Watson Weekend host Rick Watson is joined by Nick Kaplan for the week's retail and e-commerce news. The headline hangover contains results from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and Amazon is testing 30-minute deliveries. The company's AI assistant Rufus continues to make headlines. There is also a discussion on the closing of Omnicom's IPG acquisition.

The week's special guest is Trevor Testwuide, CEO and Co-Founder of Measured, who talks about marketing measurement being broken,  incrementality, and the problem with ROAS.

Holiday Recap: Black Friday & Cyber Monday

Black Friday delivered stronger-than-expected results; Cyber Monday was surprisingly muted with fewer real-time pundit updates than usual. Shopify’s admin and checkout systems experienced downtime during Black Friday, creating chaos for brands needing to adjust promotions or track performance.

Changing consumer behavior: Traditional Black Friday “doorbusters” and in-store frenzy continue to fade. Promotions now stretch well before and after the holiday.

Amazon Headlines

30-Minute Delivery

Amazon is piloting 30-minute delivery in select cities using micro-fulfillment centers, targeting high-frequency, convenience-driven categories (snacks, coffee, toilet paper, household essentials).

This pushes deeper into Instacart/DoorDash territory and raises expectations for ultra-fast delivery nationwide.

Rufus AI

Amazon’s shopping assistant continues expanding across the site. The hosts question whether Rufus drives incremental sales or merely accelerates discovery for customers who would have purchased anyway. Strong use case: summarizing product info, filtering five-star results, and translating reviews into clearer insights.

Agency Consolidation: Omnicom × IPG

The Omnicom–IPG deal closes, continuing the “big gets bigger” trend in advertising and media agencies. Thesis: scale enables more efficient data use and technology investment, but real-world synergies rarely reach the promised levels.

Rising AI adoption places mid-market agencies at risk, amplifying consolidation pressure.

The core of the episode is a deep discussion between Rick Watson and Trevor Testwuide on marketing measurement, attribution, and incrementality.

Why Marketing Measurement Is Broken

For years, the industry relied on Last-touch attribution, in which the channel closest to the sale gets 100% credit.

Multi-touch attribution (MTA) tries to map every impression and click across the buyer journey. MTA became unreliable after 2016 due to privacy walls and tracking limitations. Many brands still rely on outdated methods because they’re easy, familiar, and embedded in reporting workflows.

Incrementality: The Modern Standard

Incrementality answers the real question:

Did this ad actually cause additional sales, or would they have happened anyway? It isolates causal impact from correlated behavior—critical when high-intent shoppers convert regardless of ads.

Media Mix Modeling (MMM)

MMM provides long-term correlation analysis but not causality. Measured uses MMM combined with incrementality experiments to calibrate and improve accuracy.

Problem With ROAS

ROAS is simple but misleading—especially for bottom-funnel channels that “harvest” demand. Replacing ROAS with incremental ROAS or incremental contribution margin gives more truthful signal.

Why CFOs Love Incrementality

It speaks the language of finance: causal return, marginal contribution, efficiency. When incremental data confirms executives’ intuition about overspending in low-value channels, support for change accelerates.

The Watson Weekend is sponsored  by Mirakl

“In commerce, you don’t need another tool. You need a growth partner. The Mirakl platform is powering the next era of retail for the brands and retailers ready to move. Powered by AI and built for what’s next.”.

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