The money that flows into promotions and different in-store marketing activations take a major chunk out of consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) companies' marketing budgets. Yet, measuring and analyzing the results is often very superficial and what remains unclear are the details and results. Such as: which campaigns were successful, and why? Due to this, it is not surprising that the majority of promotional calendars remain somewhat unchanged year after year.

When the time has come to finalize the promotional calendar, the plan is typically ambitious: after analyzing last year’s campaigns, replacing the underperforming ones and keeping the ones that succeeded. The data is there, but spread across various spreadsheets and data sources, which makes it difficult and time consuming to evaluate the performance, impact and details. Promotional activities can have several different objectives from attracting new customers and raising awareness, to increasing sales and expanding market penetration, and therefore also the relevant metrics can vary from incremental sales to the number of new customers. As a whole this means that the process of analyzing the campaigns is anything but straightforward and clear.

Proper tools add significant value when we want to see the big picture and drill down to the details of various trade promotion activities. A good reporting system gives you instantly a complete overview of all your campaigns, their performances, the products included in the campaigns, and especially if a campaign has met its' targets in a bigger picture. It will allow you to discover the under delivering campaigns, which should no longer be repeated and also allows you to recognize the success factors of the best performing campaigns.

A good reporting system gives you instantly a complete overview of all your campaigns, their performances, the products included in the campaigns, and especially if a campaign has met its' targets in a bigger picture

A² Category Analytics is a collaborative platform for retailers and CPG companies. It allows both parties to use the same, transparent retailer’s sell-out data in building market and category insights, measuring performance and analyzing results. Modern tools and rich data help to plan high performing campaigns and measuring performance from relevant angles. Various reports provide you insight, which help you to develop your product categories, get better understanding about your shoppers and plan better promotions. These insights help you also to improve the relationship with your key retailer and in negotiating your product’s role and category development plans.

When a CPG company has the possibility to analyze individual campaigns, they are better prepared for planning campaigns with higher return on investment. They can plan a better product mixes for future promotions, they know exactly which stores to choose for the campaign and improve their pricing decisions along with target customer selection.

When a CPG company has the possibility to analyze individual campaigns, they are better prepared for planning campaigns with higher return on investment

When looking at the sales figures of a campaign, A² Category Analytics helps you to understand the campaign impact on different levels: on product category, sub-category, product segment and product level. This information makes a big difference, when you discuss about the role of your products with the retailer. Shopper data allows you to understand, how a campaign has succeeded in increasing customer flow, who are the customers you attracted with the offer and how the campaign has changed their shopping behavior after the focus period.

Want to know how you can become more insight-led partner to your key retailer? Get in touch!