AI Trade Promotion Optimization Software for CPG Brands
Forecast the lift, the cannibalization, and the margin impact of every promotion before you commit the trade spend, and plan the supply chain to deliver the volume it creates.
Trade spend is one of the largest lines on your P&L and the least governed. Promotions get approved on last year's calendar, negotiated under retailer pressure, and reconciled weeks after the money is gone, and roughly half of it works, but nobody can say which half. TrueGradient changes the question from “what did that promotion cost” to “what will it return.” Every event is modelled for lift, cannibalization, and P&L impact before you approve it, so trade spend becomes an investment decision instead of a habit.
Know which promotions will pay before you commit the spend
Most trade calendars are built on precedent and reconciled long after the budget is spent. TrueGradient attaches a forecast to every promotion instead: the predicted volume lift, the split between incremental and baseline demand, the cannibalization it creates across your portfolio, and the margin impact, all before you sign it off. The case for why AI finally makes this work for brands your size is in trade promotion optimization for mid-scale CPGs.
Optimize trade spend across the promotion portfolio
The real question is never “is this promotion good”; it's “is this the best use of the next dollar of trade spend.” TrueGradient optimizes the portfolio: shift budget from low-return mechanics to high-return ones, test depth-and-frequency trade-offs, and see the P&L consequence of every reallocation before the plan locks. The wider logic of where promotional money should sit is worked through in optimising marketing spends and promotions.
Portfolio optimization
Fund the promotions that return the most margin, not the most volume.
Scenario modelling
Test depth, timing, and mechanic before you commit a dollar.
Account-level
Optimize promotions where they are actually negotiated, not just nationally.
Measure the true lift: baseline, cannibalization, and forward-buy
A promotion that sells 40% more units has not necessarily created 40% more demand. Some of that volume was always going to sell, some was pulled forward from next month, and some was stolen from a sibling SKU. A tool that cannot tell these apart is counting, not optimizing.
TrueGradient separates baseline from incremental (the volume you would have sold anyway from what the promotion created), quantifies cross-SKU cannibalization across the portfolio, and detects forward-buy so the next period still forecasts clean. The ROI you report is a number your CFO will accept. The price-response curve underneath it all is explained in decoding price elasticity, and the discount-versus-spend trade-off in discount vs marketing spend to maximise revenue and margin.
The promotion your supply chain can actually deliver
A promotion that sells out in week one is not a win; it's a stockout with a marketing budget attached. Every standalone trade promotion tool ends at the spend decision and hands the volume problem to a supply chain team that finds out too late. TrueGradient doesn't. Promotional lift flows straight into AI demand forecasting and your committed demand plan, which drives inventory optimization and production planning on the same model. The alignment this solves is described in the promotion puzzle: aligning supply with marketing initiatives, and for Amazon brands in Amazon forecasting for CPG.
Lift feeds the plan
Promoted volume is in the forecast, not bolted on afterwards.
Feasibility before approval
Capacity, inventory, and lead time are checked against the promoted volume.
One model, not an integration
Promotion and supply planning share the same data and the same number.
Close the loop with post-event ROI that sharpens the next promotion
Most post-event analysis lands weeks late, in a deck nobody acts on, and never reaches the model that plans the next promotion. TrueGradient closes the loop automatically: actual lift is compared against forecast, the elasticity and cannibalization models learn from the gap, and the next promotion is planned on a measurably sharper model than the last, the same self-improving pattern behind agentic AI in supply chain planning.
Built for the operating reality of CPG trade marketing teams
Real trade promotion is messy: the retailer changes the mechanic two weeks out, syndicated data lags, distributor sell-through is partial, and the calendar is negotiated rather than optimized. TrueGradient is built for that reality, not a clean demo dataset. Where the data is imperfect (and in the mid-market it always is), the platform is designed to work with it, as covered in data readiness for mid-market CPG and retail.
What CPG 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 Group deployment
Angelcare selected TrueGradient to enhance Sales & Operations Planning across demand forecasting, procurement, financial planning, capacity management, and promotions, a mid-market CPG proof point for trade spend and promotion ROI.
Read the announcement →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 →Connect trade promotion to the rest of your revenue growth stack
Trade spend sits alongside consumer pricing in the revenue growth management stack. It discounts from Base Price Optimization, pairs with consumer-facing promotion mechanics, and feeds the same demand model that plans inventory.
See which promotions will pay
before you commit
Run TrueGradient against your last four quarters of trade spend and see which promotions actually returned margin, and which ones quietly did not. No rip-and-replace, no rebuild of your TPM system.
For Shopify Brands
Optimize inventory, prevent stockouts, and boost profits.
Explore →Get the TrueGradient App
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TrueGradient is a no-code self-serve AI product for supply chain optimization founded in 2023.
