In this article we will cover how to recognize Cannibalization with INCRMNTAL Explorer.
Cannibalization is a term referring to paid marketing getting credit for results that you would likely be already getting either organically or from other paid activities.
How does cannibalization look like ?
In the above example - while tracking would show you that the newly opened channel created 10,000 conversions - incrementality would show you 0, given the fact the overall conversions remained the same as before
Using INCRMNTAL, spotting cannibalization is one of the most common use cases.
How to Spot Cannibalization with INCMNTAL Explorer?
The INCRMNTAL Explorer is designed to help you identify these situations by providing you with true incremental impact of your Channels.
Step 1: Start with the Contribution Values
In the Contribution view, you see the total incremental value a channel or campaign delivered over time, given its full spend history. You can read more about Contribution here.
1. Look for Channels with high spend share but relatively poor contribution
2. Look for Channels where you increased the spend and your performance declined.
Meaning, increasing this channel's spend did not generate more value.
Both of the examples suggest that these Channels are Cannibalizing your performance.
Step 2: Look at the Marginal values
Cannibalization is often not immediate, it emerges gradually.
Explorer helps you detect this by showing how marginal impact evolves across multiple spend changes.
Even if your Contribution value is within your target, it is important to play attention to the Marginal value developments. Marginal refers to the estimated cost for the next result, which tells us how much we would need to pay to achieve one more conversion at the current level of spend.
In other words, if we spend an additional dollar, how much would the next conversion cost us. You can read more about Marginal values here.
If you see that the Marginal values are low, and far from your Contribution values - it is a clear sign of possible saturation. Meaning, if you increase this Channel, it won't bring you incremental value, but will cannibalize your traffic.
This is especially useful for budget planning and reallocation, as it helps define where scaling should stop.
For any question please contact support@incrmntal.com , or open a support Ticket here