KPMG Validates Fetch Methodology, Praises Platform’s “Uniquely Clear View” of Campaign Impact

Signal loss from third-party data restrictions is one of the most significant challenges facing marketers today. Fetch, the nation’s No. 1 rewards program and leading consumer-engagement platform, offers a powerful solution to this problem, designed to meet the needs of brands and consumers in the evolving digital landscape. 

Fetch aims to set a new, world-class standard in campaign measurement. As part of that process, the company enlisted KPMG, a global leader in data insights and professional services, to provide an independent third-party audit of its capabilities, including its proprietary marketing measurement methodology, Verified Incremental Return, and the results it delivers. 

KPMG found that Fetch provides “a uniquely clear view of campaign impact” by leveraging randomized controlled trials (RCT) and zero-party data, which KPMG describes as a “significant strength” for the platform. Digging into the full methodology and evaluating the outcomes of Fetch offers and campaigns, KPMG was able to exactly replicate the results that Fetch delivers for partner brands. This rigorous, independent examination confirms the soundness of the Fetch measurement framework, giving brand partners confidence that the spend they deploy within the platform is delivering performance in market.

With more than 650 brand partners across CPG, restaurant and retail verticals, Fetch has proven capable of driving incremental consumer behavior across a variety of KPIs. The platform can help brand partners increase market share, drive incremental sales, incentivize repeat purchases, convert competitive buyers, and even drive consumers into specific stores and restaurants. 

A Scientific Method

In recent years, zero-party data – information that consumers intentionally and proactively share with brands – has emerged as the most valuable tool for advertisers in an increasingly privacy-sensitive world. With more than 18 million monthly active users submitting more than 11 million receipts every day, Fetch has unprecedented sightline into the entire customer journey. This gives partners the ability to activate targeted campaigns based on real-time purchase data that cuts across every kind of transaction. Fetch captures more than $152 billion in retail sales annually, putting the platform on par with the nation’s biggest retailers, behind only Amazon and Costco.

At a time when marketing dollars are precious and incremental results are paramount, Fetch can leverage that zero-party data to quantify the value that brand partners get from the platform relative to the cost of doing business. This capability makes partnership with Fetch an easy choice for CMOs looking to justify spend – and it’s all possible because of the platform’s rigorous and scientific approach. 

Verified Incremental Return gives marketers the ability to evaluate the incremental revenue generated by a campaign compared to the baseline performance. By using RCTs and a holdout group as a control, Fetch can accurately measure the incremental lift and attribute it to the specific campaign or offer. At a time when other digital platforms are failing to deliver, Fetch and VIR provide a clear understanding of the isolated effect of a promotion or marketing tactic on metrics such as sales, units, or trips. 

Similar to the way pharmaceutical trials are executed, Fetch randomly assigns users into either “treatment” or “control” groups. The platform serves partner offers to the treatment group and withholds those offers from the control group. The holdout (control) group is used as a baseline to determine incremental lift, or the isolated effect that the offer had on metrics like sales, units or trips. Because Fetch has billions of receipts from millions of users, the platform can ensure that the randomized control and test groups exhibit the same behavior—similar purchase patterns, brand spend and category spend—as verified by transaction data.

Fetch also offers partners two different types of performance assessment – offer-level measurement, which shows the incremental value that Fetch drove via an individual campaign during a specific time period, and partner-level measurement, which tracks the cumulative value that Fetch drives over the course of the relationship. This means that there are two types of holdouts – partner level and offer level. 

This methodology is the key to the Fetch platform’s superior segmentation and audience-targeting capabilities, which matches users with specific offers based on previous purchase behavior. This allows brands to go beyond the previous standard – like demographic-based targeting – and seek out extremely specific groups of users, including: 

• Lapsed buyers (users with a significant gap since the last date of purchase)
• Brand buyers (users who consistently make partner purchases)
• Non-buyers (users who have not made a partner purchase)
• Competitive buyers (users who purchase from the competition)

From there, Fetch can deploy a variety of tactics to drive behaviors that align with partner goals. With its next-generation offers and support from its robust communications channels, Fetch has the ability to improve business objectives, including: 

• Quantity of an item purchased
• Total amount spent at a partner location or on a partner product
• Total spent in one transaction at a partner location
• Number of visits to a partner location 

When an offer has run its course, Fetch calculates Verified Incremental Return by dividing the incremental revenue that the offer drove by the dollar amount that’s been invoiced to the partner. 

KPMG’s Findings

The report emphasizes the strength of Fetch’s robust targeting capabilities, which involve applying heuristic rules to identify users who are most likely to respond to promotional offers. By targeting users based on their previous purchase behavior, Fetch effectively incentivizes repeat purchases, resulting in increased customer engagement.

Partners benefit significantly from Fetch’s high volume of SKU-level purchase data, which includes transactions across brands and stores, both physical and online. Because this purchase data includes transactions from non-Fetch partners, marketers can target customers who have purchased from competitors and/or in adjacent categories. Fetch’s reliance on zero-party data is also a boon for partners, as it provides a privacy-first solution for data-driven targeting in the post-cookie world. 

KPMG also found that Fetch’s RCT methodology provides a more transparent form of incremental performance measurement when compared to ROAS and ROI. “While ROAS measures the return generated by ad spend, it does not take into account incrementality,” the report states. “ROAS also doesn’t account for external factors like seasonality, macroeconomic trends and other marketing activities and can therefore overattribute performance to a specific marketing tactic.” 

The RCT approach allows Fetch to observe the isolated effect of a promotion the most accurately, and the two holdout levels (partner and offer) provide an even deeper understanding of the platform’s impact. And, thanks to its large user base, the Fetch app can keep control groups small while still maintaining reliable estimates. This advantage increases value to partners by maximizing the share of users eligible to receive an offer, therefore driving higher incremental revenue.

The report states: “Fetch’s RCT holdout methodology uses observed transactions over modeled results, measures direct incrementality between treatment and control groups, is not subject to modeler interpretation, and controls for external factors with a consistent promotion period. Additional, incremental performance can be calculated with minimal manual intervention, which allows for near-real-time reporting.”

Better Measurement = Better Targeting

KPMG also noted that Fetch is able to tailor offers to meet partner goals, deploying different tactics based on the target audience and desired action. With this capability, Fetch has the power to help brands in targeting new customer acquisition, improving customer retention and attracting competitive buyers. 

By creating a model that compares the behavior of users exposed to an intervention with those who were not, Fetch accurately identifies the potential impact of its offers. This data-driven approach allows Fetch to maximize the promotional investment efficiency, ensuring partners achieve the highest possible return on their marketing spend.

Fetch also has the ideal conditions for uplift modeling, thanks to the platform’s vast historical purchase data and ongoing RCT experiments. By harnessing this wealth of data and conducting rigorous analysis, Fetch empowers its partners to unlock significant efficiencies in audience targeting, leading to improved campaign performance and revenue growth.

With these groundbreaking insights and proven methodologies, Fetch is well-positioned to acquire new partners and expand existing relationships. The ability to predict individual lift potential and maximize partner objectives – like incremental units, revenue, and loyalty – positions Fetch as a leader in the adtech industry. By leveraging advanced analytics and delivering measurable results, Fetch remains at the forefront of innovation in the ever-evolving landscape of marketing and adtech.