Attribution says which touchpoint got credit; incrementality asks whether the touchpoint caused anything. Branded search, retargeting and in-app marketplace ads often show strong attributed returns with low incrementality, because they reach people who were already going to buy.
It is measured with experiments: holdout tests, geo tests or conversion lift studies.
Formula
Incremental ROAS = Attributed revenue × Incrementality ÷ Ad spend
Example
A 3.0 platform ROAS with 50% incrementality is a 1.5 incremental ROAS.
What Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart and other platforms keep from every ₹100 you sell, and your real ROAS after incrementality.
Related terms
- Holdout test (geo lift)A holdout test withholds advertising from a randomly chosen group of people or regions and compares their results with a group that saw the ads.
- Multi-touch attributionMulti-touch attribution assigns credit for a conversion across the several marketing touchpoints that preceded it.
- Marketing mix modelling (MMM)Marketing mix modelling uses statistical regression on aggregate data to estimate how much each channel contributes to sales.
Where this comes up
Operator's Notes, Issue 01: The storefront is moving, and you won't own itMeta, Google and OpenAI each made a move on who owns the moment someone decides to buy. What the agent race means for brands, the WhatsApp pricing change Indian D2C should act on, and a 60-minute agent-ready feed audit. ROAS is not a business metricReturn on ad spend tells you how the platform sees your campaigns. Contribution margin tells you whether the business is better off. Here is how to run paid media on the second. A measurement stack a CFO can trustPlatforms over-claim, analytics under-counts and the order database is the only source that never lies. How to build measurement that holds up in the boardroom.Part of the growth marketing glossary by Shiva Sharma.