Proving the True Incremental Value of Digital Marketing
Leadership demanded proof of a 3X return, but the existing math said it wasn't happening. Bridgetree went below the surface to identify the imbalances and "math traps" that were suppressing the client's true performance. By the time we finished the redesign, the question wasn't if the marketing worked, but how fast they could scale it.
The Challenge
A national reseller of wireless communication services, offering phones, accessories, and protection plans, faced a familiar but high-stakes problem: they couldn’t confidently prove the value of their digital marketing, putting future investment at risk.
Whereas leadership required digital campaigns to deliver a 3X return on advertising spend (ROAS), their internal measurement consistently fell short even though the marketing team felt they were meeting the benchmark.
The Audit
Bridgetree’s evaluation identified two core reasons the client was systematically under-reporting ROAS:
Imbalanced Test and Control
Test and control stores did not have similar baseline sales (expected sales in the absence of marketing). As a result, downstream calculations inflated sales of the control stores and hid incremental gains.
Over-Aggregation
Incrementality was measured in aggregate, not store-by-store. This caused under-performing stores to cancel the performance of high-performing stores, eliminating the client's ability to see optimization opportunities and further suppressing the true impact of marketing.
Bridgetree discovered their math was hiding the true impact of marketing
The Solution
Bridgetree surfaced true incrementality with a redesigned measurement framework:
Store-Level Matching & Measurement
Each store receiving digital marketing was paired with multiple control stores, carefully selected from estimates of baseline sales and other predictive attributes. This fostered a fair and unbiased measurement, revealing the stores where marketing was working best.
Ongoing Refresh
Because store sales change for reasons other than marketing, a quarterly match of control stores to test stores allowed measurement to reflect recent business conditions.
Bridgetree’s approach delivered statistical rigor and real-world usability
“Bridgetree has a rare ability to explain complex measurement concepts clearly” – Director Financial Analysis