Ops & Supply

How to plan trade spend and retail promotions as CPG Founders

Ops & SupplyFor CPG Founders3 apps11 steps~22 min to set up

You're spending 15–25% of gross revenue on trade promotions — TPRs, scan-backs, off-invoice allowances, display fees, free fills — and you genuinely don't know which ones are working. Your promo calendar lives in a Google Sheet. Actual scan data comes back six weeks late from your distributor portal, if it comes back at all. Your broker says the Sprouts reset went great; you have no numbers to confirm or deny that. Every quarter you sit down to plan the next promo cycle and you're basically guessing, because the last cycle's lift data is buried in a PDF from UNFI that nobody has time to parse. Meanwhile your trade spend is growing faster than your revenue.

Build this on Starch → See the apps used

Ops & SupplyFor CPG Founders3 apps11 steps~22 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A Trade Spend Tracker that plans every promotion by account with budget allocation, then measures actual scan-back returns and lift against plan so you can see your ROI line by line

A Retail Analytics dashboard that shows sell-through velocity by store and flags distribution voids so you can tell whether a promotion drove new velocity or just reimbursed existing volume

A Broker Scorecard that ties field activity and new authorizations back to real sales outcomes, so your quarterly broker review is driven by your numbers, not their deck

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

Trade Spend Tracker Retail Analytics Broker Scorecard

Data sources & config

Trade Spend Tracker and Retail Analytics connect to your Shopify store from Starch's integration catalog (the agent queries it live) and to your Stripe account via scheduled sync for revenue reconciliation. POS sell-through data from retail accounts like UNFI and KeHE portals is pulled through browser automation — no API needed. Broker field activity reports and distributor deduction notices are ingested from Gmail, which Starch syncs on a schedule. Any retailer portal you can log into manually (Whole Foods Supplier Portal, Sprouts vendor hub) is reachable through browser automation.

Prompts to copy

Build me a trade spend tracker that logs every promotion by retailer and account, records the budgeted allowance and actual scan-back amounts, calculates post-event sales lift by SKU, and shows me plan-to-actual variance across my full promo calendar

Build me a retail analytics dashboard pulling POS data from my retail accounts that shows weekly sell-through velocity by store and SKU, flags any store where velocity dropped more than 20% week-over-week, and highlights distribution voids by region

Build me a broker scorecard that tracks new store authorizations, distribution void closures, and field activity logged by each broker, then compares those inputs to actual sales performance in their territory so I can rank brokers by ROI on commission

Run these in Starch → or paste them into your favorite agent

Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Connect Gmail through Starch's scheduled sync so deduction notices, scan-back confirmations, and broker activity emails are automatically captured and associated with the right account and event.

2 Connect Stripe through Starch's scheduled sync so gross revenue by SKU and channel is available for trade-spend-as-percent-of-revenue calculations in real time.

3 Connect Shopify from Starch's integration catalog so DTC velocity data is available alongside retail sell-through, giving you a full channel picture rather than just the retail slice.

4 Set up browser automation for your UNFI and KeHE distributor portals so Starch can pull weekly movement reports and deduction statements without you logging in manually — Starch automates those portals through your browser, no API needed.

5 In Trade Spend Tracker, enter your promo calendar for the current quarter: account, event type (TPR, scan-back, off-invoice, display), budgeted allowance, and expected lift percentage by SKU.

6 After each event closes, Starch matches the scan-back amount received against the budgeted allowance and calculates actual lift by comparing velocity in the promotion window to the four-week baseline, flagging any event where actual lift missed plan by more than 10%.

7 In Retail Analytics, configure your store list by account and region so the dashboard shows weekly sell-through velocity at the store-SKU level; set a velocity-drop alert threshold (e.g., 20% week-over-week) so you get a Slack notification before a distribution void becomes a buyer conversation.

8 Use the Retail Analytics distribution void report to identify stores that had authorization but zero movement for four or more consecutive weeks — this becomes your broker accountability list.

9 In Broker Scorecard, map each broker to their territory and accounts, log new store authorizations and void-closure activity, and pull the sales performance data for those accounts from your Retail Analytics dashboard so the scorecard reflects real outcomes, not self-reported activity.

10 Before each quarterly broker review, generate a broker-by-broker report from the Broker Scorecard showing commission paid, new authorizations secured, voids closed, and revenue growth in territory — the meeting runs on your data, not their deck.

11 At the start of each planning cycle, use the Trade Spend Tracker's plan-to-actual variance history to reallocate budget toward accounts and event types with demonstrated lift above 15% and cut or renegotiate programs that consistently underperform.

See this running on Starch

Connect your tools, describe what you want, and the agent builds it. Closed beta is free.

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Worked example

Q1 2026 Promo Reconciliation — Natural Snack Brand, 4 SKUs

Sample numbers from a real run

UNFI West — 8% scan-back on SKU 001 (Feb 3–16)	4,200
Sprouts — off-invoice allowance, new reset (Jan)	6,500
Whole Foods NorCal — display fee, end cap (Feb)	3,000
Sprouts broker commission (territory)	2,800
Total Q1 trade spend	16,500
Incremental revenue attributable to promoted events (measured lift)	31,000

Going into Q1 reconciliation, you knew you'd spent roughly $16,500 on trade — but you had no clean number on what came back. The UNFI scan-back for the February TPR on your top SKU came in at $4,200 against a $4,800 budget; Starch flagged the $600 variance automatically and pulled the deduction notice from Gmail to confirm the shortfall was a timing issue, not a dispute. The Sprouts off-invoice from the January reset was your biggest line item at $6,500. Retail Analytics showed that Sprouts velocity on SKU 001 jumped 34% in the two weeks following the reset and held 18% above baseline for six weeks afterward — meaning the $6,500 generated roughly $18,000 in incremental revenue at your wholesale price. The Whole Foods NorCal end cap was a different story: the $3,000 display fee coincided with a velocity increase of only 6%, well below your 15% threshold, and three of the eight stores in the placement showed zero movement. Broker Scorecard showed your Sprouts broker closed four distribution voids and added two new store authorizations in Q1; your Whole Foods broker filed two field activity reports and added zero new doors. That's the conversation you walk into for Q2 planning — with numbers, not anecdotes.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

Trade spend as a percentage of gross revenue (target: keep under 20%)

Post-event sales lift vs. baseline by account and SKU (minimum hurdle: 15%)

Plan-to-actual variance on scan-back and allowance dollars received

Distribution void closure rate by broker territory per quarter

New store authorizations per broker per quarter vs. commission paid

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

Exceedra or TPM software (enterprise trade promotion management)

Built for $100M+ brands with dedicated revenue management teams; six-figure contracts, 90-day implementations, and no ability to customize without professional services.

Google Sheets promo calendar + manual distributor portal pulls

Zero cost but zero automation — you're reconciling scan-backs manually, lift measurement doesn't happen, and the sheet is always two weeks out of date by the time you act on it.

Crisp Data or NielsenIQ Byzzer (retail analytics)

Good syndicated data for established brands, but expensive, slow to update, and not connected to your trade spend or broker management so you can't close the loop between promotion and outcome.

Repsly or GreatVines (field sales / broker management)

Purpose-built for field execution tracking but separate from your financials and retail POS data, so you still have to manually connect broker activity to actual sales performance.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — trade spend tracker, retail analytics, broker scorecard all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

Try it on Starch →

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Does Starch connect directly to UNFI or KeHE distributor portals?

UNFI and KeHE don't publish public APIs, but both portals are web-based — Starch automates them through your browser, no API needed. You log in once, and Starch can pull movement reports and deduction statements on a schedule from that point forward.

Are the Trade Spend Tracker, Retail Analytics, and Broker Scorecard apps available right now?

All three are currently in development. You can request beta access on each app's page and you'll be notified when they launch. In the meantime, you can describe exactly what you need to Starch and it will build a custom app for your specific promo workflow using your connected data sources.

Can Starch pull POS data directly from Whole Foods or Sprouts?

Retailer portals like Whole Foods Supplier Portal and Sprouts vendor hub are reachable through browser automation — Starch navigates them the same way you would. The data isn't stored in a long-horizon warehouse; it's pulled on demand when your dashboard or automation runs, which is the right model for weekly sell-through reporting.

We use QuickBooks to track trade spend as an expense category. Can Starch pull that in?

Yes — Starch syncs your QuickBooks data on a schedule, including bills, payments, and journal entries. Note that QuickBooks report views like P&L summaries are temporarily unavailable pending a connector fix, but entity-level data (individual bills and payments tagged to your trade spend GL codes) syncs normally and can feed your Trade Spend Tracker.

My broker sends me activity reports as PDF attachments in email. Can Starch read those?

Starch syncs your Gmail on a schedule and the agent can extract structured data from attachments. Describe what fields you want captured (new authorizations, void closures, account names, dates) and Starch will build an automation that reads incoming broker emails and logs the relevant data to your Broker Scorecard.

We're not SOC 2 certified yet — does Starch have any data security concerns for this use case?

Starch is not SOC 2 Type II certified today, which is worth knowing if your retailer or co-packer agreements have specific vendor security requirements. For most early-stage CPG brands, the more relevant question is whether connecting distributor portal credentials via browser automation is acceptable under your vendor agreements — review those terms before setting up automated portal access.