🇺🇸Optimizing Mix of Local Media & Promotional Budgets

Neeraj Kulkarni, CIEK Solutions

Presented at the 6th Annual BayesiaLab Conference in Chicago, November 1-2, 2018.

Abstract

Our client, a US top 10 optical retailer, was spending significant dollars on promotion and media budgets in local markets in pursuit of aggressive growth plans in the U.S. As plans were being made to expand distribution to new markets, senior executives required greater decision support on how much to budget for promotion versus media across local markets.

Some of the key questions they were trying to solve:

• Should less money be spent on promotion and more on brand media advertising to generate growth in local markets?

• Which promotions and media have historically been high contributors to sales across all markets?

• How can media and promotional dollars be optimized locally across the top 10 key markets?

• What is the ROI on media and promotional spending, and how can it be maximized going forward to meet sales objectives?

The presentation highlights the use of Bayesialab as the primary software for understanding causal relationships among media and promotions at the local market level. We also used additional open-source programming software like R/python for data aggregation and running scenarios to optimize promotional and media budgets.

Presentation Video

About the Presenter

In 2015, Neeraj founded CIEK, where he is currently President. He leads all facets of the company that help clients optimize marketing investments by integrating experiential knowledge with historical data to create actionable, predictive strategies and predict business outcomes with certainty. In 2017, CIEK was also recognized as one of the rising innovative companies in the VA/DC area. Prior to starting CIEK, Neeraj led analytics and data strategy for powerhouse advertising agencies like The Martin Agency and Havas. He has also led major strategic domestic and international engagements with numerous Fortune 500 companies, including retail, CPG, transportation services, credit and financial services, and travel and hospitality. He is also on the board of two stealth start-ups in media and marketing technology.