Three Retail Titans Walk into a Bar

by Carlos Crespi | May 13, 2025 | Marketing, Incrementality

Three Retail Titans Walk into a Bar

The Challenge of Incremental Measurement

By Brian Pozesky

John Wanamaker, Sam Walton and Jeff Bezos walk into a bar.

Wanamaker wondered where his other half had gone, which he had been worrying about long before his overused quote, “Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is I don’t know which half,” became legend. Bezos didn’t really care—he already knew everything about everyone anyway. And Walton? He was politely explaining to the bartender that he had a store within 10 miles of every U.S. consumer, complete with smiling greeters and low prices—so really, what was there to worry about?

They pulled up stools and ordered drinks. Wanamaker kept going on about his missing half.
Bezos gave a knowing smile. “That’s cute. These days, we test everything. I know which campaign made someone blink twice before they scrolled past.”
Walton, never one to mince words, chimed in: “Guys, just keep the prices low.”

But Walton had to admit—he did want to know what actually drove people into the store. Bezos had data coming out of his ears, but even he was drowning in dashboards. And Wanamaker? He was still in the corner, flipping coins and arguing with himself about which half to blame.

The bar got quieter. The drinks got stronger. The three retail titans sat there, commiserating—caught in the tension between intuition and insight, data and noise.

Then the bartender (who bought the bar when she sold her Shopify business last year) leaned in, towel over her shoulder, and said:

“Guys, it’s called incremental measurement.”

Incremental measurement is both exceedingly obvious and incredibly difficult to do right.

It’s a crucial concept for understanding marketing effectiveness, but over the past 25+ years of digital marketing, it’s been buried under an overwhelming amount of noise.

Digital marketing was supposed to take the guesswork out of advertising—everything could be tracked, every consumer’s behavior could be analyzed. But as the medium exploded, so did the volume of data. Thousands of ad-tech vendors entered the scene, each offering their own tracking and attribution schemes, none of which could be easily compared, validated, or trusted.

Over time, the market began to consolidate. Many vendors were either absorbed by larger players or run out of business, leaving the power in the hands of a few dominant, fragmented entities.

But it’s not just media providers who control the data today—retail giants like Amazon and Walmart now wield enormous influence. These retailers, along with tech giants including Meta and Google, hold vast pools of first-party data, and their influence over consumer behavior is unparalleled.

With so many competing forces controlling separate pieces of data, tracking and separating the signal from the noise has only become more challenging. Privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA have introduced additional complexity, and the proliferation of devices further complicates things by making it even harder to track consumers across platforms seamlessly.

In this chaotic environment, incremental measurement emerges as the solution to cut through the noise. Instead of trying to track every interaction or relying on attribution models that often tell you everything and nothing at the same time, incremental measurement focuses on one crucial question: What would have happened without your campaign? By isolating the true impact of your marketing efforts, it helps you identify valuable insights amid the overwhelming noise.

In a world where speed, precision, and adaptability define success, incremental measurement has evolved from a static evaluation tool into a real-time engine for smarter decision-making. Thanks to AI and machine learning, we’re no longer guessing about the impact—we’re seeing it unfold, understanding it instantly, and acting on it with confidence. The future of measurement isn’t just about knowing what worked; it’s about knowing what’s working right now—and being ready to evolve with it.

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Measure the Real Sales Impact of Organic Social Media

by Carlos Crespi | May 7, 2025 | Marketing, Social Media

Measure the Real Sales Impact of Organic Social Media

By Sumi Mukoyama

We’re excited to announce a major breakthrough in social media measurement: Pēq now measures incremental sales driven by organic social campaigns.

In an era where proving ROI is everything, marketers have long struggled to quantify the true impact of social media. Likes and shares don’t pay the bills—sales do. That’s why Pēq is going beyond vanity metrics to deliver real, data-driven insights into what’s actually moving the needle.

Pēq isolates incremental lift.

By combining your first-party sales data with detailed campaign activity, Pēq isolates incremental lift, showing you exactly how social content—whether organic or influencer-led—is driving net-new revenue.

Our advanced platform distinguishes between organic engagement and paid amplification, so you can finally see which efforts are bringing in new customers versus simply riding existing demand..

Unlike traditional geo-based measurement tools, Pēq makes organic social measurement accurate and accessible. With an intuitive dashboard and cutting-edge modeling, your team gets the clarity it needs to double down on what works and confidently optimize what doesn’t.

Ready to prove the true impact of your social strategy?
Pēq delivers the answers you’ve been waiting for.

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Retail Media Is Booming

by Carlos Crespi | May 5, 2025 | Marketing, Retail Media

Retail Media Is Booming

But Fragmentation Is Holding Us Back

By Sumi Mukoyama

There are many positive opportunities that retail media can unlock for brands, but alongside those opportunities come challenges. Let’s talk about one that almost every brand and retailer cites today: lack of standardization.

Nielsen just announced the deprecation of its stand-alone panel-based TV ratings system, ending a multi-decade measurement methodology that the entire television industry used to rely on. While Nielsen’s methodology was far from perfect, there was an understanding that buyers could purchase a certain amount of guaranteed demo impressions from television networks, and both the advertiser and the network would use Nielsen as the ‘source of truth’ to report on the impressions delivered with every :15 or :30 spot. Keep in mind that in television’s heyday, there were ~100 networks being sold with many of those networks bundled together based on the parent company.

Those days seem quaint now.

There are over 200 retail media networks in the US alone, and every one of them operates as its own walled garden. Ad placements, sizes, bidding auctions, inventory and platforms vary. Measurement methodology is often unknown or not fully understood. In January 2024, the IAB shared standardization guidelines for the RMN industry to adhere to, but there is no way to enforce those guidelines.

And since consumer data is what the retail media networks are essentially selling, the retailers are not inclined to share that data with others, much less with their competitors.

Where does that leave us?
Let’s stop talking about the lack of standardization and start to have productive (and potentially uncomfortable) conversations. Let’s help each other and figure out a path forward for standardization in the industry. If we want to get to the answers that we’re all looking for, we need to align on something. I’m not saying that I know the answer to what that something is, but if we were collectively smart enough to rocket Neil Armstrong nearly 240,000 miles into outer space and walk on the moon, this problem seems more than solvable.

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Segmentation Is Back

by Carlos Crespi | May 5, 2025 | Marketing, Segmentation

Segmentation Is Back

and it’s making Media Mix Modeling more useful

By Brian Pozesky

Modern MMM has evolved to real-time capabilities, significantly advancing the industry. However, without robust consumer insight, it remains limited to blind optimization – capable of shifting budgets but unable to deliver consistent messaging across today’s fragmented landscape of CTV, retail media, social media, Amazon, Instacart, and in-store channels.

Consumer insight tools, particularly segmentation solutions like PRIZM, have evolved from early innovations into strategic advantages in today’s identity-restricted environment.

Audience segmentation works better than ever.

When integrated with MMM, segments transform the modeling approach by differentiating how distinct consumer groups respond to marketing activities, enabling marketers to detect channel effectiveness and optimal spend levels for specific audiences rather than just overall populations.

This directly impacts media planning by aligning channel selection, budget allocation, and creative strategies with the segments that drive the highest ROI, creating more efficient and targeted campaigns.

Consumer insight delivers the context MMM requires—enabling cleaner inputs, more accurate incrementality measurement, and clearer ROI attribution. While MMM reveals where to invest, consumer insight identifies who to reach. Together, they provide the complete picture marketers need.

I’m interested in your thoughts on this perspective. Let’s continue the conversation!

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Marketing Without Measurement is a Risk Brands Can’t Afford

by Carlos Crespi | May 1, 2025 | Marketing, Measurement

Marketing Without Measurement is a Risk Brands Can’t Afford

peq rikki marler By Rikki Marler

If there’s one thing I learned managing marketing measurement during COVID while at Circana, it’s this: the brands that stayed active, invested smartly, and measured with discipline came out stronger. Those who pulled back or relied on instinct alone lost momentum — and in many cases, ceded market share to those who embraced data-driven decision making.

Today, that lesson is even more critical. With economic uncertainty, evolving consumer behaviors, and an increasingly complex media landscape, brands need more than just activity — they need clarity. They need marketing measurement and attribution tools that don’t just track exposure but truly measure incrementality — the additional value each marketing dollar creates.

At Pēq, we help brands move beyond surface-level reporting and into true outcome-driven insights. We isolate what actually drives incremental sales, empowering brands to optimize in real-time instead of relying on retrospective, siloed reports. Cross-channel analysis is no longer optional — it’s the only way to see the full picture across retail media, in-store, digital, and offline activations.

At Pēq, we help brands move beyond surface-level reporting.

We’ve also leaned heavily into AI and machine learning to power faster, smarter insights. Our platform enables brands to A/B test campaigns with live reporting, giving marketers the flexibility to adjust tactics mid-flight, not months later. Customization and flexibility are core to our model — because every brand’s strategy, category dynamics, and customer base are different.

And in a world where marketing technology can often feel opaque, Pēq is committed to transparency and trust. Our methodologies are clear, standardized, and designed to give brands complete confidence in the insights that fuel their investments.

Through this work, I’ve seen firsthand: brands who prioritize measurement, agility, and optimization not only survive uncertainty — they outperform. Those who default to old models and delayed decision-making fall behind.

That’s why we built the Pēq Real-Time AI Mix Model — giving marketers a dynamic, always-on view of incremental impact across all channels. It’s designed for brands that need scalable, global-ready solutions and a trusted partner who brings educational content and thought leadership alongside actionable insights. It’s the model I wish more brands had during COVID — and the one every brand will need to win in the next cycle of disruption.

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