Evaluating Promotion Success

You can assess how a marketing campaign or sales promotion impacted your sales, to help you determine its success and plan for future promotions. The method you use for promotion tracking depends on the promotion timing and context.

You can use the following table to determine which evaluation method is best for you to use. You can click a heading in the table to jump to the instructions for each method. 

Direct previous period comparison

You can compare the sales for the promotion period to the sales for a similar time frame just prior to the promotion. We recommend this approach when the promotion did not take place during a seasonal sales transition (such as thanksgiving for a pie crust product).

Let's say you ran a promotion on chocolate chip cookies during the month of March and you want to gauge how much your sales went up from normal. 

Steps: 

1. From the dashboard menu, select the Sales dashboard for the retailer at which you ran the promotion (e.g., Whole Foods).
   
2. Filter the sales dashboard for the product you promoted (e.g., Choc Chip)
   
3. Filter your dashboard for the promotion period plus the 2-4 weeks following the promotion. In this case, let's say the promotion period is March 9 to April 23.
   
4. Note your total sales quantity or dollars for the time period. In this case the quantity is 18,341  and the sales dollars are 167, 213. 
   
5. Find the sales for the comparison period by filtering the dashboard for the same time frame (in this case 6 weeks) prior to the promotion. Your sales totals for this time frame are 16,177 sales units and 139,371 sales dollars.
   
6. Subtract the sales during the comparison period from the sales during the promotion evaluation period. In this case the calculation works out as follows:
   
   
   • Increased sales quantity: 18,341 - 16,177 = 2,164 
   • Increased sales dollars: $167,213 - $139,371 = $27, 842
     
     
7. To determine the sales lift percentage, use the following formula: 
   
   
   In this case (for sales dollars) the sales lift is calculated as follows:
   
   
   You now understand how the promotion impacted your sales.
   
   
8. If you want to export visualizations to share them or include them in a presentation:
   • From the Actions menu at the top-right of a visualization, select Download data.
     
   • From the window that appears, select the PNG (Image of Visualization) format and click the Download button.  
     
   • If you want to share the entire report, follow the instructions in Sharing saved reports.

YOY comparison

You can take the sales from the promotion time period and compare it to the sales from the same time period the year before. We recommend this method when you ran the same promotion the previous year or you are in the middle of a seasonal transition. 

Let's say you want to compare a hot dog sale you ran this past month to the same promotion you ran the previous year. 

1. From the dashboard menu, select the Year Over Year Sales dashboard for the retailer at which you ran the promotion (e.g., Walmart Retail Link). 
   
   
   
   
2. From the Year Over Year Sales by Product table, select the product you promoted (e.g., Classic Hot Dog) to filter the dashboard by this product. 
   
   
   
   
3. Filter the dashboard for the last 4 weeks.
   
   The tiles at right display your sales quantity and dollars for this year and display the precent change from last year. In this case, you can see your sales went up around 56% from the promotion period the previous year. 
   
4. If you want to share this report with others, follow the instructions in Sharing saved reports.

YOY lift comparison

Let's say you want to compare a promotion you ran this past month to the same promotion you ran the previous year, but your distribution has grown and you want to account for that. Comparing sales lift provides a more accurate picture of promotion performance when your points of distribution have changed significantly. 

Steps:

1. From the dashboard menu, select the Year Over Year Sales dashboard for the retailer at which you ran the promotion (e.g., Walmart Retail Link). 
   
   
   
   
2. From the Year Over Year Sales by Product table, select the product you promoted (e.g., Classic Hot Dog) to filter the dashboard by this product. 
   
   
   
   
3. Calculate the sales lift for the previous year:
   • Find the previous year's sales quantities by filtering your dashboard for the same month as the promotion in the previous year, as well as the month directly prior, to get the sales quantity for each. 
     
     Hint: To filter for specific dates, you can click a beginning date in the line chart (e.g., 4/30), then drag your cursor to the end date of the period you want to evaluate.
     
     The total sales quantity for the selected time frame appears at right in the Sales Quantity Selected Period tile. For this example, let's say our total sales for the promotion month are 660,413 and the sales from the month prior are 620,014.
     
     
   • Then, calculate the sales lift for the prior year using the the following calculation method: 
     
     In this case, the calculation works out as follows:
     
4. Calculate the sales lift for this year:
   • Find this year's sales quantities by filtering your dashboard for the promotion month this year, as well as the month directly prior, to get the sales quantity for each. In this case, let's say our sales quantity for the promotion month this year is 801,320 and our sales quantity for the month directly prior is 734,156.
   • Perform the same calculation to determine the sales lift for the current year.
     
     In this case the calculation works out as follows:
     
5. Calculate the difference in lift from last year to this year as follows:
   In this case, the calculation works out as follows:
   

You now understand how your promotion sales lift compares to your sales lift from the previous year. In this case, we can see that our percent lift is 40% higher than last year, indicating greater promotion success.