Let’s say you’re a doctor.

Your team just finished a flawless operation. The charts looked good. The incisions were clean. The metrics? Off the charts.

Only one small problem: the patient is dead.
Welcome to the world of incrementality experiments.

Stuck in the Past

Once upon a time (say, 1957) incrementality experiments were the gold standard. You ran holdout groups. You did a bunch of statistical guesswork. You got results. Weeks (or sometimes Months) later.

Back then, it made sense. Marketers didn’t need to react in real time. They had quarters to decide which color billboard to place next to the freeway.

But it’s 2025. You’re not running a marketing museum. You’re running campaigns that live and die on agility.

Yet too many marketers are still treating incrementality like it’s a reliable diagnosis, when it’s really just a post-mortem.

That’s why modern strategies like incremental marketing have emerged — helping teams understand lift in real time, with actionable insights that move as fast as the market does.

Exhibit A: “Missed the Turn 90 Miles Ago”

This map tells you where things went wrong. That’s cute — if you're a detective. But if you're a marketer, you need GPS, not CSI.

By the time an incrementality experiment tells you what worked, your budget's gone, your audience has moved on, and the intern accidentally launched a campaign in Portuguese.

Exhibit B: The Archeological Dig

Some marketers still think digging up last quarter’s test plan offers insight. It doesn’t.
All it tells you is that at some point in 2017, someone had a theory, buried it in a test group, and forgot the password to the results dashboard.

Meanwhile, your competitors are adjusting bids, creatives, and channels on the fly — because they're using tools that run on AI, not ancient history.

 A modern marketing data analyst tool can centralize, automate, and surface real-time performance insights — without needing to dust off old test plans or wait weeks for answers.

Exhibit C: “The Patient Died”

This one hits hardest. Because it’s what every marketer fears:
“The campaign was a success… but the business results sucked.”

That’s what happens when you rely on stale, delayed, overly academic “experiments” that can’t keep pace with modern marketing reality.
You don’t need a lagging indicator. You need a co-pilot.

Time to Upgrade the Toolkit

Incrementality experiments had their time. That time is over.
They were designed for a slower, simpler world. Not for the real-time firestorm of modern marketing, where a single creative tweak can tank or 10x your ROAS before lunch.

Marketers deserve real-time, always-on, privacy-safe measurement - powered by AI, not spreadsheets and guesswork.

You don’t need to look at what happened last quarter. You need to know what’s happening now.

TL;DR

• If you're using incrementality experiments, you're reacting to a world that no longer exists.
• Delayed insights ≠ good insights.
• It's 2025. You need real-time, always-on AI measurement tools that tell you what’s working while it's working.
• Otherwise, you're just the proud surgeon giving a thumbs up… while the business flatlines.

Oh, and in case it wasn’t clear:
You need insights for what’s happening NOW. Not months ago.