WHY INCREMENTALITY IS THE ONLY METRIC THAT PROVES MARKETING'S REAL IMPACT

Summary from the TLDR Marketing newsletter

Incrementality testing measures what marketing actually causes, not what just gets credit. Metrics like ROAS and CTR often exaggerate performance by counting conversions that would happen anyway. Incrementality compares exposed and unexposed audiences to show whether campaigns create new demand or capture existing intent. Methods such as holdouts, causal modeling, and MMM quantify this across channels. With built-in lift tools from Meta, Google, and TikTok, teams can now measure impact directly and see which efforts drive real growth.