Social Rocket
A high return on ad spend can show a successful campaign – or simply count purchases that would have happened anyway. This is exactly the distinction that Liquid Death, together with US promotion provider Ibotta, puts at the centre. In a conversation published on 3 November 2026 at Adweek, Liquid Death media director Benoit Vatere and Ibotta founder Bryan Leach explain why brands should evaluate digital coupons by additional sales rather than by attributed revenue alone.
The topic reaches far beyond the beverage brand: retail media is expanding into social ads, streaming, supermarket apps and physical stores. For marketing teams, the question of whether an offer actually creates new demand, or merely discounts a shopping basket that was already planned, is becoming more important.
The practical test: 19 percent additional sales in 18 days
The concrete figures come from a 18-day LiveLift pilot that Ibotta had already published on 3 November 2025. For a new Liquid Death product line, the provider reported 19 percent incremental sales lift, 23 percent more units sold per day and a 63 percent shorter purchase cycle. During the test, promotions were adjusted based on ongoing signals instead of waiting for the next quarterly evaluation.
These figures come from a joint case study by Ibotta and Liquid Death. They describe the pilot at the time, not a new campaign in November 2026.
What is interesting is less the most spectacular percentage than the metric behind it: cost per incremental dollar (CPID). It asks how much advertising and promotion budget must be spent to generate one dollar of additional revenue. For brands that fund discounts, this offers a different view of the margin effect than a simple revenue-to-spend ratio.
How to measure sales that would otherwise not have happened
A click on a coupon can be a genuine buying signal. But it can also come from a customer who already intended to buy the product. That is why incrementality measurement needs a comparison: for example, as closely matched groups with and without a promotion, whose actual purchases are compared.
For this, Ibotta also works with Circana. The companies announced in September 2025 joint household lift studies: they examine the purchasing behaviour of exposed and unexposed households, including beyond the promotion period. The independent measurement component is meant to improve the informative value of platform-owned performance reports.
For budget decisions, this means: a discount promotion with an enormous ROAS but few additional purchases can be economically weaker than a promotion with a lower ROAS and a high incremental contribution margin. The Adweek podcast from 3 November 2026 shows why Liquid Death now treats the problem as an ongoing management task.
Why this matters right now for marketers
In Europe, standardisation also demands more precise language. The commerce media measurement standards from IAB Europe define incrementality, harmonise gross and net revenue, and by default provide a 30-day attribution window with flexible alternatives. This makes comparisons easier when budgets are spread across several retailers, networks and channels.
In practice, this means: anyone buying a retail media promotion should set control group, basket effect, share of new customers, discount costs and actually incremental margin as success criteria in advance. A dashboard with clicks and attributed revenue is not enough for this.
Liquid Death is also working on faster, AI-driven campaign control – we have already reported on this. The new measurement perspective complements this operational development: faster decisions are especially valuable when the metric describes the right business problem.
Further context is provided by our reports on retail media measurement standards and brand impact as well as Lowe’s and independent incrementality measurement.
Sources: Adweek, 03.11.2026; Ibotta/Liquid Death, case study from 03.11.2025; Ibotta/Circana, announcement from 30.09.2025; IAB Europe, commerce media standards.