Your CPG Measurement Partner Is Changing. Here’s What to Do Next.
If you manage digital media for a CPG brand, you’ve probably heard some version of the same message in the past year: things are changing with NCS.
What that actually means for your team depends on where you sit. But the common thread across brand and agency conversations right now is this: the measurement infrastructure that CPG advertisers spent years building workflows around is in transition, and the brands that move proactively to find a replacement will be better positioned than those who wait.
A Little Context on What’s Happening
Circana completed its acquisition of NCSolutions in mid-2025 — effectively purchasing their largest measurement competitor and expanding their grip on CPG media measurement in one move. From the perspective of a CPG media team that has built its incrementality measurement program on NCS Sales Effect methodology, it introduces real uncertainty: legacy products are being transitioned, workflows are changing, and the familiar NCS experience is being absorbed into a larger platform with a different architecture.
The timing isn’t ideal. CPG advertisers are under more pressure than ever to prove that media investments are driving actual incremental sales — not just impressions and reach.
The brands navigating this best aren’t the ones scrambling to replicate what NCS did. They’re the ones asking what they actually need measurement to do for them today — and finding a partner built for that.
What the Conversation Has Shifted To
Talking with CPG advertisers over the past several months, the measurement wishlist has gotten pretty consistent. Brands want to know not just whether a campaign lifted sales — they want to know which retailers it moved the needle at, what the incremental ROAS looks like week over week so they can optimize mid-flight, and they want all of that in one place without a fragmented billing structure or a spend minimum that gates them out of their own data.
Those are fair questions. They’re also where legacy measurement solutions — including Circana’s NCS-based offerings — have historically fallen short. Data tied to specific loyalty programs creates retailer blind spots. Separate products for in-flight and post-campaign reporting create workflow friction. Spend-based dashboard restrictions create inequity across brand teams of different sizes.
The Measurement Gap Is Real — But So Is the Opportunity
Here’s the thing about a forced transition: it’s also a forcing function to evaluate whether your measurement approach is actually serving your needs, or whether you’ve just gotten used to a particular workflow.
InMarket built its CPG Sales Lift Measurement tool with this moment specifically in mind. It’s designed for CPG advertisers, by CPG advertisers, who need closed-loop, all-retailer measurement that supports weekly optimization — not just a post-campaign report to bring to a QBR. The pilot results across early CPG advertisers have been meaningful: real incrementality numbers, by retailer, delivered fast enough to act on.
More importantly, it’s built to be the solution for brands that were well-served by NCS and now need something that covers the same ground — without the workflow disruption of a major platform transition or the spend minimums that used to define enterprise-tier measurement.
What to Ask Any Measurement Partner Right Now
If your team is actively evaluating options, a few questions cut through the noise pretty quickly. Does the solution measure across all retailers, or is it limited to specific loyalty programs? Can you act on performance data during the campaign, or are you waiting until it’s over? Is in-flight and post-campaign reporting unified, or are you looking at separate products and separate invoices? And what do you actually get dashboard access to, at your budget level?
The answers reveal a lot about whether you’re looking at a measurement partner or a measurement product — and right now, CPG brands need the former.
If this transition has exposed a need for more agile, comprehensive CPG measurement on your team, we encourage you to take the next step.
Learn more about how InMarket’s CPG Sales Lift Measurement tool compares directly against the legacy Circana/NCS, and see how you can secure all-retailer, weekly incremental ROAS reporting without the spend minimums that gate your data.