The Diagnosing Growth Narrative helps you understand what’s driving year-over-year change for a product within a category by breaking performance into its core components, not just top-line results. It examines how key purchasing and panel metrics have shifted over time, how those changes compare to the rest of the category, and how performance differs across shopper segments and demographics.
Prompts
To run this Narrative, you’ll be prompted to select a few key parameters:
Required: Product, Category, and Time Period
Optional: Store and Competitive Set
When Should I Use the Competitive Set?
Selecting a competitive set will not change any total category results. The goal of selecting a competitive set should be to sharpen your data story by anchoring your analysis around products that are the most relevant to your specific business goals.
For example, if you're a newer brand in a category, it might not be meaningful or fair to compare your metrics to dominant, well-established players. Instead, you could define a competitive set made up of smaller or similarly positioned brands that more accurately reflect the landscape you're competing in.
Note: Not all cards will factor in the competitive set. Competitive sets are applied where it makes sense to compare across multiple products; some cards already carry enough information for a single focus product, and adding additional products would make the visualization overly dense or harder to interpret.
Topic Cards
This section will review each topic card within the Diagnosing Growth Narrative answering the following questions for each card as well as an example for each:
Which report is the card sourced from?
How would I prompt that report to investigate further into this data?
Note: Topic card content can vary to some extent based on the provided prompting. The instructions below reflect Report prompts for replicating the data for flows that use the following prompting: Selected Product, Selected Category, and Selected Date Range. If you have specific questions for Report prompting related to another input scenario (e.g. one that includes a Selected Store), please reach out to your Numerator team.
How did panel metrics impact the YOY change in [Selected Product] [Selected Category] spend?
How did panel metrics impact the YOY change in [Selected Product] [Selected Category] spend?
Report sourced from: Shopper Comparison → Basic Metrics tab; and Shopper Metrics
How to Prompt the Report:
This report prompting requires multiple reports and calculations. For help on recreating this data please get in touch with your Numerator contact.
How did the year-over-year KPI changes for [Selected Product] in [Selected Category] compare to those for the rest of the [Selected Category]?
How did the year-over-year KPI changes for [Selected Product] in [Selected Category] compare to those for the rest of the [Selected Category]?
Report sourced from: Shopper Comparison → Basic Metrics tab; and Shopper Metrics
How to Prompt the Report:
This report prompting requires multiple reports and calculations. For help on recreating this data please get in touch with your Numerator contact.
How did the year-over-year KPI changes for [Selected Product] in [Selected Category] compare across demographics?
How did the year-over-year KPI changes for [Selected Product] in [Selected Category] compare across demographics?
Report sourced from: Shopper Comparison → Basic Metrics tab; and Shopper Metrics
How to Prompt the Report:
This report prompting requires multiple reports and calculations. For help on recreating this data please get in touch with your Numerator contact.
By default, in-platform results are sorted by: The same order they show up in the Advanced Shopper Profile report
What was the source of volume for [Selected Product] in the [Selected Category] category?
What was the source of volume for [Selected Product] in the [Selected Category] category?
Report sourced from: Existing Brand Source of Volume
How to Prompt the Report:
What was the source of volume for Selected Product Selected Category purchased at Any Store during the Date Range period?
With the advanced option Year Ago or Prior Period set to Year Ago
What is the extent of lapsed, retained, and new shoppers for [Selected Product] [Selected Category]?
What is the extent of lapsed, retained, and new shoppers for [Selected Product] [Selected Category]?
Report sourced from: Lapsed Retained New → Total Composition tab
How to Prompt the Report:
Who stopped (or started) buying Selected Product in Selected Category, from Any Store, during the Selected Date Range period?
How did key purchasing metrics change year over year among retained shoppers of [Selected Product] [Selected Category]
How did key purchasing metrics change year over year among retained shoppers of [Selected Product] [Selected Category]
Report sourced from: Lapsed Retained New and Data Explorer
How to Prompt the Report:
This Narrative is showing a view that is not immediately available in our reporting currently. Some metrics such as Purchase Frequency and Spend Per Trip can be achieved using the Lapsed Retained New report using the following prompt:
Who stopped (or started) buying Selected Product in Selected Category, from Any Store, during the Selected Date Range period?
To what extent were new [Selected Product] shoppers also new to the [Selected Category] category?
To what extent were new [Selected Product] shoppers also new to the [Selected Category] category?
Reports Sourced From: Requires individual Lapsed Retained New reports run for each product.
Run the report for:
Who stopped (or started) buying Selected Product in Selected Category, from Any Store, during the Selected Date Range period?
Once it’s run, the buckets require additional calculations. For more information on this process please reach out to your Numerator team.
To what extent did lapsed [Selected Product] shoppers continue buying other [Selected Category] products?
To what extent did lapsed [Selected Product] shoppers continue buying other [Selected Category] products?
Reports Sourced From: Requires individual Lapsed Retained New reports run for each product.
Run the report for:
Who stopped (or started) buying Selected Product in Selected Category, from Any Store, during the Selected Date Range period?
Once it’s run, the buckets require additional calculations. For more information on this process please reach out to your Numerator team.
By default, in-platform results are sorted by: Descending households of lapsed shoppers in the context of the combined pre and post period
Key Metrics
Projected Sales: The total amount spent on a selected item during the time period analyzed, projected up to the entire United States level. Calculation: [Buy Rate] x [Household Penetration] x [Total Number of US Households]
Projected Households: The estimated number of households who purchased the item. Calculation: [Household Penetration] x Total Number of Households
Buy Rate: Average spend per Household
Purchase Frequency: Number of times a Household or Panelist buys the product (category, segment, brand, etc.) during the selected time period. Calculation: [Total Number of Transactions with Brand] / [Total Number of Households Buying Brand]
Spend per Trip: The average amount spent on the item each time the item is purchased during the time period analyzed. Calculation: [Total Brand Sales in $] / [Total Number of Transactions with Brand]
Units per Trip: Average number of units purchased per trip at the selected store
Spend per Unit: Average spent on each unit purchased at the selected store
Brand Shifting: Change in product performance driven by shoppers shifting from or to comparison brands
Category Expansion/Contraction: Change in product performance driven by shoppers purchasing more or less of the category and as a result purchasing more or less of the focus product
Category Churn: Change in product performance driven by shoppers leaving or entering the category
Lapsed Shopper: Someone who purchased the selected product in the pre-period but not the post-period.
New Shopper: Someone who purchased the selected product in the post-period, but not the pre-period.
Retained Shopper: Someone who purchased the selected product in both the pre and post-period.
% of Households: The percent of total households who purchased any product from {any store} across the pre & post periods - distinguished as new, retained, or lapsed households.
% of Item Spend: The percent of product spend at {any store} across the pre & post periods - contributed by new, retained, or lapsed shoppers.
Need Help?
If you're having trouble using Narratives or recreating any of the prompting above please reach out to the Support Chat in the bottom right of your reporting or your Numerator Contact if you need help with calculations.
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Last Updated 2/18/2026