Why is "Picking the mechanic with the highest uplift" a common mistake when using the Promo Mechanic Selector?

Symptom: The trade plan defaulted to Feature+Display because it promised a 2.5x uplift on the proposed slot, the biggest after BOGO's 2.55x. At the default settings the post-event analysis showed -$15,618 net profit, because the fixed $2,500 placement fee plus margin dilution at 20 percent depth turned the event red. Even with a deal-seeker crowd at the feature gate it loses about $7,093. Feature+Display earns its place when the goal is brand switching or trial, which it buys at a cost you can see before the event. Fix: **Compare Net Profit, not Uplift, and read the context.** 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 decides whether the trade dollar earned a return. The retailer and the shopper base change every result, and the objective changes the winner. Use the comparison table, not the bar chart, and set the context you are actually planning.

Why is "Defaulting to TPR because it has no fixed cost" a common mistake when using the Promo Mechanic Selector?

Symptom: The Sales team picked TPR because it carries zero fixed mechanic fee and the 20 percent depth felt normal versus the retailer's last calendar. The math at the default settings showed -$14,520 net profit per event. The net share of uplift was 40 percent (only 40 of every 100 extra units were new) and the pantry-loading risk score was 55 out of 100, 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 every unit sold on deal that is not genuinely new. On this pack a TPR pays out far more on the subsidized base (shoppers who would have bought anyway at full price) than it earns on incremental sales. At the default settings it gives away about $15,968 on packs that were not genuinely new, while its 4,000 new packs earn about $1,448. The 'no fixed fee' framing hides the much larger variable margin give-away. Always compare Net Profit, not just out-of-pocket fees.

Why is "Ignoring Display-Only because it has no discount story for the retailer" a common mistake when using the Promo Mechanic Selector?

Symptom: The retailer pushed back on a Display-Only proposal because their shopper-marketing template requires a visible price reduction. The team ran a 20 percent TPR instead. The post-event scorecard showed Display would have earned +$2,008 per event, the TPR earned -$14,520. 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 slots are price-led. Bring this tool's comparison table to the JBP, show the Net Profit row for all six mechanics at the proposed depth, and walk the retailer through the math. If the retailer needs a visible price story, offer the targeted coupon, which keeps its full value at their shelf while Display carries the profit.

Why is "Trusting headline uplift on TPR without measuring how much of it was new" a common mistake when using the Promo Mechanic Selector?

Symptom: The retailer scorecard reported a 2.0x uplift on the Q2 TPR. Sales celebrated. Six months later, the post-event analysis against a properly built baseline showed a net share of uplift of 40 percent, not the assumed 50 percent, and the event lost about $14,520 of the brand's profit per slot. Fix: **Volume uplift is not profit success.** TPR's net share of uplift (net incremental volume / uplift) drops as depth rises (50.5% at 5 percent, 40% at 20 percent, 33% at 30 percent, 26% at 40 percent in this model). Without measuring how much of the uplift is genuinely new, every TPR analysis is a guess. Cross-reference with the **Promo Baseline Estimator** tool (TPO Lesson 3), which builds the baseline upstream and reports the share of promoted volume above baseline. This tool sits downstream and starts from each mechanic's net share of uplift.

Why is "Treating profit as the only goal a promotion can have" a common mistake when using the Promo Mechanic Selector?

Symptom: The deck concluded 'Display-Only always wins' and applied it to every promotion on the calendar. On profit the deck was right: on this pack Display-Only is the most profitable mechanic in every context the tool offers, from about +$733 to +$4,230 an event. But two of the briefs were not about profit. The account plan needed shoppers won from a competitor, and at the default settings Display-Only wins only 747 packs from competitors against a target of 4,000, while Feature+Display wins 4,713 for a loss of about $15,618. The loyalty brief on a loyal-heavy base went unmet too: Display-Only adds about 636 units of extra consumption against a target of 1,000, and the targeted coupon reaches it for a loss of about $6,615. Fix: **Name the objective before you crown a mechanic.** On profit, Display-Only wins on this pack. Change the objective and the winner moves. Brand switching at the default settings goes to Feature+Display, and pantry loading with deal seekers at a 15 percent depth goes to BOGO (about $23,854 for 7,241 stockpiled packs). Loyalty on a loyal-heavy base goes to the targeted coupon, and each of the three comes at a loss you can see before you sign. Set the retailer, the shopper base and the objective to the account and the brief you are actually planning, then decide whether the goal is worth what the tool says it costs.

Free tool · no login required

Promo Mechanic Selector

Compare TPR, BOGO, Multi-buy, Display-Only, Feature+Display, and a targeted digital coupon on a mainstream biscuit SKU, then watch the winning mechanic move as you change the objective, and every number move with the retailer and the shopper base. The same interactive model the full RGM Academy course uses for TPO Lesson 5, no sign-in, no paywall.

Updated 14 October 2026Extracted from the Trade Promotion Optimization module, lesson 5: Promotion Mechanic Selection

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Guided walkthrough

Explore the tool, from setup to common mistakes

Five short sections explain the scenario, what each control does, how to read the output, and the mistakes to avoid. Open whichever helps. The tool above works without them.

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. The shelf price is $4.99, which the retailer sets. The retailer keeps about 25 percent ($1.25) and pays you $3.74, and your everyday trade terms take 7.5 percent of that ($0.28). That leaves you $3.46 of Net Sales a pack, and after the $2.10 unit cost a full‑price pack earns you $1.36, 39.3 percent of Net Sales. On a promoted pack the retailer keeps its usual cash margin, so you fund the whole cut the shopper sees: 20 percent off is about $1.00 of your money on every pack sold on deal. Baseline is 5,000 units/week, on a two‑week event. The Sales team's draft has a TPR template, the Customer Marketing playbook has a multi‑buy template, the Category team is pushing Feature+Display, and Shopper Marketing wants to trial a targeted app coupon. Each lands very differently on the P&L, and the right one depends on the account and on what the promotion is for.

Your job is to compare all six mechanics side by side. Find which one earns the most net profit at the account you are actually planning, and which one buys the goal when the goal is not profit. Then bring a mechanic recommendation to the JBP that the retailer will accept and Finance will sign off on. The tool makes the point most decks miss: the right mechanic depends on the retailer, the shopper base and the objective as much as on the discount depth.

Your objective

Find which of the six mechanics earns the highest net profit at the default settings (a high‑low retailer, a balanced shopper base, 20 percent funded depth), then change the retailer and the shopper base and watch every result move while Display‑Only stays the most profitable. Then switch the objective from Profit to another goal and watch the winner change, step through the BOGO constructions and Multi‑buy price points, and see where the targeted coupon fits.

Key assumptions

The tool models a single SKU at a single retailer event in isolation. No portfolio cannibalization, no competitive promo overlap, no halo to non‑promo packs. Cross‑SKU effects sit in the TPO Lesson 2 Source‑of‑Volume lesson.
Context moves every result. A high‑low account passes your full funded cut to the shelf, an everyday‑low‑price account banks part of it as margin (about a third), so each genuinely new pack costs you far more there. The shopper base changes the response too: deal seekers respond most to price mechanics, convenience shoppers reward visibility, and on a loyal‑heavy base most promo volume would have been bought anyway. On profit, Display‑Only stays the most profitable mechanic in every context on this pack. On the other four objectives the winner moves with the retailer and the shopper base as well.
The funded‑depth slider drives only TPR, Feature+Display, and the targeted coupon. BOGO and Multi‑buy carry a structural depth set by their own picker (a Buy 1 Get 1 half price is about 25 percent off, a 3 for $12 basket is about 20 percent), so they do not move with the slider. Display‑Only ignores depth entirely because it has no price cut.
Net share of uplift is net incremental volume divided by uplift: of the extra units above normal sales, the share that was genuinely new. It is fixed per mechanic at default depth and falls as the slider deepens. The targeted coupon is highest at 75 percent, because it reaches the shoppers most likely to respond. Display‑Only stays at 70 percent at every depth, because a paid display tends to catch shoppers who are new to the category. TPR is lowest at 40 percent, because loyal shoppers see a visible price cut first, and they were buying anyway or simply buy earlier.
Pantry‑loading risk at the default settings, scored out of 100, runs highest for TPR (55) and BOGO (54), then Multi‑buy (40) and Feature+Display (35), lowest for Display‑Only (20) and the targeted coupon (15). The risk shown here is qualitative. The downstream post‑promo dip is modeled in the Promo ROI Calculator at TPO Lesson 1.
Fixed cost per event is built into each mechanic: TPR none, Multi‑buy $200, BOGO $500, targeted coupon $1,500 (a flat platform fee that never scales with the retailer), Display‑Only $1,800, Feature+Display $2,500. These are the tool's own assumptions rather than measured industry figures, and they matter most at shallow depths, where the discount itself costs little.

5.2Controls & toggles

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

Control	Range	Default	What it changes
Retailer profile	High-Low or Everyday Low Price	High-Low (passes your full funding to the shelf)	Sets the pass‑through and the promo vehicles. High‑Low runs a weekly flyer and passes your funded cut straight to the shelf. Everyday Low Price runs no flyer (so Feature+Display cannot run there) and banks about a third of every funded cut as its own margin, so the shopper sees a shallower deal than you pay for. The targeted coupon is the one price vehicle that reaches the shopper at face value at either account.
Shopper base	Balanced, Deal seekers, Convenience, Loyal-heavy	Balanced	Who shops the account. Deal seekers amplify price mechanics and features and lift their net share of uplift (the share of the extra units that is genuinely new). Convenience shoppers reward visibility and barely respond to price, so a cut mostly subsidizes buyers you already had. A loyal‑heavy base drags net share of uplift down on every mechanic because most of the volume is people who were coming anyway.
Promotional objective	Profit, Brand switching, Pantry loading, Trial, Loyalty	Profit	Choose what the tool ranks the mechanics on. Profit picks the highest net profit. The other four each set a target. Brand switching needs 4,000 or more packs won from competitors, pantry loading 6,000 or more stockpiled packs, and trial 950 or more new triers. Loyalty needs 1,000 or more units of extra consumption with no more than 2,500 stockpiled packs. Among the mechanics that reach the target, the one that costs you least wins, and the verdict line tells you what the event costs you, which is the price of the goal. So the winning mechanic changes with the job you are hiring the promotion to do. Loyalty on a loyal‑heavy base, for example, goes to the targeted coupon at a cost of about $6,615, while Display‑Only stays the most profitable mechanic.
Funded Discount Depth	5% to 40% in 1% steps	20% (the tool's starting point)	The percentage price reduction you fund on TPR, Feature+Display, and the targeted coupon. Display‑Only, BOGO, and Multi‑buy ignore the slider. At an everyday‑low‑price account only part of what you fund reaches the shelf. Feature+Display earns its flyer feature only at 15 percent or deeper, so below that it pays the slot fee and earns no feature.
Structured price points	BOGO: B1G1 half (25%), B2G1 free (33%), B1G1 free (50%). Multi-buy: 3 for $13.50 to 3 for $9.99	BOGO = Buy 1 Get 1 half price. Multi-buy = 3 for $12	BOGO and Multi‑buy are built as real constructions, not a free dial. Pick the BOGO construction and the Multi‑buy basket price, and each carries its own effective depth. The deeper constructions give away a lot: a Buy 1 Get 1 free is a full 50 percent cut and loses money fast on this SKU. The .99 Multi‑buy prices ($12.99, $10.99, $9.99) end just under a round dollar, so many shoppers read the basket total as the lower dollar amount.
Chart Metric	5 metrics: Net Profit per Event, Uplift Factor, Net Share of Uplift, Cost per Incremental Unit, Pantry Loading Risk	Net Profit per Event	Re‑pivots the bar chart to the chosen dimension. The comparison table shows all metrics for all six mechanics at once, so the chart is for visual emphasis on one dimension at a time. Net Profit is the headline number, and Cost per Incremental Unit is the one Finance asks for. Pantry Loading Risk scores how hard a mechanic pushes shoppers to stock up, which costs you sales in the weeks after the deal (the tool draws that dip over the next two weeks), and scanner data shows that loss only after the event.

5.3Step-by-step exploration

8-step guided exploration of the scenario.

Start at the default settings and find the only profitable mechanic
The tool opens at its default settings: High‑Low retailer, Balanced base, 20% funded depth, chart on Net Profit per Event. Read the comparison table. Display‑Only: +$2,008. Targeted coupon: -$6,413. Multi‑buy (3 for $12): -$12,010. TPR: -$14,520. Feature+Display: -$15,618. BOGO (Buy 1 Get 1 half price): -$21,877. Display‑Only is the only mechanic earning money here, and the spread between best (Display +$2,008) and worst (BOGO -$21,877) is about $23,900 on the same SKU.
Expected outcome: Display‑Only earns +$2,008 / 1.4x uplift / 70% net share of uplift / pantry‑loading risk 20 out of 100 / $0.64 cost per incremental unit, where net share of uplift is the share of the extra units that was genuinely new. The tool grades that result GOOD: it grades the best mechanic's profit EXCELLENT above $2,500 and GOOD above $1,000. Every other mechanic is in the red. Profitable mechanic count = 1 of 6. The pattern that is easiest to miss is right here in the default: visibility, not a discount, is the only profitable mechanic at this depth, and it wins by a wide margin (+$2,008 against the next‑best of -$6,413).
Change the shopper base and see what Feature+Display buys
Switch the shopper base to Deal seekers and set the funded depth to 15%, the feature gate (the shallowest deal the retailer will put in its flyer). Feature+Display now brings in 9,694 genuinely new packs out of 23,750 sold, more than four times Display‑Only's 2,210, and loses about $7,093 doing it. Display‑Only still earns about +$1,206 with this crowd. Push the depth to 25 percent and Feature+Display loses about $23,447. The deeper cut costs you the bigger discount on every pack, including the packs that would have sold anyway. Drop it to 14 percent and you lose the flyer feature, because the retailer will not feature a deal below 15 percent, and the loss grows to about $8,084.
Expected outcome: At Hi‑Lo, Deal seekers, 15 percent: Display‑Only +$1,206 is still the only profitable mechanic (1 of 6 green), and Feature+Display -$7,093 buys more than four times as many new packs. Set the objective to Brand switching here and Feature+Display wins it, with 6,241 packs won from competitors against a target of 4,000, at about $1.34 per genuinely new pack. That is the trade: Feature+Display is the mechanic you buy for brand switching and trial, at a cost you can see in advance, and Display‑Only is the profit choice. The right mechanic belongs to the mechanic, the retailer, the shopper base, the depth and the objective together, so read the current context before you judge any mechanic.
Move to an EDLP account and watch the pass‑through wedge open
Switch the retailer to Everyday Low Price and the shopper base to Convenience, then fund a 25% cut. Watch the pass‑through wedge under the slider: you fund 25 percent but shoppers see only about 16 percent, because this account banks the rest as margin. TPR now loses about $14,702 while Display‑Only earns about +$4,230. Feature+Display drops out entirely (no weekly flyer to feature). The targeted coupon is the exception: it reaches the shopper at face value, so the retailer banks none of it.
Expected outcome: At EDLP, Convenience, 25 percent: Display‑Only +$4,230 wins by a distance and is graded EXCELLENT. Every mechanic that cuts the shelf price loses part of your funded cut to retailer margin (about $5,576 of the TPR's funding stays with the retailer), and the retailer keeps $0 of the coupon. Each genuinely new pack from the TPR costs you about $16.38 here, more than twice the $7.40 it costs at a high‑low account with the same shoppers and the same 25 percent, because about a third of what you fund never reaches the shelf. When funded and shelf depth differ, name the wedge in plain words: you fund one number, the shopper sees a smaller one, and the retailer banks the difference.
Work the structured price points for BOGO and Multi‑buy
Back at the default settings, use the BOGO construction and Multi‑buy price point pickers. These two mechanics do not follow the slider, they hold the depth of the construction you pick. Step the BOGO picker: Buy 1 Get 1 half price (about 25% off) loses $21,877, Buy 2 Get 1 free (about 33%) loses $39,465, and Buy 1 Get 1 free (a full 50%) loses $91,179. Step the Multi‑buy picker: 3 for $13.50 (about 10% off) loses $4,188, and it deepens to 3 for $9.99 (about 33%) losing $31,202.
Expected outcome: A deeper give‑away almost never pays for itself on a pack that earns you $1.36 at full price, 39.3 percent of Net Sales. The shallowest Multi‑buy (3 for $13.50) is the least‑bad price construction at the default settings, and the deepest BOGO is the single worst move on the board. The Multi‑buy price points are threshold‑ended ($12.99, $10.99, $9.99) so the basket total lands just under a round number, which is where the perceived value lives.
Push the slider to 30% and watch the depth‑driven mechanics crater
Set the shopper base back to Balanced and drag the funded depth to 30%. Feature+Display falls to -$35,323, TPR drops sharply to -$31,741 with a pantry‑loading risk score of 67 out of 100, and the targeted coupon falls to -$12,351. Display‑Only stays at +$2,008 because it has no price cut to scale, and BOGO and Multi‑buy hold their structural -$21,877 and -$12,010 because the slider does not touch them. This is the value‑destruction zone for every depth‑driven mechanic.
Expected outcome: At 30 percent, only TPR, Feature+Display, and the coupon deepen, and all three are deep in the red. The guardrail for a trade planner: on a pack that earns you 39.3 percent of Net Sales, a deeper funded cut gives away more on every pack that would have sold anyway. At 30 percent the cut (about $1.50 a pack) is bigger than the $1.36 a full‑price pack earns you. From there every pack sold on deal loses money, the genuinely new ones included, however healthy the headline uplift looks. Profitable mechanic count stays 1 of 6.
Change the objective to Loyalty and let the coupon win
Set the shopper base to Loyal‑heavy and change the objective from Profit to Loyalty. The scoreboard changes. Loyalty needs at least 1,000 units of extra consumption from the shoppers you already have, with no more than 2,500 packs stockpiled. The targeted coupon is the only mechanic that gets there, with about 1,088 units of extra consumption and 457 packs stockpiled. It gets the loyal buyers you already have to consume more without teaching every shopper in the store to wait for a deal. Display‑Only is still the most profitable mechanic (about +$811), but it adds only about 636 units of extra consumption, so it is not the loyalty winner. The objective decides which number counts.
Expected outcome: On a loyal‑heavy base with the Loyalty objective, the coupon wins on loyalty while Display‑Only wins on profit. The coupon's net of about -$6,615 is the price of the goal, about $2.78 for each genuinely new pack, and the verdict line shows it beside the winner so you can decide whether more consumption from your loyal buyers is worth that money. This is the core of mechanic selection: the same context can crown two different mechanics depending on what you are trying to do. Read the objective first, then judge the winner by that objective and by what it costs.
Switch to Cost per Incremental Unit and rank the six
Reset to the default settings and click Cost per Incremental Unit in the metric selector. The bar chart re‑pivots. Display‑Only $0.64, Feature+Display $2.16, targeted coupon $2.81, BOGO $2.96, Multi‑buy $3.12, TPR $3.99. Compare each against the margin that incremental unit actually earns, which is not the same line for every mechanic. Display‑Only never cuts price, so a genuinely new pack earns you the full $1.36 and its $0.64 is comfortably clear. Every price mechanic earns less, because you fund the whole cut: at 20 percent funded depth about $1.00 of your $1.36 goes on the discount, so the promoted pack earns about $0.36. Feature+Display ($2.16) and the coupon ($2.81) cost about six and nearly eight times that per new pack, and TPR ($3.99) costs about eleven times as much. Even the full‑price $1.36 sits below the cheapest price mechanic.
Expected outcome: Cost per incremental unit at the default settings: Display $0.64, Feature+Display $2.16, coupon $2.81, BOGO $2.96, Multi‑buy $3.12, TPR $3.99. Only Display‑Only clears its own margin line, and it clears it by a distance, because it keeps the full $1.36. Every price mechanic sits above the roughly $0.36 its promoted pack earns (about $0.11 for the Buy 1 Get 1 half price, which is a 25 percent cut), which is exactly why five of the six lose money here. A large US benchmark by Nielsen found roughly a third of promotions discounted 10 percent or more paying for themselves, but it counts retail sales. This tool counts only your own margin, with you funding the whole cut out of your $1.36, so here the only event that pays is the display with no price cut. Every price cut in the tool needs more new packs than the promotion creates. The mechanic with the biggest uplift (BOGO at 2.55x) is only fourth on cost efficiency.
Land the JBP recommendation
Pin Display‑Only as the default template: +$2,008 per event at the default settings, immune to depth, and the most profitable mechanic in every context on this pack (from about +$733 to +$4,230 an event). Carry two alternates matched to the objective. For brand switching or trial, Feature+Display is the mechanic to run, at a cost you know before you sign. At a deal‑seeker account with a flyer, at the 15 percent feature gate, it brings in 9,694 genuinely new packs and wins 6,241 from competitors for a loss of about $7,093. It also gives the retailer a visible deal to advertise. For a loyalty objective on a loyal base, the targeted coupon is the tool, because the shopper gets its full value at either kind of retailer and it does little to make your regular buyers stock up. Build the recommendation around the context and the objective, not mechanic preference.
Expected outcome: Recommendation: 'At this account, Display‑Only earns +$2,008 per event and is the only profitable mechanic at the proposed 20 percent depth. Where the goal is brand switching or trial and the retailer runs a flyer, Feature+Display at the 15 percent feature gate is the mechanic to run, and we know its price: about $7,093 an event with a deal‑led shopper base. The targeted app coupon is the tool for a loyalty objective. Avoid TPR and deep BOGO at the proposed depth.' Over a year, across 8 SKUs with 6 events each, moving from a calendar that runs TPR by default to one led by Display and matched to each account is worth roughly +$790K of your own 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 +$2,008 default profit is a little more than its $1,800 fixed placement cost, and it is the only mechanic with a positive return at the default settings. Read this before any other column, but read it against the current retailer and shopper base, because both move it.
Uplift Factor	Volume during promo / Baseline volume	Headline volume number sales teams gravitate to. High uplift without a high net share of uplift usually signals forward‑buying, not real new demand. TPR's 2.0x uplift at default sounds healthy, but only 40 percent of the extra units are genuinely new, so most of the extra volume is loyal shoppers buying earlier than they would have or switching off your other packs.
Net Share of Uplift	Net incremental units / Uplift x 100, where uplift = total promo volume minus baseline volume	Of the extra units above normal sales, the share that is genuinely new demand. 50 percent is a rule‑of‑thumb cut: below it, most of the extra units are your own shoppers buying early, switching off your other packs, or buying here instead of in another store, and above it the event is genuinely expanding demand. It does not tell you whether the event paid. That test compares incrementality (net incremental units / everything sold on deal) with its break‑even (discount per unit / regular gross profit per unit). For a 20 percent cut on this pack, about $1.00 against $1.36 of regular gross profit per pack, the break‑even is about 73.5 percent: nearly three of every four packs sold on deal would have to be genuinely new. The targeted coupon's 75 percent is the highest because it reaches likely responders, Display‑Only's 70 percent is next because paid placement self‑selects new‑category shoppers, and TPR's 40 percent is the lowest because the price cut is visible to loyalists first.
Cost per Incremental Unit	Total promo cost / Incremental units	Trade efficiency view Finance cares about. Compare it against the margin the incremental unit actually earns at its promoted price, not the full‑price margin. Display‑Only keeps the whole $1.36 because it never cuts price, which is why its $0.64 is so comfortably clear. Every price mechanic earns less, because you fund the whole cut the shopper sees: at 20 percent funded depth the unit earns about $0.36. Feature + Display at $2.16 and the coupon at $2.81 both cost several times that per new unit, and both lose money at the default settings. TPR's $3.99 is not close, and at the default settings no price mechanic gets under even the full‑price $1.36.
Pantry Loading Risk	Base risk for the mechanic, plus (effective shelf discount minus 20) times pantry sensitivity, kept between 5 and 90 out of 100	Qualitative indicator of how much post‑promo volume dip to expect. High‑pantry mechanics (TPR and BOGO) steal volume from the weeks after the deal, and the tool draws that dip over the next two weeks. Low‑pantry mechanics (the targeted coupon and Display‑Only) do not, because they buy real new demand rather than forward purchases. Cross‑check against the Promo ROI Calculator's Post‑Promo Dip slider when sizing the full P&L impact.

Read the comparison table as a stack of five trade‑offs across six mechanics. Net Profit answers 'did this mechanic make money?'. Uplift answers 'how much volume did it move?'. Net Share of Uplift answers 'how much of the extra volume was real new demand?'. Cost per Incremental Unit answers 'how efficiently did it convert spend to incremental sales?'. Pantry Risk answers 'will the weeks after the deal claw it back?'.

The Display‑Only row is depth‑independent, so it never moves as you drag the slider. TPR, Feature+Display, and the coupon move with the slider, while BOGO and Multi‑buy move only when you change their construction. The retailer and the shopper base move every row. On profit, Display‑Only stays on top in every context on this pack, and the winner moves with the objective, so the question worth asking is 'at this account, with this crowd, chasing this objective, which mechanic wins, and what does the goal cost?'. Cross‑reference with the Promo ROI Calculator (TPO Lesson 1) for the full P&L impact including the post‑promo dip. This tool sits upstream and answers 'which mechanic should I run?' before you ask 'will this mechanic, depth, and uplift clear the Performance Grid?'.

5.55 common mistakes to avoid

Diagnostic patterns that catch the most common misuse of this calculator.

Mistake 1Picking the mechanic with the highest uplift
Symptom: The trade plan defaulted to Feature+Display because it promised a 2.5x uplift on the proposed slot, the biggest after BOGO's 2.55x. At the default settings the post‑event analysis showed -$15,618 net profit, because the fixed $2,500 placement fee plus margin dilution at 20 percent depth turned the event red. Even with a deal‑seeker crowd at the feature gate it loses about $7,093. Feature+Display earns its place when the goal is brand switching or trial, which it buys at a cost you can see before the event.
Fix: Compare Net Profit, not Uplift, and read the context. 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 decides whether the trade dollar earned a return. The retailer and the shopper base change every result, and the objective changes the winner. Use the comparison table, not the bar chart, and set the context you are actually planning.
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 20 percent depth felt normal versus the retailer's last calendar. The math at the default settings showed -$14,520 net profit per event. The net share of uplift was 40 percent (only 40 of every 100 extra units were new) and the pantry‑loading risk score was 55 out of 100, 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 every unit sold on deal that is not genuinely new. On this pack a TPR pays out far more on the subsidized base (shoppers who would have bought anyway at full price) than it earns on incremental sales. At the default settings it gives away about $15,968 on packs that were not genuinely new, while its 4,000 new packs earn about $1,448. 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 ran a 20 percent TPR instead. The post‑event scorecard showed Display would have earned +$2,008 per event, the TPR earned -$14,520. 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 slots are price‑led. Bring this tool's comparison table to the JBP, show the Net Profit row for all six mechanics at the proposed depth, and walk the retailer through the math. If the retailer needs a visible price story, offer the targeted coupon, which keeps its full value at their shelf while Display carries the profit.
Mistake 4Trusting headline uplift on TPR without measuring how much of it was new
Symptom: The retailer scorecard reported a 2.0x uplift on the Q2 TPR. Sales celebrated. Six months later, the post‑event analysis against a properly built baseline showed a net share of uplift of 40 percent, not the assumed 50 percent, and the event lost about $14,520 of the brand's profit per slot.
Fix: Volume uplift is not profit success. TPR's net share of uplift (net incremental volume / uplift) drops as depth rises (50.5% at 5 percent, 40% at 20 percent, 33% at 30 percent, 26% at 40 percent in this model). Without measuring how much of the uplift is genuinely new, every TPR analysis is a guess. Cross‑reference with the Promo Baseline Estimator tool (TPO Lesson 3), which builds the baseline upstream and reports the share of promoted volume above baseline. This tool sits downstream and starts from each mechanic's net share of uplift.
Mistake 5Treating profit as the only goal a promotion can have
Symptom: The deck concluded 'Display‑Only always wins' and applied it to every promotion on the calendar. On profit the deck was right: on this pack Display‑Only is the most profitable mechanic in every context the tool offers, from about +$733 to +$4,230 an event. But two of the briefs were not about profit. The account plan needed shoppers won from a competitor, and at the default settings Display‑Only wins only 747 packs from competitors against a target of 4,000, while Feature+Display wins 4,713 for a loss of about $15,618. The loyalty brief on a loyal‑heavy base went unmet too: Display‑Only adds about 636 units of extra consumption against a target of 1,000, and the targeted coupon reaches it for a loss of about $6,615.
Fix: Name the objective before you crown a mechanic. On profit, Display‑Only wins on this pack. Change the objective and the winner moves. Brand switching at the default settings goes to Feature+Display, and pantry loading with deal seekers at a 15 percent depth goes to BOGO (about $23,854 for 7,241 stockpiled packs). Loyalty on a loyal‑heavy base goes to the targeted coupon, and each of the three comes at a loss you can see before you sign. Set the retailer, the shopper base and the objective to the account and the brief you are actually planning, then decide whether the goal is worth what the tool says it costs.

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