This post was created in partnership with PebblePost
For marketers, testing new channels has become easier than proving which investments actually drive growth. That gap is pushing brands to look beyond top-line performance and focus on incrementality.
During an ADWEEK House Advertising HQ fireside chat co-hosted with PebblePost, Alison Weissbrot, executive editor at ADWEEK, sat down with Melissa Racklin, SVP of growth at PebblePost, and Nathan Quinn, senior manager, lifecycle marketing at Virgin Voyages. They discussed how incrementality, reliable measurement, and active partnership can give marketers the confidence to test and scale.
Trust starts with a shared source of truth
Virgin Voyages is still relatively new to cruising, but Quinn said the broader Virgin ethos gives the brand permission to rethink how travel should feel. “We want to be different. We want to be a disruptor, but we’re still grounding ourselves and looking back and saying, ‘What is it that the customers want?’” Quinn said. “That then becomes a less risky endeavor for us.”
This cycle has shaped the brand’s partnership with PebblePost, which began with programmatic direct mail and expanded into performance CTV. Racklin shared that the work starts with data both sides can trust.
PebblePost provides first-party data assets with verified purchase data across households, “Everything about us is around measurement,” Racklin added.
This, in turn, gives Quinn confidence when he brings results to Virgin Voyages’ internal paid media, data science, and analytics teams. The data lets him take calculated messaging risks.
A real partner challenges the spend
The partnership is strengthened by the way the teams work together: weekly meetings, close data reviews, and campaign adjustments while the work is still in market.
“We have to operate as trusted advisors, and we have to be really candid with one another and challenge one another,” Racklin noted. “We’re not waiting until the campaign is over.”
This transparency and commitment to shared accountability showed up recently when Virgin Voyages had budget available, but PebblePost advised against using it because efficiency was declining. Instead, the team gave Quinn options: carry the funds forward, invest them elsewhere, or hold them.
For Quinn, the recommendation made the trust between the teams more tangible. PebblePost was willing to protect the brand’s investment, even when that meant recommending restraint.
“I’d rather you come to me and tell me that something doesn’t make sense for your brand or for what you’re doing and your product than try and pigeonhole it in and make it fit,” Quinn said.
Proof that changes decisions
These kinds of small changes have a big impact when marketers can prove what works and scale it. That’s the value of incrementality: showing that a specific change made a measurable difference and giving teams the confidence to apply that learning more broadly. Racklin emphasized holdout groups, verified purchase data, and shared measurement methodology as tools that help marketers defend decisions internally.
“We really believe that a test is valuable when it changes a decision,” Racklin explained. “It’s not just about performance. It’s not just the vanity metrics. It’s really about: Did that ad change behavior, can you prove that, and do you have confidence in it?”
As Virgin Voyages looks ahead, Quinn said the opportunity is to scale what works across channels, from CTV and direct mail to email and SMS. A single test may prove a concept, but a scalable one that you can implement across multiple teams can influence broader growth.
“If I can’t scale it across multiple channels, I can’t find a way to move it outside of its own bucket, then it becomes a lot less appealing,” Quinn said.
