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B2B commerce

Trade Promotion

Quick answer

A promotional action between supplier and retailer/distributor: discounts, rebates, co-funding aimed at boosting sales.

Key takeaways

  • Measuring real ROI per promotion
  • Reconciling deductions and self-billing
  • Effect on forecasting (artificial peaks)

What trade promotion is

Trade promotion covers the discounts, rebates, volume bonuses and co-funding a supplier grants a retailer or distributor to boost sales of a product over a period (shelf, listing, campaign).

Why it matters to the board

Trade promotions are among the largest expenses of an FMCG manufacturer, yet hard to measure. Without traceability, much promotional budget is lost with no effect (unjustified deductions, uncontrolled promotions).

Challenges

  • Measuring real ROI per promotion
  • Reconciling deductions and self-billing
  • Effect on forecasting (artificial peaks)

How CRMconnect helps

CRMconnect links promotions to real orders and deliveries, helps reconcile deductions/self-billing and corrects the forecast for promotional peaks, giving visibility into spend effectiveness.

Real-world example

A manufacturer couldn't measure promotion effectiveness. Linking promotions to real sales in CRMconnect, it identified campaigns without ROI and redirected budget to those that performed.

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Frequently asked

Why are trade promotions hard to manage?+

Because they involve deductions, self-billing and forecast effects, and without traceability the real ROI per promotion stays unknown.

Does CRMconnect calculate the promotion budget?+

CRMconnect isn't trade-spend financial software, but it provides the real operational data (orders, deliveries, deductions) that make effectiveness measurement possible.

Where CRMconnect fits

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