---
title: "Promotion in Practice: Three Dimensions, Four Key Points—The Importance of Promotion Evaluation Cannot Be Overlooked"
description: "After a promotion ends, many teams hold symbolic evaluation meetings that focus on sales figures and competitor reactions, but lack data-driven analysis. This article outlines three evaluation dimensions (sales, effectiveness, and perspective) and four key points (overall strategy, process, distributor cooperation, and competitor response) to conduct thorough promotion evaluations that yield actionable insights."
author: "高级研究员 海游"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-07-18"
language: "en"
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# Promotion in Practice: Three Dimensions, Four Key Points—The Importance of Promotion Evaluation Cannot Be Overlooked

> After a promotion ends, many teams hold symbolic evaluation meetings that focus on sales figures and competitor reactions, but lack data-driven analysis. This article outlines three evaluation dimensions (sales, effectiveness, and perspective) and four key points (overall strategy, process, distributor cooperation, and competitor response) to conduct thorough promotion evaluations that yield actionable insights.

**Click 'Read Original' for details**
After a promotion ends, many teams hold symbolic evaluation and summary meetings. Most of these meetings focus on: How much did we sell? How did competitors react? What were our shortcomings and areas for improvement? What ideas and suggestions do we have for future activities?
Of course, this is necessary, but if that's all you do, it won't fundamentally help future promotions.
Moreover, apart from sales figures, everything else is based on feelings. An evaluation lacking data support can only be considered a thought report. Over time, as more promotion evaluations accumulate, they become routine, with strikingly similar meeting records, and their value diminishes significantly.
Next, I'll discuss how to conduct effective promotion evaluation in the series on promotion practice, based on my current experience with Unified brand product promotions.
**Common Evaluation Dimensions**
**1. Sales Evaluation**
Compare sales volumes of a product during different periods: before, during, and after the promotion, within the evaluation timeframe. This is a common post-promotion evaluation method, typically yielding four scenarios:
**a. Sales remain basically unchanged before and after, with a spike during the promotion. This indicates strong promotional impact but lacks substantive content—common when the product lacks sufficient content accumulation.**
**b. Sales spike during the promotion, but decline significantly after compared to before. This suggests the promotion caused adverse effects, indicating a lack of in-depth research on target consumers.**
**c. No change in sales before, during, or after. This indicates the promotion had no impact, reflecting a lack of basic thinking in the activity.**
**d. Sales spike during the promotion and continue to grow after. This indicates the promotion achieved its expected results and is the ultimate goal.**
**Summary**: Sales evaluation is a crucial tool. In short, consumers only purchase after they resonate with your communication.
Many promotions fail to have long-term sales effects because the consumer communication lacks novelty or fails to address consumer needs. Some activities don't even involve basic thinking—promotions done for the sake of promotion naturally won't change sales much.
**2. Effectiveness Evaluation**
This aims to understand the impact of the promotion on target consumers, such as their evaluation of the activity, impression of the promoted product, and understanding of the promotion's purpose.
**Specific approach:**
Randomly select a few target consumers from the data collected during the promotion. Have a dedicated person communicate with them to investigate their feelings about the activity, whether they understood its purpose, whether they knew about the promoted product, and whether they recently purchased it. Finally, compile all results for judgment.
If 85% of target consumers correctly answer 90% of the questions, the promotion is considered highly effective.
This evaluation method suits new product launches, using promotional activities for consumer interaction to gauge awareness. From the dimensions of cognition, transaction, and relationship, effectiveness evaluation focuses on building consumer awareness—the first step to sales and a key foundation for product movement.
**3. Perspective Evaluation**
Multi-angle evaluation facilitates better promotion review.
**a. Don't evaluate a promotion from a single angle; otherwise, even success becomes non-replicable.**
Retailers care which products deserve attention; manufacturers care which brands deserve attention.
Different focuses lead to different evaluations: retailers pursue sales and profits, while brand owners pursue volume and market share; retailers think within categories, brand owners within brands; retailers have POS data down to item level, brand owners have SKU data down to day.
**b. Multi-angle evaluation of price and sales volume. Common methods include:**
Compare price and sales differences with the previous month and same period last year.
Compare with adjacent surrounding products.
Compare with key competing products.
**Essential Evaluation Data**
**a. Sales revenue**: Compare sales during the promotion period with before and after.
**b. Gross margin**: The final product gross margin after accounting for promotion costs.
**c. Number of transactions**: The number of shopping baskets or receipts, or specifically for a product, to gauge foot traffic at the promotion venue. Higher numbers indicate more popularity, which is favorable for the promotion.
**d. Average transaction value**: The total amount paid per purchase, indicating consumer spending power at the venue. Higher numbers mean stronger purchasing power.
**e. Penetration rate per transaction**: The proportion of baskets containing a specific product or category, showing product or category popularity. Higher numbers indicate higher product popularity.
**f. Various investment levels**: Including media promotion, prizes and gifts, activity materials, and other expenses.
**g. Return on investment (ROI)**: The ratio of total output revenue to total input cost—a key metric.
**h. Strengths and weaknesses**: Review both results and process.
**Summary**: Promotion evaluation cannot rely solely on textual descriptions. These data points are essential and must be analyzed.
**Key Points in Promotion Evaluation**
**1. Overall Strategy Evaluation**
For brand owners, promotion purposes generally fall into three categories:
First, brand building: Assess whether the promotion theme complements the brand theme and whether the creative effectively highlights the brand.
Second, boosting sales: Assess whether the promotional products are practical and attractive, and whether the purchase packages are well-received by consumers.
Third, clearing inventory: Assess whether price discounts can appeal to consumers.
In short, different purposes require different evaluation dimensions; always seek the most suitable plan.
**2. Process Evaluation**
**a. Before the promotion**: Check if promotional flyers, posters, and POP displays are distributed and ready; whether all store personnel know about the upcoming promotion; whether promotional products are adequately stocked; whether related publicity is in place; and whether salesperson training and precautions are implemented.
**b. During the promotion**: Check if promotional products are complete and sufficiently stocked; whether product displays are attractive; whether POP ads are posted; whether products are suitable for sale; whether all store personnel understand the promotion period and methods; whether the store atmosphere and sales scenes are appealing; and whether service desk staff make periodic broadcast announcements.
**c. After the promotion**: Check if expired posters, POP, and flyers are removed; whether product prices are restored; and whether displays are returned to normal.
The core of process evaluation is detail; often, promotion success is determined by execution details.
**3. Distributor Cooperation Evaluation**
Promotions benefit not only brand owners but also distributors, making their cooperation crucial.
Evaluate whether distributors cooperate appropriately and promptly with store promotions; whether they actively support and share some promotion costs and price reduction losses; whether they ensure timely supply of promotional products during the promotion; and whether they fulfill their obligations and cooperation during the period.
It's worth noting: If distributor cooperation is insufficient, decisively abandon the promotion. Otherwise, even if forced through, the results will be greatly diminished, losing the promotion's meaning.
**4. Competitor-Focused Evaluation**
Regarding timing relative to key competitors, there are three scenarios:
**a. Proactive**: Launch promotions before competitors. Evaluate the suppressive effect on competitors, such as how much their sales declined and how much of that converted to your sales.
**b. Follow-the-leader**: Launch simultaneously with competitors. This is common. Evaluate which of you sees higher sales growth in the same venues, considering both absolute increase and growth rate.
**c. Reactive**: Launch after competitors. Evaluate the impact of competitors' first-mover advantage on your sales and whether you can minimize losses after your promotion ends.
**Final Thoughts:**
Market promotion teams often do promotion evaluations, but often summaries are just for formality—to check a box or facilitate expense reimbursement, resulting in repetitive reports. Or, they do thorough and rigorous work but fail to use the findings as references for future promotions. Both are wrong.
In today's FMCG industry, competition is fierce. Every promotion is a game against competitors, and this game is about refining details. If you don't manage this well over time, you risk being eliminated. So, market promotion teams should take every promotion evaluation seriously and maximize the value of each activity.
Review: Asher
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