The Incrementality Narrative is designed to help understand how much value a product truly adds to its category, beyond simply shifting spend within it. It evaluates whether the product brings new shoppers into the category, drives exclusivity and loyalty, and contributes incremental category growth rather than cannibalizing existing purchases.
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 Brand Sell-In 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.
Are shoppers entering the [Selected Category] category through [Selected Product] more or less than expected?
Are shoppers entering the [Selected Category] category through [Selected Product] more or less than expected?
Report sourced from: Point of Entry
How to Prompt the Report:
What is the category impact when shoppers buy Selected Product Selected Category at Combination of Subscribed Channels for the first time during the selected Date Range period?
By default, in-platform results are sorted by: The order in which they populate based on the methodology
How well does [Selected Product] drive exclusivity in [Selected Category], based on product shoppers?
How well does [Selected Product] drive exclusivity in [Selected Category], based on product shoppers?
Report sourced from: Cross Purchase
How to Prompt the Report:
This would require individual Cross Purchase reports run for each product and requires custom product groups. For more information on how to run and calculate using this report please get in touch with your Numerator contact.
By default, in-platform results are sorted by: Descending Household Penetration of each product
How well does [Selected Product] drive exclusivity in [Selected Category], based on category shoppers?
How well does [Selected Product] drive exclusivity in [Selected Category], based on category shoppers?
Report sourced from: Cross Purchase
How to Prompt the Report:
This would require individual Cross Purchase reports run for each product and requires custom product groups. For more information on how to run and calculate using this report please get in touch with your Numerator contact.
By default, in-platform results are sorted by: Descending Household Penetration of each product
How incremental has [Selected Product] growth been to the [Selected Category] category?
How incremental has [Selected Product] growth been to 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 Time Period period?
With the advanced option Year Ago or Prior Period set to Year Ago
Do shoppers buying both [product] and other [Selected Category] products drive higher spend than those buying only one or the other?
Do shoppers buying both [product] and other [Selected Category] products drive higher spend than those buying only one or the other?
Report sourced from: Cross Purchase
How to Prompt the Report:
Start by making a custom product group that includes the Selected Category and excludes the Selected Product
Then use the following prompts:
What was the buyer overlap between Selected Product Selected Category at Any Store 1, broken out by hierarchy level of Selected Product,
and Custom Group created above Selected Category at Any Store 2, broken out by Folder that the Custom Group exists in?
With the Date Range in advanced options set to the selected Date Range.
Then pick the Buy Rate figures from the completed Report’s table on the first page using the analogous rows.
How loyal are [Selected Product] shoppers within [Selected Category]?
How loyal are [Selected Product] shoppers within [Selected Category]?
Report sourced from: Shopper Metrics
Requires individual Shopper Metrics reports run for each product.
How to Prompt the Report:
First make a People Group of Selected Product within Selected Category.
Then run the report for:
What were the key metrics for Any Product Selected Category broken out by hierarchy level of the Selected Product purchased at Any Store, during the Selected Date Range period?
With the People Group in advanced options set to the above group.
Then in order to get Share of Category Requirements, divide the buy rate in the row for Selected Product by the buy rate for Total Category (top line item).
By default, in-platform results are sorted by: ascending rank of share of category requirements
Do baskets with [Selected Product] drive more value than other [Selected Category] baskets?
Do baskets with [Selected Product] drive more value than other [Selected Category] baskets?
This card requires multiple reports and multiple types of groups to compile. For help on recreating this data please get in touch with your Numerator contact.
By default, in-platform results are sorted by: ascending rank of Average Basket Size
How well does [Selected Product] convert shoppers into the [Selected Category] category?
How well does [Selected Product] convert shoppers into the [Selected Category] category?
Report 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 Household Penetration of each product
Key Metrics
Index: A way to compare data against a baseline average
Calculation: (% of Focus Group Households / % of Benchmark Group Households) x 100
% of Exclusive Shoppers: Among focus product shoppers that have at least 2 total focus category trips, the % who only purchase the focus product (no other products)
Calculation: [# shoppers who purchased only the given brand within the category] / [# shoppers who purchased at least the given brand], but just limited to a universe of 2+ category trip shoppers.
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]
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.
Buy Rate: Average spend per Household
% of Trips: The percent of trips where Comparison Product and Focus Product is purchased together out of all Trips where Focus Product was purchased.
Average Basket Size: The average spent on baskets that include a particular product based on the selected criteria.
Average Basket Total Category Spend: Among baskets that contain a given product within a category, the average spend on the total category within those baskets.
Point of Entry % of Spend: Out of total first category transaction spend, the percent that went to the product.
Index to Fair Share (Spend): The difference between % of category spend on the product among POE buyers divided by the % of category spend on the product among all buyers.
Calculation: (Dollars meeting point of entry criteria) / All Dollars
Share of Category Requirements: The % of dollars the average Household spends on that specific Brand vs. other "like" products.
Category Brand Switcher: Someone who purchased the Selected Category but not the Selected Product at the Selected Store.
Category Convert: Someone who did not purchase the Selected Category at Selected Store in the prior period
New Store Shopper: Someone who did not shop at the Selected Store during the prior period.
Retained Shopper: Someone who purchased the selected product in both the pre and post-period.
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