Bayer has successfully improved the efficiency of its retail media advertising through an innovative partnership with Incremental, a leading provider of
neutral retail media measurement, and Skai, the leading omnichannel advertising platform specializing in commerce media. Together, these companies achieved a 32% boost in incremental return on investment (iROI), generating 32% more incremental sales for every dollar invested into advertising for the painkiller Aleve® and One A Day® vitamins. By directly integrating incrementality measurement with media activation, Bayer optimized its campaigns beyond traditional return on ad spend (ROAS), achieving truly incremental growth.
The goal of this partnership was simple: help Bayer’s ad dollars work harder for two of its most popular products. Bayer sought opportunities for growth within its existing retail media investments, optimizing that ad spending for additional sales without increasing overall investment. Instead of relying on traditional ROAS metrics, which often give advertising undue credit for sales driven by external factors like seasonality and promotions, Bayer, Incremental, and Skai focused on measuring incremental sales and iROI for a more accurate assessment of
campaign impact.
Together, the companies implemented a fully-integrated solution that directly connected Incremental’s continuous-learning models with Skai’s media activation platform. This marks the retail media industry’s first instance of fully connected incrementality measurement and activation.
The Incremental platform analyzed each campaign across both search and offsite channels to pinpoint which sales were directly driven by Bayer’s advertising. By aligning with Bayer’s specific business objectives, Incremental’s system provided daily budget recommendations that reallocated funds from lower- to higher-performing campaigns, maximizing returns on every dollar spent. These insights were seamlessly integrated into Skai’s campaign management workflows, enabling over 1,000 daily optimizations, and creating an efficient, continuous
feedback loop that boosted accuracy and impact.
Advertisers like Bayer face mounting pressure to accurately assess the impact of their retail media investments. Traditional metrics like ROAS (return on ad spend) are inconsistent across retail media networks and don’t establish a clear connection between investment and ROI. Conventional measurement approaches often lack the granularity and agility necessary for seamless integration into media planning workflows. Through the integration of Incremental’s independent measurement with Skai’s platform, marketers gain more accurate insights into how their retail media investments drive actual business growth, enabling them to plan and optimize for greater incremental returns.
“Incremental has enabled a step change in our ability to accurately measure the impact of our retail media investments and in turn maximize the return we generate through them,” said Ajay Sharma, Vice President, eCommerce and OmniChannel, North America at Bayer.
Key Results:
- Over 32% Improvement in iROI – Bayer’s incremental return on investment
significantly outperformed initial goals of 10%. - 17.5% Increase in Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER) – Topline sales accelerated
faster while investment in marketing remained flat, signaling an underlying gain in media efficiency. - 1,000+ Daily Advertising Spend Optimizations – The direct integration of
measurement into Skai allowed for more frequent and scalable optimizations than would be possible by hand, saving significant time and effort for both the Bayer and Skai teams.
“The integration of Skai's capabilities with Incremental’s data empowers brands like Bayer to not only measure their performance across different channels but also to optimize their investments based on clear insights,” said Gil Sadeh, President of Skai. “This campaign is an example of how our collaboration transforms how advertisers connect the dots between their retail media
and overall marketing efforts.”
“Incremental celebrates the strong results of our collaboration with Bayer and Skai,” said David Pollet, CEO of Incremental. “Integrating incrementally measurement directly into media activation created a virtuous cycle that serves as a model for the entire retail media landscape.”
About Incremental
Incremental helps brands and agencies drive incremental growth from their retail media investments through neutral and transparent measurement. Our approach is designed to be PII-free and compatible with the types of data available from the walled gardens, enabling it to be deployed seamlessly within a brand's ecosystem of retail and media partners. Our methodology makes use of several well-established techniques to provide both a high degree of predictive accuracy and business utility. The resulting model generates insights granular enough to drive daily campaign optimization decisions while robust enough to be prescriptive in sales forecasting and media planning.
About Bayer
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition. In line with its mission, “Health for all, Hunger for none,” the company’s products and services are designed to help people and the planet thrive by supporting efforts to master the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population. Bayer is committed to driving sustainable development and generating a positive impact with its businesses. At the same time, the Group aims to increase its earning power and create value through innovation and growth. The Bayer brand stands for trust, reliability and quality throughout the world. In fiscal 2023, the Group employed around 100,000 people and had sales of 47.6 billion euros. R&D expenses before special items amounted to 5.8 billion euros.
About Skai
Skai is an omnichannel advertising platform, uniquely enabling brands and agencies to run data-driven programs across commerce media. It empowers both media leaders and activation teams to drive impactful results from their advertising program with AI-powered decisioning, activation and optimization solutions. Its partners include Google, Amazon Ads, Microsoft, Walmart Connect, Apple Search Ads, Instacart, Criteo, TikTok, Snap, Pinterest, Meta and more.
For over a decade, Skai has earned trust from notable brands such as HP, DoorDash, Sony, Philips, and L’Oreal. Renowned for innovation and a values-driven culture, Skai is headquartered in San Francisco and has eight international locations.
Visit skai.io for more information.
Forward-Looking Statements
This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer’s public reports which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.