# Pathformance — Full AI Knowledge Base

> Pathformance is a retail media measurement company helping CPG brands and their agency and AdTech partners understand which advertising investments actually drive in-store sales. Independent third-party measurement. No media stake. No conflicts.

---

## Homepage (https://pathformance.com/)

### Hero
"You know your ROAS. You don't know if it's real."

PathX measures what actually moved: store by store, SKU by SKU, from retailer POS data. Not modeled. Not proxied. Actual incrementality you can defend in the next JBP.

### Scale Stats
- 27.2B impressions measured (verified retailer POS)
- $1.9B incremental sales proven (actual lift, not modeled)
- $261M media budget measured (across major CPG brands)

### Three Moments Where Defensible Data Changes the Outcome

**JBP Season:** Walk in with proof, not panel estimates. Bring joint business planning retailer-ready incrementality evidence — not modeled lift, not survey panels. Store-level POS truth your category buyer can't dispute.

**Planogram Reset:** Earn the extra facing with causal proof. When your category captain asks what justified that placement, correlation won't hold. Causation will. PathX isolates what you drove from what was coming anyway.

**Campaign Postmortem:** Show how much of the ROAS was actually yours. Don't just report the headline number. Separate the baseline from the lift, at the SKU and store level. Refreshed every week, so the answer is ready before the question.

### Four PathX Outputs (All Retailer-Ready)
1. **Incremental unit lift** — By store, by SKU, by retailer. Not rolled up into a single number you can't break down.
2. **Baseline separation** — What was coming anyway versus what you actually drove: the line and the gap, every week.
3. **Control group match score** — Defend the methodology in the room, not just the result. Show the rigor behind the number.
4. **Retailer-ready summary** — Formatted for JBP and planogram conversations, not an export you still have to translate.

### Why Difference-in-Difference
High ROAS is easy to report. It's hard to prove. Difference-in-Difference isolates what you caused from what was happening anyway. Your retailer already knows the category was up. What they want to know is how much of that was your campaign — and whether it holds at the store and SKU level. That's not a reporting problem. It's a methodology problem. DiD solves it, and PathX makes it accessible without standing up a data science team.

### Third-Party Independence
Pathformance doesn't sell media. We don't run ads. We have no stake in your campaign performing, which is exactly why our measurement holds up when your retail partner is sitting across the table.
- Covers retailer-specific and full-market sales simultaneously
- Built for Annual Planning, JBP, and QBR cycles
- Custom study designs that adapt to your brand objectives
- Results you can share with your retail partner, not just your agency

---

## About Pathformance (https://pathformance.com/about)

### Positioning
Independent measurement. No media stake. No conflicts.

Pathformance is a third-party incrementality measurement company. We don't sell media. We don't run ads. We have no stake in your campaign performing, which is exactly why our measurement holds up when your retail partner is sitting across the table.

### Trust Stats
- 500+ brands measured (across the portfolio)
- 86 retailers covered (data sources)
- 29 AdTech partners integrated

### Why Independence Matters
Multi-brand CPG manufacturers come to Pathformance when the standard toolkit — attribution models, panel estimates, modeled ROAS — stops being enough for the conversations they need to have with retail partners. The retailer can't grade their own homework.

Independence commitments:
- Pathformance doesn't sell media and doesn't run ads
- No stake in any campaign performing a certain way
- Measurement holds up when the retail partner is sitting across the table
- Results you can share with your retail partner, not just your agency

### Data Trust Policies
- Final analysis is client-controlled
- No resell of data · No reuse of data
- Secure transfer · Brand-owned data
- White-label options available

### Part of Komerz
Pathformance is part of the Komerz group, a global commerce and media intelligence company. US measurement work is backed by Komerz infrastructure and international measurement depth, while operating with full independence from any media or retail partner.

Industry memberships: P2PI, DPAA.

---

## PathX Platform (https://pathformance.com/platform)

### Overview
PathX connects pre-campaign strategy, in-flight visibility, and post-campaign performance on real retailer POS data, centralized across retailers, media channels, and campaigns.

### Platform Features
1. **Centralized reporting** — All retailers, media channels, and campaigns in one place, not a spreadsheet export you have to reconcile.
2. **Weekly-refreshed POS data** — Lift updates every week so you can make mid-flight decisions, not just read the post-mortem.
3. **Retailer-ready dashboards** — Results translated into next steps, formatted for JBP, planogram, and QBR conversations.
4. **Pre-campaign insights** — Integrated audience and store selection before you launch, so the study is designed to clear a defensible result.
5. **In-flight optimization** — For campaigns 7+ weeks: identify underperforming stores, cut the bottom tier, reallocate budget mid-flight.
6. **PowerPoint export** — Results formatted for the slide you're building for the buyer meeting, not a raw data file.
7. **Sales Lift Measurement** — Week-over-week sales lift at the SKU and store level, sourced from retailer POS data.

### Solutions (Beyond Core DiD)

**Amazon Measurement:** Sales and share by brand and category (excl. apparel/jewelry/shoes). Media impact on Amazon sales, pre/post analysis, and an always-on dashboard.

**Media Mix Modeling (MMM):** Channel-level ROI recommendations, diminishing-return curves, and guided implementation so you know which channel to push harder and which to pull back.

**On-Premise + Off-Premise:** Connect on-premise activation data with off-premise POS to measure lasting lift. Understand whether your on-prem investment is building repeat purchase in retail, not just trial.

**CDI/BDI Prioritization:** Market quadrants (defend share / capture share / grow category / deprioritize) turn gut-feel planning into a data-driven store-selection framework before you spend a dollar.

**Lottery Measurement:** Store-level DiD for lottery marketing programs, available for NY and TX markets.

### Omnichannel Coverage
PathX can measure: Programmatic Display, Social, Influencer, Contextual, DOOH, Geo, Connected TV, In-store Audio, In-store Point of Sale, In-store Display, Print.

### Six Pillars (Why Pathformance Measurement Holds Up)
1. **Transparency** — You see the methodology, the match score, and the control group, not just the headline number.
2. **Independence** — Pathformance doesn't sell media and doesn't run ads. No stake in any campaign performing a certain way.
3. **Coverage** — Retailer-specific measurement and full-market reads, simultaneously, not one or the other.
4. **Planning** — Built for Annual Planning, JBP, and QBR cycles. Results arrive when the meeting needs them.
5. **Insights** — Granular and actionable: by store, by SKU, by retailer, by week. Not a single rolled-up number.
6. **Flexibility** — Custom study designs that adapt to your brand objectives, not rigid packages.

### Data Sources
- Client-provided POS data (Walmart, Kroger, CVS, Home Depot, Walgreens, and more)
- Target Preferred Vendor: direct store-level access
- NielsenIQ: store and regional level
- Amazon Insights

PathX runs on actual point-of-sale scan data from the retailer: not a panel extrapolated to the universe, not a modeled proxy. The number reported is the number that happened at that store.

---

## Methodology (https://pathformance.com/methodology)

### Core Approach
Difference-in-Difference (DiD) is the same methodology economists use to measure real-world causal effects. PathX runs it at campaign scale, on actual retailer POS data, every week.

### How DiD Works
DiD compares a test group's actual sales against what those same stores would have done if they had only followed control-group trends. The gap between actual and expected is the incremental lift — not a guess, not a model output, but the measured difference.

Every result is evaluated at the SKU and store level, not rolled up to a single category number.

- **Test line:** test stores' actual weekly sales.
- **Expected line:** test stores' sales projected from the control-group coefficient (what they'd do absent the campaign).
- **Shaded area:** measured % lift during the campaign window.

### Test & Control Setup
A randomization algorithm selects control stores constrained on four dimensions simultaneously:
1. Item distribution
2. Historical sales volume
3. Parallel trend
4. Geographic dispersion

Control group is typically 8–20% of total measured locations. Test/control groups are built and delivered within one week of campaign launch. Store-level measurement is best practice; regional and channel-level reads are available.

### Panel vs. POS Comparison

| | Typical Competitors | Pathformance |
|---|---|---|
| Methodology | Match-market or panel-based | Difference-in-Difference on retailer POS |
| Data basis | Extrapolated from a small sample | 1:1 transaction-level impact |
| Setup | High minimums, rigid parameters | Quick feasibility, flexible study design |
| Strategy | Pay-per-view data cuts | Pre-campaign insights included; in-flight optimization on 7+ week campaigns |

### Four-Step Engagement Process
1. **RFP submission & campaign details** — Submit an RFP approximately 4 weeks before launch. Feasibility confirmed within 48 hours. Pathformance returns recommendations on budget, flight length, and store count.
2. **Setup & launch** — Test and control groups identified, matched, and delivered approximately 5 business days before campaign launch. Best practice: store-level data, up to 3 retailers, minimum 4-week campaign.
3. **In-campaign optimization** — For campaigns running 7 or more weeks, PathX provides mid-flight visibility so underperforming stores can be cut and budget reallocated before the campaign ends.
4. **Results & learning** — Final reports delivered approximately 4–5 weeks post-campaign, including a client-success review.

### PathX Outputs (Six Defensible Metrics)
- Incremental dollars
- iROAS (incremental return on ad spend)
- Sales lift %
- Category performance
- Item (hero/halo) performance
- Geographic performance

### Feasibility
Submit an RFP. Feasibility is confirmed within 48 hours. Best-practice study design: store-level data, up to 3 retailers, minimum 4-week campaign. Pathformance returns recommendations on budget, flight length, and store count before you commit the spend.

---

## Contact & Scheduling

- **Schedule a Demo:** https://q27ve.share.hsforms.com/2WYTkGm3LR1auDfosKEseCA
- **Plan a Campaign:** https://app.pathformance.com/public/
- **Contact:** https://pathformance.com/contact
- **News:** https://pathformance.com/news