Heineken Reinvents Retail Media Measurement with Datagram
With over €36 billion in annual revenue and operations in more than 70 countries, Heineken is one of the world’s leading brewers. Its portfolio spans 340 iconic brands, including Heineken, Affligem, and Desperados - household names that have shaped global beer culture. In recent years, Heineken has made bold moves to accelerate its digital transformation, with Retail Media at the heart of its growth strategy.
The Challenge: Moving Beyond Vanity Metrics
Heineken’s ambition was clear: maximize the true business impact of its Retail Media investments. But their existing measurement frameworks were limited to surface-level KPIs like ROAS, impressions, and click-through rates - metrics that didn’t capture real business uplift. The core question remained unanswered: What portion of sales was truly driven by media - and what would have happened anyway? Heineken needed a partner that could go deeper, offering neutral, data-driven clarity across multiple brands, categories, and retailers.
The Approach: Precision, Scale, and Scientific Rigor
To rise to this challenge, Heineken partnered with Datagram to deploy a next-generation measurement framework grounded in Counterfactual Modeling — a proven method to isolate true incrementality from background noise.
Together, we:
- Rolled out Datagram’s Incrementality Engine across campaigns
- Conducted SKU-level analysis across retailers and product categories to surface performance patterns and untapped potential
- Collaborated closely with internal teams and agency partners to ensure insights were not only understood, but actioned
3bis. The Solution: A Strategic Advantage, Not Just a ToolWhat Heineken gained was more than a dashboard, it was a strategic lever:
- A neutral, independent platform delivering trusted, bias-free results
- A framework that’s scalable across markets, retailers, and brand portfolios
- Consolidated data views enabling consistent, granular measurement across touchpoints
- An embedded test & learn model, empowering smarter decisions before scaling
The Outcome: Incremental Sales, Proven and Scaled
With Datagram’s framework, Heineken transformed its retail media decision-making.
- +90% incremental sales unlocked through a modeled action plan - without increasing budget
- France has officially adopted the methodology as the foundation for national retail media budget planning
- The framework is now expanding to new retailers and regions
In Their Words
With Datagram’s framework, Heineken transformed its retail media decision-making.
Lancelot Duquesnoy
Head of Retail Media, Heineken
Working with Datagram fundamentally shifted how we evaluate our Retail Media performance. Their independent, transparent approach gave us confidence in the results, and allowed us to clearly identify what was truly incremental versus what would have happened anyway. This has helped us make smarter, more strategic investment decisions and ultimately maximize the value of every euro we spend. Beyond the numbers, the collaboration brought structure, clarity, and a methodology we can now scale across markets and categories.
Why It Matters for CPG Leaders
This case shows how global brands can move beyond vanity metrics and use rigorous analytics to drive measurable growth. If you're looking to maximize retail media ROI and build a strategy you can trust at scale — Datagram delivers.
