How Incrementality Transforms Media Planning & Buying for Performance Marketers

Performance marketing has evolved dramatically over the past few years. Marketers are no longer satisfied with vanity metrics or surface-level data. They want to know what's actually working, what's driving real growth versus what's just taking credit for it. This is where incrementality becomes essential for media planning and buying.

If you're still relying on last-click attribution or basic conversion tracking, you're likely wasting budget on channels that aren't pulling their weight. Let's explore how incrementality is reshaping the way smart marketers approach their campaigns.

What Is Incrementality and Why Does It Matter?

Incrementality measures the true impact of your marketing efforts. Instead of asking "how many conversions did this campaign get?" it asks "how many conversions happened because of this campaign?"

This distinction is crucial. Many conversions would have happened anyway. Someone was already planning to buy, and your ad just happened to be the last thing they saw. Incremental marketing focuses on identifying which marketing activities actually influenced customer behavior and drove additional sales.

According to a survey by Rakuten Marketing, marketers estimate they waste an average of 26% of their budgets on ineffective channels and strategies. That's more than a quarter of marketing spend potentially going to waste.

The Problem with Traditional Media Planning and Buying

Traditional media planning and buying approaches rely heavily on attribution models that have serious flaws:

• Last-click attribution gives all credit to the final touchpoint, ignoring the customer journey
• Multi-touch attribution distributes credit but still doesn't prove causation
• Platform reporting is biased. Facebook, Google, and others all claim overlapping credit for the same conversions

The result? Marketers think certain channels are performing well when they're actually just riding on the coattails of other marketing efforts or organic demand.

This is especially problematic for strategic media buying decisions. When you're allocating millions of dollars across channels, you need to know which investments are truly incremental and which are simply expensive spectators.

How Incrementality Changes the Game

Incrementality measurement introduces a scientific approach to understanding marketing performance. Here's how it transforms the media planning and buying process:

1. Identifies True Performance Drivers

Incrementality testing shows the true contribution of each channel, campaign, and audience to new customer generation and also tells which parties are just converting the ones that would have bought anyway. It might indicate that your costly retargeting campaign isn’t as effective as you imagined, whereas your upper-funnel brand equity initiatives are producing more growth than what your dashboard indicates.

2. Optimizes Budget Allocation

When you understand true incremental value, you can reallocate budget from low-impact to high-impact channels. Some marketers have discovered that certain "high-performing" channels according to traditional metrics were actually generating zero incremental value. Shifting that budget to genuinely incremental channels can dramatically improve overall ROI.

3. Reduces Wasted Spend

It is not uncommon for performance marketers to overinvest in the already existing demand channels. Incrementality testing in digital media planning and buying strategies helps to determine the actual demand created and to clean out the waste caused by it.

Key Incrementality Metrics for Media Buyers

Here are the essential metrics you should track when implementing incrementality into your strategic media buying:
 

Practical Steps to Implement Incrementality

Ready to transform your media planning buying approach? Here's how to get started:

Start with geo-testing: Split similar markets into test and control groups. Run campaigns in test markets only and measure the difference in performance.

Run controlled experiments: Use holdout groups where a portion of your audience doesn't see your ads. Compare their behavior to those who were exposed.

Test one variable at a time: Don't change everything simultaneously. Test individual channels, creative approaches, or audience segments to isolate what's actually working.

Give tests enough time: Incrementality results need sufficient data to be statistically significant. Plan for multi-week testing periods, not just a few days.

Question your assumptions: Your best-performing channel according to traditional metrics might not be your most incremental one. Be prepared for surprising insights.

The Future of Media Planning and Buying

With the implementation of more stringent privacy rules and the complete phase-out of third-party cookies, attribution models are losing their reliability to an even greater extent. Thus, it is no longer sufficient to use incrementality as a measure of marketing investment protection, but it becomes mandatory.

Progressive performance marketers are already ingraining the incrementality testing in their routine work. They are not waiting for quarterly reviews to discuss whether their campaigns are making an impact. They are measuring true impact continuously and making adjustments accordingly.

The marketers that will be accepting incrementality today will be the ones to gain a considerable competitive edge tomorrow. They will be spending more wisely, expanding the reach of what works, and staying away from the budget pitfalls that lesser skilled competitors get caught in.

Conclusion

Incrementality represents a fundamental shift in how we think about marketing effectiveness. By focusing on true causal impact rather than correlation, you can make media planning and buying decisions based on reality rather than misleading data.

The question isn't whether you should incorporate incrementality into your strategy. It's whether you can afford not to.

Ready to discover which of your marketing channels are truly driving growth? Request a demo to see how incrementality measurement can transform your media buying strategy and help you eliminate wasted ad spend.
 

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should an incrementality test run?

Most tests need 2-4 weeks minimum to gather statistically significant results, though this varies based on your conversion volume and budget size.

Can small businesses use incrementality testing?

Yes. Small businesses can start with simple geo-holdout tests or budget pulsing methods to measure incremental impact, even with limited budgets.

Does incrementality replace A/B testing?

No. A/B testing optimizes how you deliver your message, while incrementality measures whether your marketing creates additional value. Both are valuable for different purposes.