Trade Promotion Management (TPM) is the discipline of planning, executing, tracking, and evaluating trade promotions with retail and distribution partners. It is most developed in consumer goods but applies wherever manufacturer-retailer promotional programs exist.
The TPM lifecycle
Planning (promotion strategy and budget), execution (agreements with retailers, activity coordination), tracking (uplift and compliance measurement), evaluation (ROI and lessons learned). Each stage produces data that feeds the next cycle's design.
The visibility gap
Trade promotion effectiveness typically has poor visibility because the underlying contract terms, promotional agreements, and actual retail behavior live in different systems. Consolidating them into structured contract data is a common TPM improvement lever.
