Albertsons Media Collective rolled out in-store incrementality measurement across its 2,200+ stores in early 2025, proving that shelf displays and endcaps funded by CPG brands actually drive sales beyond baseline trends, according to Progressive Grocer. The first documented win: a Mondelēz campaign showed a +40% incremental lift in sales velocity during a two-week in-store media test, per Marketing Dive.

The measurement tool isolates the effect of physical in-store advertising — endcaps, shelf talkers, checkout displays — by comparing sales in stores running the campaign against matched control stores without the media. Albertsons built the system using store-level point-of-sale data and a matched-market design, controlling for seasonality, local demographics, and promotional calendar. The result is a clean read on whether the cardboard standee or endcap actually moved units, or whether the brand just paid to advertise a product that was already selling.

This matters because retail media has historically been correlation theater. A brand pays for an endcap, sees sales go up during the period, and claims credit. But if the category was already trending up, or if a price promotion was live at the same time, the media might have contributed nothing. Incrementality measurement strips out those confounds. Albertsons' tool gives CPG marketers a direct answer: the media was worth it, or it was not. For the Mondelēz campaign, the 40% lift was incremental — meaning the test stores outperformed control stores by that margin, after accounting for baseline trends. That number makes the media buy defensible in a budget review.

The steal for a physical-product brand is to demand the same rigor from any retailer pitching you shelf media. If you sell through grocery, drugstore, or big-box, and the buyer offers an endcap or display package, ask for matched-market incrementality measurement before you commit the spend. If the retailer cannot provide it, build your own test. Identify 10-15 stores running your display and an equal number of control stores matched by region, store size, and historical sales. Pull weekly POS data for four weeks before and four weeks during the campaign. Calculate the sales lift in test stores versus control, adjusting for any concurrent promotions. If the lift does not cover the cost of the display package plus a margin, kill the program. If it does, double down and negotiate the next quarter's buy with the data in hand.

Albertsons plans further expansion of the measurement tool across categories and media formats in 2026, according to the company's announcement. For smaller brands, the pattern is reusable now: incremental proof beats anecdote, and a clean test costs less than guessing wrong three quarters in a row.