collaborating on a table looking at pie charts and data and statistics
    3 Marketing Measurements Before the Campaign? Yes, You Must Do This
    Read More
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share via Email
  • Copy Link
    Copied!
Tags: Create, Data, Incrementality, Measure, xTLx

Subscribe to Updates

Media that matters.
Marketing that works.
© 2023 Kenshoo, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy. Cookie Policy. Recruitment Privacy Policy.
  • Connected Data
    • Market Intelligence
    • Our Approach
    • By Need
    • By Solution
  • Connected Strategy
    • Dynamic Marketing Mix
    • Budget Forecasting
    • Strategic Consulting
  • Connected Media
    • Overview
    • Retail Media
    • Paid Search
    • Paid Social
    • App Marketing
    • Auditing
    • Expert Services
  • Measurement
    • Incrementality
    • Experiments
    • Cross-Channel Attribution
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • Glossary
    • Case Studies
    • Training & Enablement
    • Developer Hub
Privacy Preference

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential, while others help us to improve this website and your experience.

Privacy Preference

Save All

Save

Accept Only Essential Cookies

Manage Cookie Preferences

Cookie Details Privacy Policy Imprint

Privacy Preference

Here you will find an overview of all cookies used. You can give your consent to whole categories or display further information and select certain cookies.

Save All Save Accept Only Essential Cookies

Back

Privacy Preference

Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper function of the website.

Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

Name
Provider Owner of this website, Imprint
Purpose Saves the visitors preferences selected in the Cookie Box of Borlabs Cookie.
Host(s) .skai.io, skai.io
Cookie Name borlabs-cookie
Cookie Expiry 1 Year
Name
Provider Owner of this website
Purpose This cookie stores selections made by the user in the Accessibe tool in order to maintain those settings on future visits. These cookies help us make our website compliant with our obligations under US law.
Privacy Policy https://accessibe.com/privacy-policy
Cookie Name acsbState, acsbReset
Cookie Expiry n/a
Name
Provider Owner of this website
Host(s) skai.io
Cookie Name wordpress_sec_,wordpress_test_cookie,wp-postpass_*, wordpresspass_*, wordpressuser_*
Cookie Expiry Session / 1 Year

We use these cookies to enhance functionality and allow for personalisation, such as live chats, videos and the use of social media.

Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

Accept
Name
Provider Owner of this website
Host(s) .chilipiper.com, skai.chilipiper.com
Cookie Name fs_uid, CHILI_PIPER_CLUSTER, guest-session, _sp_ses*, _sp_id*
Cookie Expiry Session / 2 Years
Accept
Name
Provider Owner of this website
Host(s) .comeet.co, www.comeet.co
Cookie Name visid_incap_, nlbi_#######, incap_ses_, referrer22_00a, incap_ses_1364_2167377
Cookie Expiry Session / 1 Year
Accept
Name
Provider Owner of this website
Host(s) skai.io
Cookie Name moduleFormPardotDownload
Cookie Expiry 30 days

Statistics cookies collect information anonymously. This information helps us to understand how our visitors use our website.

Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

Accept
Name
Provider Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland
Purpose Cookie by Google used for website analytics. Generates statistical data on how the visitor uses the website.
Privacy Policy https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en
Cookie Name _ga,_ga_*,_gat,_gat_*,_gid
Cookie Expiry 2 Months
Accept
Name
Provider Hotjar Ltd., Dragonara Business Centre, 5th Floor, Dragonara Road, Paceville St Julian's STJ 3141 Malta
Purpose Hotjar is an user behavior analytic tool by Hotjar Ltd.. We use Hotjar to understand how users interact with our website.
Privacy Policy https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/privacy/
Host(s) *.hotjar.com
Cookie Name _hjClosedSurveyInvites, _hjDonePolls, _hjMinimizedPolls, _hjDoneTestersWidgets, _hjIncludedInSample, _hjShownFeedbackMessage, _hjid, _hjRecordingLastActivity, hjTLDTest, _hjUserAttributesHash, _hjCachedUserAttributes, _hjLocalStorageTest, _hjptid, _hjSessionUser_2229986, _hjIncludedInPageviewSample, _hjIncludedInSessionSample, _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress, _hjFirstSeen
Cookie Expiry Session / 1 Year

Marketing cookies are used by third-party advertisers or publishers to display personalized ads. They do this by tracking visitors across websites.

Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

Accept
Name
Provider Linkedin
Cookie Name lidc, li_gc, lang, AnalyticsSyncHistory, UserMatchHistory, li_sugr, bcookie, TDCPM, TDID, bscookie, ln_or
Cookie Expiry Session / 1 Year
Accept
Name
Provider Skai
Accept
Name
Provider 6sense
Cookie Name _gd_session, _an_uid, _gd_visitor, _gd_svisitor, 6suuid
Cookie Expiry Session / 400 Days
Accept
Name
Provider Pardot
Purpose Cookie name associated with services from marketing automation and lead generation platform Pardot. The visitor value is the visitor_id in your Pardot account. This cookie is set for visitors by the Pardot tracking code.
Host(s) .pardot.com, pi.pardot.com, skai.io
Cookie Name pardot, visitor_id*, lpv*
Cookie Expiry Session / 10 Years
Accept
Name
Provider Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland
Purpose Cookie by Google used for conversion tracking of Google Ads.
Privacy Policy https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en
Cookie Name IDE, 1P_JAR, NID, SOCS, CONSENT, AEC, _gcl_au, OTZ, test_cookie
Cookie Expiry Session / 400 Days
Accept
Name
Provider Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, 4 Grand Canal Square, Dublin 2, Ireland
Purpose Cookie by Facebook used for website analytics, ad targeting, and ad measurement.
Privacy Policy https://www.facebook.com/policies/cookies
Cookie Name _fbp,act,c_user,datr,fr,tr,m_pixel_ration,pl,presence,sb,spin,wd,xs
Cookie Expiry Session / 1 Year

Content from video platforms and social media platforms is blocked by default. If External Media cookies are accepted, access to those contents no longer requires manual consent.

Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

Accept
Name
Provider Wistia
Host(s) .wistia.com
Cookie Name cb_anonymous_id, _sp_ses.2b40, _li_dcdm_c, __hssrc, _gcl_au, _clsk, hubspotutk, _sp_id.2b40, __hssc, __hstc, _uetsid, _uetvid, _gid, _ga, _ga_GQR109DZ3Y, _lc2, fpi, _ex-pricing-cta, _fbp, cb_group_id, cb_user_id, _clck
Cookie Expiry Session / 400 Days
Accept
Name
Provider Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, 4 Grand Canal Square, Dublin 2, Ireland
Purpose Used to unblock Instagram content.
Privacy Policy https://www.instagram.com/legal/privacy/
Host(s) .instagram.com
Cookie Name pigeon_state
Cookie Expiry Session
Accept
Name
Provider Openstreetmap Foundation, St John’s Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge CB4 0WS, United Kingdom
Purpose Used to unblock OpenStreetMap content.
Privacy Policy https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_Policy
Host(s) .openstreetmap.org
Cookie Name _osm_location, _osm_session, _osm_totp_token, _osm_welcome, _pk_id., _pk_ref., _pk_ses., qos_token
Cookie Expiry 1-10 Years
Accept
Name
Provider Twitter International Company, One Cumberland Place, Fenian Street, Dublin 2, D02 AX07, Ireland
Purpose Used to unblock Twitter content.
Privacy Policy https://twitter.com/privacy
Host(s) .twimg.com, .twitter.com
Cookie Name __widgetsettings, local_storage_support_test
Cookie Expiry Unlimited
Accept
Name
Provider Vimeo Inc., 555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, USA
Purpose Used to unblock Vimeo content.
Privacy Policy https://vimeo.com/privacy
Host(s) player.vimeo.com
Cookie Name vuid
Cookie Expiry 2 Years
Accept
Name
Provider Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland
Purpose Used to unblock YouTube content.
Privacy Policy https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en&gl=en
Host(s) google.com
Cookie Name CONSENT
Cookie Expiry 6 Month

Borlabs Cookie powered by Borlabs Cookie

Privacy Policy Imprint