Retail media · Status at source date: Industry report

Roundel executive says 8% of advertisers use incrementality as their primary metric

16 Oct 2026Written by Paid Media Collective

IN BRIEF

Mitchell Parton’s 16 October Adweek report describes a gap between Roundel’s emphasis on incrementality and how its advertisers judge performance. In the publicly readable preview, Shawn McGahee, Roundel’s senior director of performance and insights, says only 8% of Roundel advertisers use incrementality as their primary business performance metric.

Source-page screenshot of Mitchell Parton’s Adweek report, including the headline and publication date. Adweek View full-size image

What changed

That is an attributed executive statement about Roundel’s advertisers. It is not an independently verified estimate for the entire retail-media market, and the preview does not provide enough methodology to generalise it. The article reports remarks made at an advertiser event; it does not announce a new advertising product.

The distinction is commercially useful. Attributed sales and incremental sales answer different questions: which outcomes a reporting system assigns to advertising, and which outcomes would not have happened without it. A strong attributed return can coexist with uncertainty about additional demand. That conceptual distinction does not establish the incremental effect of any individual campaign.

PMC’s assessment is that advertisers should decide what decision an incrementality study needs to support before selecting a metric. For example, the question may concern the next budget allocation, the contribution of a specific placement or whether a campaign reaches additional customers. A clear decision makes it easier to evaluate whether the proposed test can provide a useful answer.

Ask the measurement provider to explain the comparison group, test period, uncertainty and material exclusions. Agree in advance how the result would affect the plan, including what the team will do if it is inconclusive. Keep operational reporting available during the test, but avoid quietly substituting an easier dashboard metric for the original research question.

This update credits Parton’s original reporting and relies on Adweek’s public preview; the full subscription article was not reviewed. The 8% figure should remain attached to McGahee’s statement and its Roundel context. Its value is as a prompt to examine measurement practice, rather than a benchmark that proves another advertiser’s approach is right or wrong.