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Promo Mechanic Selector

Compare TPR, BOGO, Multi-buy, Display-Only, and Feature+Display at the same discount depth on a typical biscuit SKU, then see which mechanic earns the highest net profit. The same interactive model the full RGM Academy course uses for TPO Lesson 5, no auth, no paywall.

Updated 26 April 2026Extracted from the Trade Promotion Optimisation module, lesson 5: Promotion Mechanic Selection

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Scenario walkthrough

Tap any section to explore in detail

5.1Scenario setup

The starting SKU, market, and assumptions the model makes.

You are a Customer Marketing Manager preparing a Q3 trade plan for a national grocery account on a Mainstream Biscuits 250g SKU. Regular price $4.99, unit cost $2.10, full margin $2.89/unit (57.9% gross margin), baseline 5,000 units/week. The retailer wants two weeks of activity at a typical 20% discount. The Sales team's draft has a TPR template, the Customer Marketing playbook has a multi-buy template, the Category team is pushing for Feature+Display. Each lands very differently on the P&L.

Your job: compare all five mechanics side by side at the proposed depth, identify which one earns the most net profit on this SKU, and bring a mechanic-and-depth recommendation to the JBP that the retailer will accept and the Finance team will sign off on.

Your objective

Use the calculator to find which of the five mechanics earns the highest net profit at the proposed 20 percent discount depth, then test how the verdict changes when depth moves to 10 percent and 30 percent, and identify which mechanic carries the lowest cost per incremental unit and the lowest pantry-loading risk.

Key assumptions

The calculator models a single SKU at a single retailer event in isolation. No portfolio cannibalisation, no competitive promo overlap, no halo to non-promo packs. Cross-SKU effects sit in the TPO L2 Source-of-Volume lesson.
Each mechanic has its own uplift response curve calibrated against typical FMCG biscuit-class behaviour. TPR uplift starts at 2.0x at 20 percent depth and scales linearly with depth. Display-Only is depth-independent at 1.4x because it has no price cut and only buys visibility.
Incrementality for each mechanic is fixed at default depth and varies with depth. Deeper cut, lower incrementality, more loyalist subsidy. Display-Only is constant at 70 percent because paid placement self-selects new-category shoppers, not existing loyalists.
Pantry-loading risk is highest for TPR (55 percent at default depth), lowest for Display-Only (20 percent), then Feature+Display (35 percent), Multi-buy (40 percent), BOGO (50 percent). The pantry risk surfaced here is qualitative. Downstream P&L impact (post-promo volume dip) is modelled in the Promo ROI Calculator tool at TPO Lesson 1.
Fixed cost per event is built into each mechanic. TPR has none, Multi-buy adds $200, BOGO adds $500, Display-Only adds $1,800, Feature+Display adds $2,500. These are typical FMCG ranges and dominate the math at low discount depths where margin dilution is small.

5.2Controls & toggles

Every input the calculator exposes, its range, and what it changes.

Control	Range	Default	What it changes
Discount Depth	5% to 40% in 1% steps	20% (typical FMCG biscuit promo template)	The percentage price reduction applied to four of the five mechanics. Display-Only ignores depth because it has no price cut. Doubling depth roughly doubles margin given away per subsidised unit but typically less than doubles uplift, so the higher the depth, the worse the ROI on every price-cut mechanic. The over-discount warning fires at 30 percent and above.
Chart Metric	5 metrics: Net Profit per Event, Uplift Factor, Incrementality, Cost per Incremental Unit, Pantry Loading Risk	Net Profit per Event	Re-pivots the bar chart to the chosen dimension. The comparison table on the right shows all five metrics for all five mechanics simultaneously, so the bar chart is for visual emphasis on a single dimension at a time. Net Profit is the headline. Cost per Incremental Unit is what Finance asks for. Pantry Loading Risk is the silent multi-week profit killer that scanner data exposes after the event ends.

5.3Step-by-step exploration

7-step guided exploration of the scenario.

Read the default state to find the only profitable mechanic
The calculator initialises at 20% discount depth with the chart on Net Profit per Event. Read the comparison table on the right. Display-Only: +$6,292 net profit, 70% incrementality, 20% pantry risk. Feature+Display: -$2,307. BOGO: -$4,422. Multi-buy: -$5,448. TPR: -$8,400. Display-Only is the only mechanic earning money at the proposed depth. The spread between best (Display +$6,292) and worst (TPR -$8,400) is roughly $14,700 on the same SKU at the same baseline.
Expected outcome: Display-Only earns **+$6,292 / 1.4x uplift / 70% incrementality / 20% pantry / $0.64 cost per incremental unit**. Every price-cut mechanic is in the red. **Profitable mechanic count = 1 of 5**. The pattern most FMCG planners under-test is here in the default: visibility, not discount, is the only profitable mechanic at this depth, and it is profitable by a wide margin (+$6,292 against the next-best of -$2,307).
Pull depth to 10% and watch three mechanics flip green
Drag the Discount Depth slider to 10%. Display-Only stays unchanged at +$6,292 (it ignores depth). BOGO crosses to +$251. Feature+Display lands +$1,762. Both are now profitable. TPR (-$1,553) and Multi-buy (-$1,572) stay negative but are close to break-even. The takeaway: shallow plus a visibility-led mechanic is the working template most categories never test. Display-Only remains the highest-profit mechanic by a factor of 3.6x over the next-best (Feature+Display).
Expected outcome: At 10% depth: Display **+$6,292**, Feat+Disp **+$1,762**, BOGO **+$251**, Multi-buy **-$1,572**, TPR **-$1,553**. **Profitable mechanic count = 3 of 5**. Cost per incremental unit at 10%: Display $0.64, Feat+Disp $1.99, BOGO $2.30, TPR $3.22, Multi-buy $3.28. Visibility-led mechanics (Display, Feat+Disp) take the top two cost-efficiency slots.
Push depth to 30% and watch the over-discount warning fire
Drag the slider to 30%. The red over-discount warning appears below the table. Every price-cut mechanic loses $15K to $24K per event. TPR pantry risk hits 67%. Display-Only stays unchanged at +$6,292 because it carries no margin dilution cost at any depth. The warning surfaces a guardrail every trade planner should know: deep cuts on a 57.9% gross margin SKU never recover the margin they give away, even when the headline uplift looks healthy.
Expected outcome: At 30% depth: Display **+$6,292** (unchanged), Feat+Disp **-$16,672**, Multi-buy **-$15,470**, BOGO **-$18,105**, TPR **-$23,663**. TPR's pantry risk jumps to 67%, the bar turns red. The warning text reads: 'every price-cut mechanic is destroying value'. Profitable mechanic count = 1 of 5, even at the deepest typical FMCG depth. The Display-Only economics are unchanged because it has no price cut to scale.
Switch to Cost per Incremental Unit at default depth
Reset to 20% depth, then click Cost per Incremental Unit in the metric selector. The bar chart re-pivots. Display-Only $0.64, Feature+Display $2.16, BOGO $2.60, Multi-buy $3.13, TPR $3.99. The mechanic with the highest uplift (Feat+Disp at 2.5x) is third on cost efficiency. The mechanic with the lowest uplift (Display at 1.4x) is first by a factor of 3. Cost efficiency rank is the inverse of volume rank, which most planning decks never show simultaneously.
Expected outcome: Cost per incremental unit ranking at default 20% depth: Display $0.64, Feat+Disp $2.16, BOGO $2.60, Multi-buy $3.13, TPR $3.99. The full margin per unit is $2.89 (RSP $4.99 minus COGS $2.10). Display-Only's cost is below full margin, so every incremental unit is profit-positive even before adding the uplift bar. TPR's cost ($3.99) is **$1.10 above** full margin, so every incremental unit it generates is loss-making at default depth.
Switch to Pantry Loading Risk and slide depth across the range
Click Pantry Loading Risk. Drag depth from 10% to 40%. Watch TPR. Pantry risk: 43% / 55% / 67% / 79%. Now watch Display-Only. 20% at every depth, because Display-Only has no price cut to scale. Pantry risk is the silent multi-week profit killer that scanner data exposes after the event ends. High-pantry mechanics steal volume from the next 4 to 6 weeks, low-pantry mechanics do not.
Expected outcome: TPR pantry risk by depth: 43% / 55% / 67% / 79%. Display-Only stays at 20% across all depths. Multi-buy: 33% / 40% / 47% / 54%. BOGO: 42% / 50% / 58% / 66%. Feat+Disp: 29% / 35% / 41% / 47%. Pantry risk rises with depth on every price-cut mechanic. Cross-reference with the Promo ROI Calculator's Post-Promo Dip slider: a 67% pantry risk at 30% TPR depth typically translates to a 20 to 25% post-promo dip lasting 2 to 3 weeks in heavy-promotion categories like biscuits, snacks, and frozen.
Switch to Incrementality and find the self-selecting mechanic
Click Incrementality. Hold depth at default 20%. Display-Only 70%, Feat+Disp 58%, Multi-buy 55%, BOGO 52%, TPR 40%. Now drag depth from 5 to 40 percent. Display stays at 70% (constant). TPR drops from 50.5% at 5% depth to 26% at 40% depth. Deep cuts attract loyalists, not new shoppers. Mechanic choice is also incrementality choice, and the steepest incrementality decay sits on the cheapest-fixed-cost mechanic.
Expected outcome: Incrementality at default 20% depth: Display 70%, Feat+Disp 58%, Multi-buy 55%, BOGO 52%, TPR 40%. TPR incrementality drops by 0.7 percentage points per point of depth (50.5% at 5%, 47% at 10%, 40% at 20%, 33% at 30%, 26% at 40%). Display-Only's incrementality is constant because the mechanism (paid visibility) self-selects new-category shoppers regardless of price. Display is the only mechanic that does not lose incrementality as depth rises.
Land on the JBP recommendation
Pin Display-Only at 20% depth as the baseline option (+$6,292 per event). Test two alternates. Feature+Display at 10% depth delivers +$1,762, the second-highest profit, broader retailer feature support, and visibility plus a modest discount story for the shopper marketing template. Multi-buy at 10% depth delivers -$1,572, near break-even, gates incrementality via the multi-buy mechanism, but does not earn money on this SKU at the chosen depth. Build the recommendation around the math, not mechanic preference.
Expected outcome: Recommendation: 'Of the five mechanics tested at 20 percent depth, only Display-Only earns money at +$6,292 per event. The four price-cut mechanics destroy $2K to $8K each. At 10 percent depth, Display still wins ($6,292), Feature+Display crosses to +$1,762 (option B), and BOGO is barely profitable at +$251. Recommendation: Display-Only at 20 percent as the primary template, Feature+Display at 10 percent as the depth-led-feature alternative for periods needing a visible price story. Avoid TPR at the proposed depth.' Annualised across 8 SKUs at 6 events each, switching from a TPR-default calendar to a Display-led calendar is worth roughly **+$700K** of incremental gross profit at this baseline.

5.4Reading the output

Every KPI, the formula behind it, and how to interpret a positive or negative value.

KPI	Formula	How to read it
Net Profit per Event	Incremental Margin minus Margin Dilution minus Fixed Cost per Event	The number Finance cares about. Negative means the mechanic destroyed gross profit on this SKU, positive means it created it. Display-Only's $6,292 default profit is roughly 3.5 times its $1,800 fixed placement cost, the highest absolute and relative return of any mechanic at this depth. Read this BEFORE any other column.
Uplift Factor	Volume during promo / Baseline volume	Headline volume number sales teams gravitate to. High uplift without high incrementality usually signals forward-buying, not real new demand. TPR's 2.0x uplift at default sounds healthy, but only 40% is incremental, so 4,000 units are genuinely new and 16,000 are subsidised loyal buyers who would have purchased at full price.
Incrementality	Incremental units / Uplift volume × 100, where uplift volume = total promo volume minus baseline volume	Share of the uplift that is genuinely new demand. Below about 45% you are subsidising existing buyers, above 60% you are truly expanding the category. Display-Only's 70% is the highest because paid placement self-selects new-category shoppers. TPR's 40% is the lowest because the price cut is visible to existing loyalists first and they load their pantries.
Cost per Incremental Unit	Total promo cost / Incremental units	Trade efficiency view Finance cares about. Compare against full margin per unit ($2.89 on this SKU). Below $2.89 means every incremental unit is profit-positive, above $2.89 means every incremental unit is loss-making (which is true for TPR at default $3.99). Display-Only's $0.64 is the only mechanic well clear of the margin line at default depth.
Pantry Loading Risk	Mechanic-specific base risk plus (effective discount minus 20) times pantry sensitivity, clamped 5% to 90%	Qualitative indicator of how much post-promo volume dip to expect. High-pantry mechanics (TPR and BOGO at deep depths) steal volume from the next 4 to 6 weeks. Low-pantry mechanics (Display, Multi-buy at moderate depths) do not. Cross-check against the Promo ROI Calculator's Post-Promo Dip slider when sizing the full P&L impact, including the multi-week tail.

Read the comparison table as a stack of five trade-offs. Net Profit answers 'did this mechanic make money?'. Uplift answers 'how much volume did it move?'. Incrementality answers 'how much of that was real new demand?'. Cost per Incremental Unit answers 'how efficiently did it convert spend to incremental sales?'. Pantry Risk answers 'will the next 4 to 6 weeks claw it back?'.

The Display-Only row is unique. It is depth-independent (no price cut), so its column never moves as you drag the slider. Every other mechanic moves with depth, mostly downward on Net Profit. Cross-reference with the Promo ROI Calculator (TPO Lesson 1) for the full P&L impact including post-promo dip. This tool sits upstream of that one and answers the question 'which mechanic should I run?' before you ask 'will this specific mechanic, depth, and uplift combination clear the Performance Grid?'.

5.55 common mistakes to avoid

Diagnostic patterns that catch most misuse of this calculator in practice.

Mistake 1Picking the mechanic with the highest uplift
Symptom: The trade plan defaulted to Feature+Display because it delivered the highest 2.5x uplift on the proposed slot. The post-event analysis showed -$2,307 net profit at 20% depth and only +$1,762 at 10%. The uplift was real, the cost-per-incremental-unit ($2.16) was below margin, but the fixed $2,500 placement fee plus margin dilution at 20% depth turned the event red.
Fix: **Compare Net Profit, not Uplift.** Uplift is the headline volume sales teams gravitate to but it answers a question Finance does not ask. Net Profit (incremental margin minus dilution minus fixed cost) is the only number that determines whether the trade dollar earned a return. Use the comparison table on the right of this tool, not the bar chart, when picking a mechanic.
Mistake 2Defaulting to TPR because it has no fixed cost
Symptom: The Sales team picked TPR because it carries zero fixed mechanic fee and the depth (20%) felt 'normal' versus the retailer's last calendar. The bridge math at default depth showed -$8,400 net profit per event because incrementality was 40% and pantry risk was 55%, so most of the uplift was loyalists loading their shelves at a discount.
Fix: **TPR is the lowest-fixed-cost mechanic but the highest variable-cost mechanic.** Margin dilution scales with depth times subsidised volume, and a typical FMCG TPR pays out 4 to 5 times more on subsidised loyalists than on incremental sales. The 'no fixed fee' framing hides the much larger variable margin give-away. Always compare Net Profit, not just out-of-pocket fees.
Mistake 3Ignoring Display-Only because it has no discount story for the retailer
Symptom: The retailer pushed back on a Display-Only proposal because their shopper-marketing template requires a visible price reduction. The team accepted and ran a 20% TPR instead. The post-event scorecard showed Display would have earned +$6,292 per event, the TPR earned -$8,400. The retailer accepted the same Display-Only template the next quarter when the bridge math was shown.
Fix: **Display-Only is depth-independent, which is its commercial advantage.** Most retailers default to price-cut templates because their merchandising calendar slots are price-led. Bring this tool's comparison table to the JBP, show the 5-mechanic Net Profit row at 20% depth, and walk the retailer through the math. The Display-Only number is the only positive one. The retailer cares about category dollar sales, and visibility delivers them without margin damage on either side.
Mistake 4Trusting headline uplift on TPR without measuring incrementality
Symptom: The retailer scorecard reported a 2.0x uplift on the Q2 TPR. Sales celebrated. Six months later, the post-event analysis with proper incrementality controls showed actual incrementality was 28%, not the assumed 50%, and the event destroyed roughly $14K of profit per slot.
Fix: **Volume uplift is not profit success.** TPR incrementality drops as depth rises (50.5% at 5% depth, 40% at 20%, 33% at 30%, 26% at 40% in this calculator's model). Without measuring incrementality directly, every TPR analysis is a guess. Cross-reference with the **Promo Baseline Estimator** tool (TPO Lesson 3) for the upstream baseline-and-incrementality measurement. This tool sits downstream and consumes the incrementality input.
Mistake 5Comparing mechanics at different depths to make one look better
Symptom: The trade deck compared TPR at 20% (the proposed depth) against Display-Only at 30% (a strawman) to argue that TPR was 'less risky'. The bridge math at the same depth (20% across all mechanics) showed Display-Only earning +$6,292 versus TPR at -$8,400. The strawman comparison reversed the conclusion the math actually supported.
Fix: **Compare mechanics at the same discount depth.** This tool enforces it. Drag the depth slider once, all five mechanics move to the same depth simultaneously. The right comparison is 'at the depth I will actually run, which mechanic earns the most net profit?'. Anything else is depth-mechanic confounding, which masks the mechanic decision and lets weaker mechanics win on technicality.

Related concepts

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This calculator is the sandbox slice of Lesson 5: Promotion Mechanic Selection. Each of the other 7 Trade Promotion Optimization lessons teaches a complementary concept that sharpens how you read the output above.

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