A Step-by-Step Implementation Guide As someone who's led promotional planning for a major CPG brand, I've seen firsthand how trade promotions can become a black hole for marketing spend. You plan promotions based on last year's calendar, hope for decent lift, then spend weeks reconciling what actually happened. The cycle repeats, and promotional ROI stays stubbornly mediocre. Breaking this pattern requires a systematic approach to implementing AI-powered optimization. This tutorial walks through the practical steps we used to implement AI Trade Promotion Optimization for a portfolio of products across multiple retail channels. These aren't theoretical best practices—they're battle-tested approaches that helped us increase promotional ROI by 12% while reducing overall trade investment by 8%. Whether you're at a company like Coca-Cola with massive scale or a mid-sized brand trying to compete more effectively, these steps provide a practical roadmap.…