Are your promotions paying off?

Promotions can be expensive and time-consuming. To truly know if they’re worth it, businesses need more than a simple sales comparison…They need to measure the ROI of the promotions to accurately uncover how well they’re driving foot traffic, boosting sales, and reducing cannibalisation

Predictive Insights Forecasting Engine

The Problem: Are Year-on-Year Comparisons Enough?

Many businesses rely on traditional methods to evaluate promotions, such as comparing this year’s performance to last year’s. But these approaches overlook critical factors, including:

  • Shifts in consumer behavior
  • The entry of new competitors
  • Broader economic events and trends

Sales might spike (or dip), but was it the promotion—or something else entirely? This lack of clarity leave businesses guessing rather than acting on real insights.

The Solution: using AI for Accurate ROI Measurement

It’s not just about proving promotions work; it’s about understanding why they work—or don’t. At Predictive Insights, we’ve developed an AI-driven approach to calculate the real lift from promotions.

By analysing historical data alongside external influences like economic trends, school holidays, and paydays, we use machine-learning (a form of AI), to create a counterfactual baseline—what sales would have been without the promotion.

This allows businesses to:

  • Identify the actual impact of a promotion
  • Avoid overestimating or underestimating ROI
  • Gain a deeper understanding of cannibalisation effects (e.g., whether promotions pull sales from non-promotion items)

This eliminates guesswork, helping you make data-led decisions that drive real business value, such as 

  • Fine-tune staffing and inventory
  • Adjust campaign timing
  • Tailor promotional offers

Example 1: What happens when England almost wins in football?

Big events like sports finals can cause drastic, but temporary, changes in consumer habits. Knowing the likely impact of these types of events allows restaurants to better plan for all eventualities.

During both the 2020 and 2024 Euros, the English football team had a dramatic run to the final of the competition. This affected different types of restaurants in the UK differently – pubs and locations showing games were overflowing with supporters but those without saw a substantial drop in sales.

Our AI-augmented forecasts calculated that dine-in sales fell by 20% on the day of the final compared to what they would have been had England not played. Increased delivery from people watching at home only increased by 7%, resulting in a significant net loss. These accurate impact calculations, by restaurant location, will help our clients better plan for the 2026 FIFA World Cup – both strategically, such as potential delivery promotions to generate demand, but also operationally, for staff scheduling and food production, during the tournament.

Predictive Insights on CNN

Hear what Nando’s and City Lodge had to say about our strategic forecasts and predictive analytics.

Example 2: Launching a New Product—What Works (and what doesn’t)

Introducing new menu items can be risky. Will they drive incremental sales or cannibalise existing orders? Our AI-approach  provides clear answers.

In one case, we tested two new menu items in restaurants across demographically similar locations, and used AI to predict what sales would be without the new item. The data showed that one product boosted overall sales, while the other merely replaced existing items, offering no net gain. Our client went ahead with rolling out the winning product, which went on to be massively successful, and avoided stocking the product that wouldn’t deliver results.

quote use case

“Armed with this knowledge, the company was able make better decisions about which product to launch and importantly, how much to stock, how to staff appropriately and how to support them with the right marketing strategies,”says Neil Rankin, Predictive Insights’ CEO.

The Result: Data-Driven Success

Our AI-powered forecasting isn’t just about proving a promotion worked; it’s about understanding why. These insights help businesses optimise future campaigns, improve staffing and inventory decisions, and plan more effectively for events or product launches. 

Hear how companies like Nando’s and City Lodge use our predictive analytics to help them succeed.

Ready to uncover the real ROI of your promotions? Book a discussion today:

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