Growth is the name of the game for most marketers. From the most high-level campaigns to the tiniest details (like which emoji to use in the social media caption), every decision you make has one main goal: Grow the brand.

That’s probably why you’ve got so many ways to expand your brand’s reach. Those influencer partnerships? Those are to help bring more people into your brand. Email and SMS marketing? That’s so your customers keep coming back. All the social media posts you spend hours agonizing over? That’s how you get your brand recognized.

Media is our tried-and-true way of reaching customers, both old and new. It’s dependable, it’s effective, and it’s measurable.

We give influencers unique coupon codes so we can track how much business they send our way. We track the number of clicks we get from email. We measure our social impressions down to every last like, comment, or share.

There’s just one big avenue for growth we’ve been getting all wrong.

Promotions.

Those coupon codes, free trials, and loyalty programs we often overlook can actually end up being a huge game changer for growing your brand.

But you don’t have to just take our word for it. New Circana research revealed that Ibotta promotions actually outperformed—yes, outperformed—media benchmarks.

Ready to dig into the data behind promotions?

We’ll dive into all the numbers and lay out exactly how you can use promotions to fuel growth for your brand.

Let’s get into it.

Meet your (measurement) match

It’s time for traditional media to meet its match. Enter: promotions.

Brands spend millions of dollars on promotions every single year. Makes you wonder why we aren’t measuring their full impact, right?

Well, here’s one reason we can think of: Brands treat promotions like a tactical measure. We use them for short-term goals, like hitting a sales target or clearing our old inventory. When we want results (and we want them now), well, that’s what we turn to promotions for.

And when we hit those results—like selling a certain amount of one product or hitting that magic revenue number—we count it as a win!

There’s just one problem.

When we stop measuring promotions as soon as we get the immediate result we wanted, we’re not really giving promotions the full credit they deserve.

Promotions do so much more for brands than just achieve one number on one day. They’re actually one of the most powerful ways we have of getting our products into consumers’ hands.

But to really measure the full effectiveness of promotions (read: to see if we’re getting our money’s worth), we’ve got to measure them the same way we measure traditional media.

Luckily for us, that’s exactly what Circana did.

Get your yardstick out

Before we get too into the weeds with the details, though, we’d like to formally introduce you to Circana. After name-dropping them (twice), we thought it was only fair for you to know exactly why Circana is such a big deal.

Circana is an independent, global leader in retail and media measurement. They help tons of brands quantify the impact of their marketing investments ($$$ spent on advertising, partnerships, and more) across all sorts of channels. That’s everything from owned channels to paid media to—you guessed it—promotions.

Plus, their methodology is an absolute ~chef’s kiss~. They apply consistent, transparent methodologies across both media *and* promotions, so they’re finally on the same playing field.

That’s how they were able to compare performance in an equal way—a way that accurately stacks promotions up against media performance to measure their full effectiveness.

How did they do it? You already know: They applied their causal, rigorous methodology to promotions across various CPG categories. They took a look at 48 different campaigns, all executed through Ibotta’s platform, to evaluate promotional performance.

That’s something we like to call the apples-to-apples approach. Circana drew direct comparisons between media and promotions. In doing so, they measured the incremental impact of promotions, instead of just looking at redemptions or sales totals.

Okay, are you sitting down for this? Because what they found might surprise you.

How the apples stack up

Alright, it’s time to get to the good stuff.

Here’s what we promised—the key findings from independent measurement provider Circana’s study.

How about them apples, huh?

Goes to show just how good promotions can be for getting your brand out there. With just the campaigns (48, to be exact—in case you forgot) that Circana analyzed, it’s pretty obvious how big of a difference these promotions made for these brands.

Ibotta didn’t just help these brands sell more products or hit a certain sales target. Through Ibotta campaigns, they helped these brands:

• Introduce themselves to new potential customers by driving more trials.
• Build new purchase habits among new and existing customers by creating a routine where these customers automatically turn toward a specific brand.
• Extend impact beyond featured SKUs through cross-selling, promotional placement of lesser-known products, and building that good ol’ customer lifetime value.

And the biggest kicker apple of them all? The Ibotta campaigns that Circana analyzed performed way above cross-channel media benchmarks. We’re talkin’ huge numbers, and we’ll break them down for you right now.

By sales lift, the Ibotta campaigns used in Circana’s study exceeded total store benchmarks by 7x. And if you thought that was a lot, well…just keep reading.

By household penetration lift, the Ibotta campaigns exceeded the total store benchmark by 8x. Those aren’t numbers you see every day, folks. You’re the marketing pros, after all, so tell us—when’s the last time you saw such a huge lift in any of your campaigns?

That’s what we thought.

So, what did we learn from all this? Well, maybe that when we give promotions their fair shot and evaluate them evenly—using the same methods we use when evaluating media—we get some pretty mind-boggling results.

Turns out, promotions can perform just as well as (if not way outperform) traditional media by the benchmarks that matter the most to us, like scoring lots of sales and reaching households we’ve never reached before.

Are you convinced yet? Sweet. Now let’s get into how you can use promotions to reach three different groups of shoppers.

Three audiences, one promotion strategy

Okay, so we’ve seen the numbers on just how effective promotions are for helping you hit your marketing goals, especially when we evaluate them in a fair way.

Now let’s get into the details on how you can make promotions work for your brand. We’ll break it down into three audience groups, because that’s how you can create your best promotions—by basing them on who you want to offer the promotions to.

Knowing your audience is pretty fundamental, after all.

Let’s get to know our three main audience groups for promotions.

New kids on the block

Our first buyer segment: new-to-category buyers to expand the market.

New-to-category means exactly what you think it means. These are shoppers who haven’t purchased in the category of your product within the previous year. That’s why promotions can go a long way in helping you reel these new shoppers in.

Here’s how: For shoppers who haven’t shopped from your specific category in the previous year, you’ve really got to pull out all the stops to hook them. Enter: promotions.

A really good deal can help catch the attention of shoppers who never would’ve given your brand a second thought before. So throw a BOGO offer their way. They just might bite.

But of course, we’d never throw ideas your way without giving you the stats to back them up. In Circana’s study, they found a +26.9% average incremental sales lift among new-to-category shoppers.

That’s more than just capturing and building on existing demand. That’s creating new demand entirely.

Pretty sweet deal, if you ask us.

Switch ’em over to your side

Ready for our next buyer segment? Without further ado…it’s competitive brand buyers!

This category of shoppers is made up of shoppers who are ripe and ready for conversion. They’ve shopped from competing brands before, and it’s now up to you to get them interested in your brand.

The easy part is that you know these shoppers are already interested in the types of products you have to offer. That’s basically step one, and it’s already done! Of course, now that brings us to the hard part, which is getting these shoppers to change their minds.

That’s exactly where promotions come in. Traditional media can’t really reach shoppers at a specific point in their decision-making journey, but promotions can. In fact, if you offer the right promotion at the right time, you’re not just reaching a shopper—you’re getting them to switch over to your brand or product.

Let us break it down for you.

Traditional media, like digital ads, typically reaches shoppers before or after they’ve already decided to make a purchase. A timely social media ad might remind a shopper about that brand they love that sells shoes, but the next time they’re in the market for new sneaks, they’ve probably already forgotten about the carousel they saw on social media a few weeks ago.

Promotions are different because they reach shoppers when they’re much closer to actually making a purchase. In fact, if a shopper is struggling to choose between your brand and a competitor, a nice, sweet promo gives them the perfect reason to choose your brand.

We’ve got the numbers to support this, too. In Circana’s research, they found a +32.9% average incremental sales lift when shoppers were exposed to featured promotions.

That’s the secret formula for earning a switch. Just find the right shopper at the right moment and hit them with the right offer.

Loyalty is everything

Drumroll, please…your last category of shoppers is existing brand buyers. The tried-and-true. Your fan club. Number ones since day one. No matter what you call your loyal shoppers, the one thing you can’t do is forget about them.

That’s because loyalty is hard to come by—and even harder to guarantee. In today’s economy, even your most loyal shoppers are reconsidering every purchase they make.

So don’t take these folks for granted. Protect your fan base by giving them a promotion or two. A code for being a longtime fan can pack some serious punch.

These promotions for your fans can really pay off. After all, you know these shoppers already love your brand, so that’s less convincing you have to do. The promotion basically lets them know that they made a very good, very wise choice in being a big supporter of your brand.

You already know—we’ve got stats here, too. In Circana’s study, they found an average $5.05 incremental return on ad spend (iROAS) from existing brand buyers.

You’ve worked hard to earn the loyalty of your existing brand buyers. A little incentive helps you keep it.

Put promotions to work

Alright, enough talk about why you need to be investing in promotions—and exactly who you can reach.

It’s now time to put all that knowledge to work.

Meet Ibotta, your partner in all things promotions. They’ve been in the performance marketing game for a hot second now, helping CPG brands drive sales across an entire network of retailers.

That’s why they created the Ibotta Performance Network (IPN). In a nutshell, the IPN helps brands reach the right shoppers wherever they shop, connect promotions to what they actually buy, and double down on what drives the best results.

We’ll give you a full breakdown of exactly how the IPN works.

The DL on the IPN

The IPN is like a control room for promotions. You can reach shoppers at scale and keep your eyes on things while your campaign runs. You can understand purchases, get a rundown of performance, and make tweaks to your campaigns while they’re still live.

Ready to test out digital promotions? Good, the IPN can help you distribute them. Looking for a super-wide reach? Great, the IPN reaches over 200 million shoppers. Need to measure your campaign performance down to every last detail? Perfect, the IPN can help you do just that.

The best part is—you only pay for actual units moved. Yep, thanks to the IPN’s pay-per-sale model, you never (that’s right, never) pay for clicks, clips, or impressions. Only actual purchases of whatever product you’re promoting.

Why the IPN hits different

We know, we know—there are so many promotion platforms out there. So what makes the IPN so special? And why would you want to use the IPN over other platforms?

We’re glad you asked.

The IPN’s superpower is helping everyone score a win—consumers, brands, and retailers alike. As more brands leverage the IPN to support their marketing strategies, retailers and publishers can build greater loyalty and drive more deals to their customers.

And as the IPN adds more retailers and publishers, they can reach more consumers, helping them save at more of the places they like to shop.

Sounds like a win-win-win to us.

How the IPN works

Alright, everybody. This is what we’ve all been waiting for. Here’s a simple breakdown of how the IPN works step-by-step.

1. Brands upload and fund offers.
2. Ibotta/IPN distributes those offers across many retail and publisher partners.
3. Retailers and publishers display the offers to their customers.
4. Consumers buy products and receive cash back.
5. The IPN tracks purchases, validates them, pays rewards, and provides in-flight performance analytics to brands.

And that, friends, is how the sausage gets made. Pretty simple, actually. And all you, as a marketer, need to do is figure out what you want to offer and upload that sucker straight to the IPN.

Promotions for precise growth

So, there you have it. Promotions can make a huge difference for brands targeting growth.

When you pay for promotions, you aren’t just paying for visibility or brand recognition. You’re actually paying to be chosen. You’re paying for consumers to pick you, choose you, love your brand.

Every dollar matters. Make sure your promotions are more than just throwing discounts out into the universe. Use them as the most precise growth lever you have.

The proof is in the purchase. Now go pick your next promotion—and make it count.