InMarket yesterday released its annual Breakthrough Outcomes report for April 2026, naming five consumer packaged goods campaigns that converted real-world purchase intent into verified incremental sales through the company's real-time marketing and measurement platform. The winning brands - Welch's, OLLY, Bob Evans Farms, The Laughing Cow, and a joint campaign from Monkey Shoulder Scotch Whisky and Tullamore D.E.W. Irish Whiskey - were selected across CPG, beverage, and over-the-counter verticals. Across the five campaigns, results included up to $1.5 million in incremental sales, an incremental return on ad spend (iROAS) of $11.43, a 23.3% incremental lift, and a 3.6% sales lift.

The report arrives at a moment when the pressure on marketing budgets is intensifying. According to InMarket's 2026 Predictions research, nearly one-fifth of marketers cite doing more with less budget as their single biggest challenge this year. Meanwhile, eMarketer data cited in the report shows Americans now spend an average of 9 hours and 4 minutes per day with digital media. Mobile specifically accounts for 4 hours and 23 minutes of that daily total - a number projected to hold as mobile's share of total digital time consolidates. Daily digital media consumption is up 3.3% from 2025 to 2026 according to the same eMarketer figures. That expanding attention window, fragmented across countless apps and surfaces, is precisely the environment InMarket's platform is designed to navigate.

The methodology behind the annual report focuses on two operational principles: creative visual optimization and real-time activation across consumer moments. The platform, which InMarket has been operating for over 16 years, uses what the company describes as unique real-time, actionable intent, location, and item-level commerce data to surface high-impact 1:1 ad experiences. Performance is assessed primarily against incremental sales and iROAS - metrics that distinguish sales caused by advertising from sales that would have happened regardless. That distinction is increasingly central to how the broader industry evaluates campaign effectiveness, as the IAB argued in its April 2026 white paper on why legacy measurement tools undercount retail media value.

Three strategic pillars

According to the Breakthrough Outcomes report, the five campaigns shared three strategic pillars. The first is precision timing: reaching consumers at peak purchase intent by aligning campaign delivery to seasonal moments, meal planning occasions, or holiday periods. The second is creative clarity: deploying high-impact visuals paired with explicit aisle directives, retailer cues, and seamless rebate experiences that reduce friction between seeing an ad and completing a purchase. The third is data-led personalization: using real-time activation and precision audience targeting to maintain relevance in a media landscape where consumer attention is scarce and contested.

Todd Morris, CEO of InMarket, addressed the logic behind the campaign selection in comments accompanying the report. According to Morris, "what distinguishes these campaigns isn't just the results - it's the discipline behind them. These brands used real-time shopper intent as the foundation of their strategy, and reached their ideal 'who' at precisely 'when' and 'where' the message drove the highest outcomes, closing the loop with real world purchase data."

Bob Evans Farms: $11.43 iROAS from a breakfast campaign

The strongest iROAS figure in the report came from Bob Evans Farms, which ran a spring breakfast campaign under the creative headline "Celebrate spring with Bob Evans." According to the report, the ad featured a mouthwatering plate of food set against a warm red background, with products shown in the foreground to simplify the shopping journey. A clear aisle directive pointed shoppers toward the refrigerated section.

The campaign achieved $1.1 million in incremental sales, a 3.0% sales lift, a 3.1% unit lift, and an $11.43 iROAS. The combination of unit lift and sales lift together is notable: it suggests the campaign drove both greater purchase frequency per shopper and higher overall category sales, rather than simply pulling spend forward. The Breakthrough Outcomes platform's ability to connect ad exposure to actual purchase data - at the item level - is what allows InMarket to report iROAS rather than conventional ROAS, which measures total attributed sales rather than incremental ones only.

OLLY: $1.5 million incremental sales with a back-to-school push

OLLY, the supplement brand, ran a back-to-school campaign headlined "Wellness is in Session." According to the report, the creative spotlighted three product lines - Women's Multi, Probiotic, and Goodbye Stress - positioned to appeal to parents navigating the transition from summer to the school year. The visual design placed the products on a sun-drenched desk, nodding to the classroom context, with OLLY's signature brand color dominating the upper half of the ad unit.

The results: $1.5 million in incremental sales and a $10.06 iROAS. That puts OLLY's per-dollar return from incremental sales - not all attributed sales, only additional ones - at one of the highest figures in the cohort. The back-to-school timing was deliberate. Reaching consumers during a recognized high-intent moment, when families are actively reorganizing routines and spending, is a direct application of the precision timing pillar that InMarket identifies across all five campaigns.

Welch's: spring sparkling beverages and a 2.1% sales lift

Welch's ran a spring campaign promoting three sparkling beverage flavors, including a new Passion Fruit Mango variety. According to the report, the creative used a pink glitter background with all three bottles in the foreground and a "New Flavor" badge on the new product. A "Shop Now" call to action completed the unit.

The campaign drove $1.5 million in incremental sales and a 2.1% sales lift. The new product angle is worth noting: introducing shoppers to an unfamiliar SKU is generally harder to measure through conventional last-touch attribution models, since there is no baseline purchase history for that item. The use of iROAS and incremental sales measurement addresses this by comparing exposed and unexposed consumer groups rather than relying on prior purchase signals.

The Laughing Cow: 3.6% sales lift with iconic creative

The Laughing Cow campaign promoted its Creamy Original and Creamy Smoked Gouda cheese wedge varieties. According to the report, the background of the ad unit was itself a cheese wedge, framing the product packaging alongside sweet and savory serving suggestions. The Kroger logo was included as a retail destination cue, and the call to action offered both "Find Store" and "Learn More" options.

The Laughing Cow achieved a 3.6% sales lift - the highest sales lift percentage in the report - along with a $1.18 iROAS and $58,000 in incremental sales. The smaller incremental sales figure relative to the other campaigns likely reflects category scale rather than campaign underperformance: cheese wedge snacks represent a narrower SKU footprint than supplement lines or sparkling beverages. The 3.6% lift figure is the clearest signal of genuine demand creation.

Monkey Shoulder and Tullamore D.E.W.: 23.3% incremental lift for St. Patrick's Day

The spirits campaign jointly promoting Monkey Shoulder Scotch Whisky and Tullamore D.E.W. Irish Whiskey is structurally different from the other four. Rather than measuring incremental sales directly, the report assessed incremental store visit lift and cost per incremental visit - metrics more appropriate for categories where purchase conversion at the point of ad exposure is less direct.

The campaign ran ahead of St. Patrick's Day, set against an emerald green backdrop with shamrocks. According to the report, the central creative element was a $20 cash-back offer for purchasing three bottles, with a "Get Paid in 48 Hours" promise alongside PayPal and Venmo icons emphasizing the rebate mechanism. The fine print notes the offer was valid from January 1 to March 31, 2025, and applied in select US states.

The campaign delivered a 23.3% incremental visit lift and a $0.29 cost per incremental visit - a low cost-per-outcome figure that reflects both the efficiency of the St. Patrick's Day moment and the appeal of a clear financial incentive to drive in-store traffic. The use of PayPal and Venmo as rebate delivery mechanisms is notable from a frictionless redemption standpoint: both platforms allow near-instant digital payment, which the "Get Paid in 48 Hours" message explicitly leveraged as a purchase driver.

The iROAS context

The iROAS metric sits at the center of a wider measurement debate. Standard ROAS counts all sales attributed to an ad campaign, including sales from consumers who would have bought anyway. iROAS strips those baseline sales out, counting only the purchases that occurred because of the advertising. The difference can be substantial - one example from Alliance Digitale's January 2026 white paper illustrated a scenario where attributed ROAS of 8:1 collapsed to 2:1 iROAS once baseline sales were removed from the calculation.

InMarket's platform is built around closing that loop. According to the company's press release, the platform uses item-level commerce data to compare exposed and unexposed consumer groups, producing causal rather than correlational performance signals. This is technically closer to what the IAB and IAB Europe defined in their November 2025 Guidelines for Incremental Measurement in Commerce Media - a framework that defines incrementality as the additional business outcomes directly caused by a campaign, compared to what would have occurred without advertising activity.

The InMarket campaigns' results are meaningful precisely because they are expressed in those terms. An $11.43 iROAS for Bob Evans Farms means that for every dollar spent on that campaign, $11.43 in sales occurred that would not otherwise have happened. Not total attributed sales. Additional ones.

Media environment and budget pressure

The five campaigns also reflect broader conditions in the CPG advertising market. According to InMarket's 2026 Predictions survey, 18% of marketers cite shrinking budgets and limited resources as their primary obstacle this year. A senior planning manager quoted in the report summed it up: "As we head into 2026, one of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to do more with less. Budgets are tight, and the economic outlook is shaky, which means every dollar has to work harder."

That pressure shapes why the incremental sales framing matters so much to media buyers. When every dollar must justify itself, campaigns that demonstrate causal lift rather than attributed reach carry more weight in internal budget reviews. The NielsenIQ and Adsquare collaboration announced April 8, 2026 - which makes actual CPG purchase data available for programmatic campaign activation - reflects the same logic: brands want to buy media against signals tied to real transactions, not behavioral proxies.

The digital media environment compounds the challenge. With consumers encountering thousands of ads daily across a 9-hour digital day, the signal-to-noise ratio for any given impression is low. InMarket's Moments product - the campaign vehicle for all five Breakthrough Outcomes campaigns - is designed to reduce that noise by aligning delivery to the specific contextual conditions under which a consumer is most likely to act. The 8% of marketers in InMarket's 2026 predictions survey who cited personalization as a priority reflects a partial recognition that relevance, not reach, is the variable that matters in this environment.

Historical context: InMarket and location data

InMarket is not without its own regulatory history. In January 2024, the FTC proposed an order banning InMarket Media from selling or licensing precise location data, alleging the company failed to obtain informed consent from users of its own apps, including shopping rewards app CheckPoints and shopping list app ListEase. The proposed order also required deletion of previously collected location data and the creation of a sensitive location data program. That enforcement action concerns data collection and consent practices, and InMarket has continued operating its marketing and measurement products since that time.

The Breakthrough Outcomes report does not address the FTC matter. The campaigns cited in the report are presented as examples of InMarket's Moments product and the platform's ability to tie creative delivery to purchase outcomes.

Why this matters for marketing

For practitioners working on CPG advertising, the Breakthrough Outcomes report offers something relatively specific: documented iROAS figures across different product verticals, campaign types, and seasonal contexts - all using the same measurement methodology. That comparability matters when evaluating platform performance claims across vendors, since iROAS figures from different companies often use different definitions of incrementality and different control group methodologies.

The IAS and Mastercard partnership announced March 26, 2026 represents a parallel development: connecting media quality signals to real purchase data at the impression level, with optimization happening in-flight. Together, these developments suggest the measurement conversation in CPG advertising is moving from post-campaign attribution toward causal, real-time verification - a shift that has significant implications for how media budgets are planned, executed, and justified.

Timeline

  • January 1 - March 31, 2025: Monkey Shoulder and Tullamore D.E.W. St. Patrick's Day cash-back offer valid in select US states, per ad fine print
  • November 3, 2025: IAB and IAB Europe release Guidelines for Incremental Measurement in Commerce Media, defining incrementality as the causal impact of additional business outcomes driven by advertising - covered by PPC Land
  • January 29, 2026: Alliance Digitale releases white paper on hybrid measurement, illustrating how attributed ROAS can overstate actual incremental impact - covered by PPC Land
  • March 26, 2026: IAS and Mastercard announce partnership linking media quality signals to real purchase outcomes at the impression level for in-flight optimization - covered by PPC Land
  • April 7, 2026: IAB publishes white paper arguing Marketing Mix Modeling systematically undercounts retail media value and that iROAS-based closed-loop measurement better reflects causal impact - covered by PPC Land
  • April 8, 2026: NIQ and Adsquare announce collaboration making real CPG purchase-based audience segments available for programmatic and DOOH campaigns - covered by PPC Land
  • April 13, 2026: InMarket Breakthrough Outcomes report distributed to press; press release published via Business Wire at 9:00 AM Eastern
  • April 14, 2026: InMarket publicly releases Breakthrough Outcomes report, naming Welch's, OLLY, Bob Evans Farms, The Laughing Cow, and Monkey Shoulder and Tullamore D.E.W. as the five campaign winners

Summary

Who: InMarket, an Austin, Texas-based real-time marketing and measurement company founded in 2010, released the report. The five featured brands are Welch's, OLLY, Bob Evans Farms, The Laughing Cow, and a joint Monkey Shoulder Scotch Whisky and Tullamore D.E.W. Irish Whiskey campaign. InMarket CEO Todd Morris commented on the findings.

What: The annual Breakthrough Outcomes report documents CPG ad campaigns that used InMarket's Moments product to drive measurable incremental sales and iROAS. Results across the five campaigns included up to $1.5 million in incremental sales, an iROAS of $11.43, a 23.3% incremental visit lift, and a 3.6% sales lift. The methodology assesses creative visual optimization and real-time activation against incremental sales and iROAS as primary KPIs.

When: The report was released publicly on April 14, 2026. The press release was distributed via Business Wire on April 13, 2026 at 9:00 AM Eastern. The Monkey Shoulder and Tullamore D.E.W. campaign ran January 1 through March 31, 2025.

Where: InMarket is headquartered in Austin, Texas, with a nationwide team across more than 30 US states. The campaigns ran across US mobile advertising inventory. The Monkey Shoulder and Tullamore D.E.W. campaign was restricted to Oregon, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, per the ad's fine print.

Why: The report reflects pressure on CPG marketing teams to demonstrate causal sales impact at a time when, according to InMarket's own survey data, nearly one-fifth of marketers cite doing more with less as their top challenge. The iROAS measurement framework distinguishes additional sales caused by advertising from baseline sales - a distinction that carries commercial weight when every media dollar requires justification. The broader industry context includes growing adoption of incremental measurement standards from the IAB, and a wave of data partnerships linking media signals to real purchase outcomes at the campaign and impression level.

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