Incrementality is Marketing Measurement 101
Incrementality is a flawed measurement technique, best applied early in an analytic program’s development, and with full recognition of its base assumptions and flaws.
Incrementality relies on a false premise - that all else is equal. It’s the most simplistic or reductive of causal relationships. Incrementality’s base assumption is that change or impact can be explained through one variable. It’s too single-minded or simplistic to be of use in an advanced analytics model. It might be a helpful starting point, but that’s where its utility ends.
Incrementality is one-dimensional. Modern consumer journeys extend through multiple channels, and through time. Channels impact those journeys directly, and indirectly. Incrementality attempts to measure a channel’s impact in a single dimension, and isolated from pragmatic realities.
Incrementality is a dead-end. While programs that rely on incrementality might promise near-term conclusions or a faster cycle to hypotheses for marketers to use, its potential ends there. The approach’s value diminishes over time. So, these programs burn out themselves.
Finally, and most limiting, incrementality analysis depends on a channel’s self-reported data. The fundamental weakness dooms the practice by reinforcing and validating a knowingly-biased data set. Those errors and voids are more than ample to overwhelm the subtle signals that incrementality portends to differentiate.
Incrementality can be a valuable introduction to marketing analytics. And, for those ‘students’ interested only in basic knowledge, or whose application extends no further than a single channel, or requiring a simplistic rationalization of spend, it could be adequate.
For those organizations working in multi-channel, real-world environments, multi-touch attribution (MTA) is massively more compelling. MTA is the advanced, graduate-level program analog, enabling marketers and data scientists to answer questions across channels, journeys, users and scenarios.
MTA builds first-party data, and checks against the biases and mistakes that come from a single-channel view. MTA is the obvious choice for sophisticated advertisers.
Ready to graduate to the next level? Be in touch with C3 Metrics to talk about advanced measurement and analytics programs.
