Retail: promotion results while it still runs

The promotion ended on Sunday and the results arrived on Friday

The problem

Campaign review happens after the period closes because that is when the data is complete. Sales come from one system, stock from another, media spend from the agency, and each one settles on its own timetable. Waiting for all three is the only way to get a clean number.

The usual answer

The consequence is that every promotion runs to its planned end whether it is working or not. A discount that is moving volume in two regions and nothing in the other four runs everywhere for the full four weeks. A line that sold out in week one keeps being advertised. A campaign that never found its audience gets its full budget. The review that follows is genuinely useful for the next campaign, and useless for this one.

How we approach it

We bring sales, stock and spend into one view while the promotion is live, broken down by product and by region. The numbers are less settled than a closed-period report, and for this purpose they do not need to be settled. They need to be directional and they need to be current. Stock sits next to sales because there is no point pushing harder on something the shelf cannot supply, and spend sits next to both because the decision is usually about where to move budget rather than whether to stop.

What changes

The team can act while acting still matters. Extend what is working, pull what is not, shift spend to the regions responding, reorder before a line runs dry. The post-period review still happens and still informs the next plan, but it is no longer the first time anyone sees how the promotion went.