--- title: "Trade Promotion Is Your Biggest Budget. Can You Prove It Pays?" standfirst: "Three in four UK promotion decision-makers cannot say which deals made money; the fix is to redesign who decides, against which profit test, and how often." url: https://www.motionandgain.com/insights/trade-promotion-prove-it-pays type: "Challenge & Resolution" publisher: "Motion & Gain" author: "Motion&Gain" published: 2026-10-27 updated: 2026-10-27 tags: ["Pricing & promotions", "Revenue growth management", "Route to market", "Commercial AI", "Consumer goods"] summary: "75% of UK promotion decision-makers can't say which deals paid. Five decisions that turn trade promotion from a habit into a measured investment." hero_image: https://wcokbflnhololtfdocak.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/2026-10/trade-promotion-prove-it-pays-bridge-hero-4x3-5827fb2e.png access: public language: en --- # Trade Promotion Is Your Biggest Budget. Can You Prove It Pays? *Three in four UK promotion decision-makers cannot say which deals made money; the fix is to redesign who decides, against which profit test, and how often.* Challenge & Resolution · Motion&Gain · 27 October 2026 Trade promotion is the largest commercial budget most consumer goods companies cannot prove. In an August 2026 survey of 250 senior leaders at UK consumer goods businesses, 75% of those who plan or sign off promotions could not put a number on how many of last year's big promotions made money. The fix is to redesign who decides on a promotion, against which profit test, and how often. **Key takeaways** - 75% of UK promotion decision-makers cannot say what share of their significant promotions paid back (Kantar and Les Binet, August 2026). - In an illustrative case built for the same study, only 22 of 50 extra promoted units are new demand; the other 28 are borrowed, cannibalised or moved. - Promotions now take 25% of UK FMCG sales (NielsenIQ, June 2026) and 34% of branded units in Europe's six largest grocery markets (Circana, April 2026). ## The challenge: why trade promotion has become a habit, not a decision On 7 October 2026, Kantar's Dom Boyd and effectiveness researcher Les Binet presented a study called "Kicking the promotion habit" at the IPA Effectiveness Conference. Its survey, run by Censuswide from 18 to 26 August 2026, asked 250 senior marketing and insight leaders at UK consumer goods firms how they judge price promotions. The answers, [reported in detail by PPC Land](https://ppc.land/75-of-marketers-cant-say-if-their-price-promotions-pay-kantar-finds/), describe a spending line run on faith. **75%**: of UK consumer goods leaders who plan, approve or evaluate promotions cannot say how many of their significant promotions in the last year turned a profit (Kantar / Les Binet, Censuswide, August 2026) The rest of the survey points the same way. 76% often or sometimes rerun a similar deal without ever checking its profit. 74% do not know how often, across the industry, a promotion is in profit after 13 weeks. And 80% accept that a large part of the people buying on deal were coming anyway. **Chart: Most promotion decision-makers cannot show that their promotions make money** (Share of senior leaders at UK consumer goods businesses, %, August 2026) ![Bar chart: Most promotion decision-makers cannot show that their promotions make money. Share of senior leaders at UK consumer goods businesses, %, August 2026. Highest: Agree many buyers would buy anyway (80%); lowest: Would run fewer, if retailers allow (68%). Source: Kantar / Les Binet survey (Censuswide), via PPC Land, October 2026.](https://www.motionandgain.com/charts/134ee397397489db904a-w.svg) *Source: [Kantar / Les Binet survey (Censuswide), via PPC Land, October 2026](https://ppc.land/75-of-marketers-cant-say-if-their-price-promotions-pay-kantar-finds/). Censuswide fieldwork, 18–26 August 2026, 250 senior marketing and insight leaders. Some bases are those who planned or evaluated promotions. [Data (CSV)](https://www.motionandgain.com/charts/134ee397397489db904a.csv) · Chart: Motion & Gain* The habit is not small. In the four weeks to 13 June 2026, promotions accounted for [25% of UK FMCG sales, up from 23.5% a year earlier](https://nielseniq.com/global/en/news-center/2026/supermarket-growth-cools-after-end-of-may-heatwave-while-world-cup-fever-drives-surge-in-online-and-promotional-spending/), according to NielsenIQ's Total Till data. Over Christmas 2025, Worldpanel by Numerator found that [33.3% of take-home grocery spend went on deals](https://www.kantar.com/uki/inspiration/fmcg/2026-wp-promo-premium-own-label-and-no-alcohol-options-inside-britains-13-8-bn-xmas-grocery-shop), the highest share since December 2019. Across Spain, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, France and Italy, Circana figures published in April 2026 show that [34% of branded units are sold on promotion, against 14% for private label](https://www.foodanddrinktechnology.com/news/66145/private-label-hits-50-across-europes-big-six/), while own label now holds half of unit sales. Brands are paying to compete with retailers who barely discount at all. ## Why the usual fix fails The standard response is a promotion management (TPM) system and a post-event review. Both look too short and too narrow: only 19% of respondents look at results 26 weeks or more after an event, so the pantry-loading dip and the long-run hit to price sensitivity fall outside the window. Promotions are also asked to do too many jobs at once. Leaders named manufacturer profit as the main goal of their last promotion in only 33% of cases; stock clearance (17%), retailer relationships and distribution (16%) and volume (13%) came next. A promotion with five objectives cannot fail any of them. The deeper problem is ownership. Sales teams carry volume targets and annual trade commitments; marketing carries brand health; finance sees the deductions months later. Nobody owns the profit of a single event. That is why 68% of respondents say they would cut the number of promotions if retailer goodwill, listings and share were safe. What holds them back is the retailer negotiation. > **Trade promotion effectiveness** is the net profit a promotion adds over a full evaluation window, after removing sales that would have happened anyway, sales pulled forward from later weeks, sales taken from the brand's own range and sales moved between stores. ## The resolution: five decisions that turn promotions into investments ### 1. Give every event one owner and one profit test Each significant promotion gets a named owner in revenue growth management, a single objective, and a pass mark: positive incremental gross profit at 13 weeks, with a 26-week read for repeat mechanics. Clearance or listing events are funded and reported as what they are. ### 2. Decompose the uplift before you fund the next one The sales spike in the promoted week is not the result. Baseline models at SKU, store and week level, now standard in modern promotion optimization tools, split the spike into new demand, forward buying, cannibalisation and store switching. AI earns its place here: it can run that split for every event, every week, rather than for a sample once a year. ### 3. Cut the bottom of the calendar, and trade it with the retailer Rank last year's events by net profit and stop the weakest quarter. Then take the saving into the joint business plan as a trade, not a withdrawal: fewer, shallower deals in exchange for funded visibility, retail media or a better everyday shelf price. The 68% who want to run fewer promotions need a negotiating offer, not a spreadsheet. ### 4. Move the money to price and brand, and test it Leaders in the same survey were split on the best lever for profit growth: 26% chose higher base prices, 25% lower base prices, 20% brand building and 17% price promotions. That split is a reason to test, not to guess. Run matched store or region cells where promotional funding moves into base price, pack architecture or brand media, and read them at 13 and 26 weeks. ### 5. Move from a yearly calendar to a weekly decision McKinsey's October 2026 article on [agentic AI in consumer goods](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/for-cpg-companies-agentic-ais-real-payoff-is-growth) names promotion spend allocation as one of the best first decisions to make dynamic, using retailer point-of-sale and inventory data, with guardrails and a weekly or biweekly review instead of a quarterly one. Of the 41 US and European commercial leaders it surveyed, only 12 had embedded AI in core workflows. What is missing is the operating model around the decision. ## Evidence: how much of a promotion is really new demand? The study's authors built an illustrative case from their own calculations and the academic literature. A promotion lifts unit sales from 100 to 150. Of those 50 extra units, 15 were bought earlier than they would have been, 9 came from the brand's own range and 4 moved from other stores. Only 22 units, about 15% of promoted-week sales, are truly new. **Chart: Of 50 extra units sold on promotion, fewer than half are new demand** (Illustrative central case: a promotion lifting unit sales from 100 to 150, units) ![Waterfall chart: Of 50 extra units sold on promotion, fewer than half are new demand. Illustrative central case: a promotion lifting unit sales from 100 to 150, units. Largest step: Bought earlier (time-shifted). Source: Kantar / Les Binet, "Kicking the promotion habit", IPA Effectiveness Conference, 7 October 2026, via PPC Land.](https://www.motionandgain.com/charts/a629a70d77123b3e892b-w.svg) *Source: [Kantar / Les Binet, "Kicking the promotion habit", IPA Effectiveness Conference, 7 October 2026, via PPC Land](https://ppc.land/75-of-marketers-cant-say-if-their-price-promotions-pay-kantar-finds/). Illustrative model built by the study's authors from their calculations and the academic literature; not a measurement of any one promotion. [Data (CSV)](https://www.motionandgain.com/charts/a629a70d77123b3e892b.csv) · Chart: Motion & Gain* Every category will differ, but the logic holds: gross uplift flatters every event, and a business that cannot decompose its promotions is almost certainly overfunding some of them. Our earlier piece on [volume-led revenue growth management](https://www.motionandgain.com/insights/revenue-growth-management-volume-led-growth) showed price no longer carries growth on its own; buying volume through unmeasured deals is not the answer either. ## How to apply it: a 30/60/90-day plan 1. **Days 1–30 (RGM lead and finance):** list last year's top 50 events by spend, assign each one objective, and agree the 13-week incremental profit test with the CFO. 2. **Days 31–60 (RGM and insight):** run baseline decomposition on those events; rank them by net profit; mark the bottom quarter for removal. 3. **Days 61–90 (sales director and key account managers):** take the stop list into two retailer plans as a trade for visibility or base price; launch two test cells; move the promotion review to a weekly cadence with clear guardrails. Motion & Gain treats this as part of [route-to-market excellence](https://www.motionandgain.com/ai-transformation): trade engagement (objective O15) is a decision to redesign. ## Questions leaders ask ### What share of trade promotions actually pay back? Nobody has a reliable industry figure for every market, which is the point. In the Kantar and Les Binet survey of 250 UK consumer goods leaders in August 2026, 74% did not know how often, industry-wide, a promotion is in profit after 13 weeks, and 75% could not estimate their own. The same study's review of academic work suggests most price promotions do not break even. Treat your own events as unprofitable until a 13-week incremental test shows otherwise. ### Can AI fix trade promotion optimization on its own? No. AI makes it possible to decompose every promotion and to reallocate spend weekly, which was too costly to do by hand. But the value appears only when the decision changes: one owner per event, one profit test, the authority to stop weak events, and a negotiating offer for retailers. Without that redesign, an AI model produces better reports on the same calendar. --- Source: https://www.motionandgain.com/insights/trade-promotion-prove-it-pays Cite as: Motion & Gain, "Trade Promotion Is Your Biggest Budget. Can You Prove It Pays?", 27 October 2026, https://www.motionandgain.com/insights/trade-promotion-prove-it-pays Editorial standards: https://www.motionandgain.com/insights/editorial-standards