AI Promotion Optimization Software for CPG & Consumer Brands
TrueGradient optimizes the consumer promotions you run — the depth, the mechanic, the timing — for total margin across the whole assortment, modelling the cannibalization and halo a single-SKU view misses.
A promotion never affects one product. It steals volume from some SKUs, lifts others, and pulls demand forward from next month. Optimizing a promotion in isolation optimizes the wrong number. TrueGradient models the full basket effect — cannibalization, halo, and forward-buy — so you run the depth and mechanics that lift total margin, and plan the demand the promotion creates so your inventory can actually serve it.
Trusted by leading CPG, retail and consumer brands
Optimize the promotion, not just the promo calendar
Most brands manage promotions; few optimize them. The calendar gets built on last year's events, retailer asks, and a gut feel for what “should” work, then results are read months later in a post-mortem nobody acts on. TrueGradient turns the promotion into a decision with a forecast attached: every proposed promotion returns a predicted uplift, the cannibalization and halo it creates across the assortment, and the net margin impact — before it runs. Category teams stop defending the calendar and start choosing the promotions that clear a margin hurdle. The mindset shift from guesswork to system is the same one behind optimising marketing spends and promotions.
Model cannibalization and halo — optimize for total margin
Promote a hero SKU and three things happen at once: some of its “lift” is volume stolen from a sibling product (cannibalization), some is genuinely new demand, and some spills over to lift complementary products (halo), so a platform that measures only the promoted SKU sees a win where the basket saw a wash — or a loss, while TrueGradient models demand transference across the assortment so the number you optimize is the net margin of the whole basket, not the gross lift of one item, with the mechanics of transference and the halo effect set out in leveraging demand transference and the halo effect for retail success, and the elasticity that drives it covered in decoding price elasticity.
The right depth on the right SKU — the margin the lift is worth
Every promotion is a trade: volume gained for margin given away. Too shallow and it moves nothing; too deep and it buys volume the brand would rather not have paid for. TrueGradient finds the depth where incremental margin from the lift stops outrunning the margin sacrificed on the discount, per SKU and per mechanic. The result is fewer, sharper promotions that protect margin instead of training shoppers to wait for the next markdown. The broader trade-off between discounting and other growth levers is worked through in discount vs marketing spend to maximise revenue and margin.
Predict the promotion before you run it
Post-campaign dashboards tell you what a promotion costs after the money is spent. The category has moved on: the value is in simulating the outcome before committing. TrueGradient runs the promotion against the live demand model and returns the uplift, cannibalization, halo, and net margin — as a scenario you can compare against alternatives. Change the depth, swap the mechanic, shift the timing, and see the margin consequence before the offer goes live. Post-event, actuals feed back so the next promotion is planned on a sharper model than the last.
Promoting your inventory can actually serve
A promotion that sells out in day two is a stockout with a discount attached — lost sales, disappointed shoppers, and a spike in the supply chain that the company never planned for. TrueGradient feeds promotional lift straight into AI demand forecasting and inventory optimization, so the demand a promotion creates is planned for, not discovered. The alignment problem between marketing's calendar and the supply chain is exactly the one described in the promotion puzzle: aligning supply with marketing initiatives. For D2C brands running paid campaigns, the same connection prevents the inventory risk covered in marketing spend to inventory risk.
Built for D2C and Shopify promotions — campaigns, bundles, subscriptions
D2C promotion does not look like a grocery promotion. It is a sitewide sale timed to a paid-media push, a bundle that changes the basket, a subscription offer that trades first-order margin for lifetime value. Enterprise promotion tools were not built for it, and spreadsheets cannot model the cannibalization a bundle creates. TrueGradient optimizes these consumer mechanics directly, including forecasting bundles and subscriptions, and connects the promotion to inventory so a viral sale does not become a backorder queue. The connected price-and-promotion view for these brands is described in price elasticity and promotion optimization for Shopify brands.
Built for the operating reality of promotion and category teams
Real promotion planning is messy: the calendar is negotiated with retailers or dictated by a marketing campaign, data on past promotions is incomplete, and the same offer performs differently by channel. TrueGradient is built around it — explainable recommendations a category manager can defend, agentic exception monitoring that flags a live promotion drifting off forecast while it can still be adjusted, and no-code, self-serve configuration so category and growth teams model a scenario themselves instead of waiting on analytics
The business impact of AI promotion optimization
Higher net promotion margin by optimizing the whole-basket effect instead of single-SKU lift.
Fewer wasted promotions as pre-execution simulation kills the ones that do not clear a margin hurdle.
Fewer promotion-driven stockouts because the lift is planned into demand and inventory.
Weeks, not quarters, to a live promotion optimizer vs the multi-month enterprise implementations the incumbents require.
What CPG and consumer brands say about TrueGradient
“We chose TrueGradient for its AI-driven platform and deep CPG expertise. It is already boosting forecast accuracy, service levels, and logistics efficiency.”
Angelcare case study
Discover how Angelcare leveraged TrueGradient's AI-native platform to modernise integrated planning — with price elasticity modelling that improves trade spend efficiency and promotion ROI.
Read case study →Customer case studies
Explore measurable outcomes from consumer brands using TrueGradient for planning, forecasting, and promotion optimization.
View all case studies →Where promotion sits in the pricing lifecycle
Promotion is the middle stage of the price lifecycle. It flexes the base price temporarily to drive volume, and it hands off to markdown optimization when the goal shifts from driving demand to clearing inventory. Running all three on one elasticity model keeps them coherent — so a promotion does not quietly undermine the base price, and a markdown does not undo the promotion. Brands that also fund retailer trade spend connect this to trade promotion optimization (the manufacturer-to-retailer side, distinct from the consumer promotions optimized here).
See your net-margin-optimal
promotions
Send us your promotion history and sales data, and we will show you which promotions actually lifted total margin — and which quietly cannibalized it — with the depth and mechanics that would have done better.
For Shopify Brands
Optimize inventory, prevent stockouts, and boost profits.
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TrueGradient is a no-code self-serve AI product for supply chain optimization founded in 2023.
