A simple framework for designing JBPs that work for your brand

What is a JBP (Joint Business Plan)?

On paper, a Joint Business Plan (JBP) or Joint Value Creation (JVC) is simple: you and a retailer agree on what you’re trying to achieve together this year, and what each side is going to bring to the table to get there.

In practice, it often feels like a long list of asks where you’re trying to read between the lines. Sometimes it even comes through as a simple email: a fixed investment number, a growth target, and a quick “Can you confirm?”

Why JBPs are becoming more complex for brands

For brands, this is rarely an easy “yes” or “no” that depends only on whether the money can be found. The better question is:

“Is this the right investment for our business? If so, what do we get in return?” That question is getting harder, not easier, because:

• Budgets are flattening. You’re being asked to do more with the same pool of money. A big step-up for one retailer almost always means a cut somewhere else.

• You’re balancing multiple retailer partners. Amazon, Walmart, Target, club, grocery, specialty—the JBP ask is one piece of a much larger portfolio.

• JBPs themselves are changing. They’re no longer just about in-year trade and media; they’re starting to include data access, new formats, measurement partnerships, and test budgets.

Seen through that lens, a JBP is a portfolio decision. You need a way to look at any JBP and say:

• How big of a role does this retailer play for us today?

• What is the real, measurable impact of this ask?

• What are we getting back, beyond more impressions, for saying yes?

We use a simple framework to make those calls. But before we get to the framework, it helps to look at JBPs from the retailer’s angle.

Why retailers are pushing for bigger JBP asks

JBPs feel less daunting when you take a look from the retailer’s perspective. For the retailer, a JBP sits at the center of a few real pressures:

• They need predictable revenue from your category to hit internal sales and retail media targets.

• They’re juggling dozens or hundreds of brands and categories at once.

• They’re under pressure to grow their retail media network faster than the rest of the business.

So when you see, “We’d like you to commit $X to drive Y% growth,” that’s often the output of a much bigger internal planning process: how they prove their network works, how they prioritize which categories to lean into, and how they defend their own P&L.

From that vantage point, the JBP is a planning lever: lock in revenue, test new formats, and show the organization they can grow with partners like you.

JBPs work best when you focus on shared goals

When a retailer comes to you with a big number, it usually lines up with their internal targets and growth story and less so with your current portfolio math. The good news: there is a shared center of gravity. Both sides want:

• Growth

• Better shopper experiences

• Stronger capabilities over time (data, measurement, audiences, formats)

The challenge is moving from a tug-of-war (“Here’s our ask” versus “Here’s our budget”) to a more productive conversation: “Given your role in our business, here’s the right range of investment. Within that range, let’s design a package of benefits that creates real value on both sides.”

To do that, you need a straightforward framework: Understanding the impact to your business by analyzing the “table stakes” versus the “go gets.”

The framework: Understand the impact to your business, supported by analyzing “table stakes” versus “go gets”

Step 1: Understand the impact to your business

For brands, underneath the back-and-forth, the underlying questions to ask for each JBP look like:

• What role does this retailer play in our total business? Are they top 5, or #15 out of 30? Are they a scale engine or a “nice to have”?

• How are they performing vs. others? Is ROAS 1.5–2.5x better than the rest of the mix, or below average? Is their digital business growing faster than the market, or lagging?

• What happens to the rest of our ecosystem if we say yes? A big jump in one place usually means cuts somewhere else.

All of this rolls up to one core idea:

What is the impact to our business in hard numbers?

Not just in theory or on a slide, but in:

• Sales contribution and growth

• Efficiency (ROAS, cost per incremental sale)

• Strategic role (category, shopper, data, capabilities)

Here’s an example to help bring understanding impact to business to life:

One mid-size retailer delivered strong efficiency (roughly 1.5–2.5x higher ROAS than other partners) but only ranked around 15th in total sales contribution. Their JBP ask was a 200%+ budget increase.

When we looked at impact to business and portfolio balance, the data supported a modest 0–20% increase, not a change that would disrupt the rest of the media mix. The right answer was “lean in more here,” not “rebuild the portfolio around this one partner.”

Understanding impact to business tells you what range of investment makes sense. To decide where to land within that range, you need to unpack what the retailer is offering.

Step 2: Analyzing “table stakes” versus “go gets”

When a retailer shares their JBP benefits, the list can look impressive and overwhelming. Everything sounds valuable, but not everything is. We bucket benefits into two groups:

Table stakes: the cost of entry

These are the benefits a brand of your size should reasonably expect as baseline support, especially if you’re committing meaningful spend. They make your investment workable, but they don’t justify a massive increase on their own. Think:

• Standard reporting and performance dashboards

• Access to core ad products and basic placements

• Participation in key tentpoles and category reviews

• Basic audience targeting and standard trafficking support

If you’re committing serious dollars, you shouldn’t have to stretch just to get these.

Go gets: the benefits that truly move the needle

Go gets are where the JBP becomes a lever for growth and learning. These are benefits that:

• Improve efficiency (better ROAS, lower cost per incremental sale)

• Expand scale (incremental reach, stronger SOV)

• Build capability (new data, better measurement, smarter audiences)

Some examples:

• Media credits or added-value budgets (often 0.5–3% of spend) earmarked for test-and-learn

• Advanced or custom audiences using retailer signals

• Deeper data access and insights (e.g., clean room / attribution partnerships)

• First-to-market tests, exclusive brand programs, or premium exposure you can’t easily buy elsewhere

• Enhanced measurement and optimization support that goes beyond standard service

Go gets in action:

In one JBP, the retailer proposed a long list of benefits “valued” at roughly $400K: reporting access, basic placements, standard category reviews, and more.

When we ran it through the framework, most of that list fell into table stakes. Useful, but not something that should drive a multi-million-dollar increase. The handful of true go gets (such as advanced retargeting audiences and a test budget for new onsite formats) were strong, but represented a fraction of the claimed value.

That distinction completely changed how we approached the negotiation. Go gets are what you use to justify: “...and here’s why we’d move from, say, $250K closer to $500K.”

Putting the framework to work: a JBP decision in practice

Let’s make this concrete. Imagine a retailer comes to your team with a JBP that asks for:

• Investment: $2M in media spend (up from $1M last year)

• Growth: +15% category sales for your portfolio

• Benefits menu:

  • Standard reporting access

  • Participation in two key tentpole events

  • Always-on placements in core search results

  • “Premium” dashboard support

  • A “$300K value” package of onsite and offsite impressions

  • Access to a new custom audience product

  • A test budget for a new onsite video format

Here’s how the framework guides the decision.

Step 1. Start with the retailer’s role and impact to business

First, your team pulls the numbers:

• This retailer is #6 by total sales contribution.

• Growth is healthy but not outpacing your top partners.

• ROAS is slightly above average; cost per incremental sale is in line with the rest of the mix.

You land on a budget band: “With current contribution, growth, and ROAS, a 0–25% increase is reasonable. A 100% increase is not.” That range becomes your anchor.

Step 2. Sort the benefits into table stakes versus go gets

You go line by line:

• Standard reporting, basic placements, tentpoles, and dashboard support all fall under table stakes for a brand of your size and spend level. Important, but not a reason to double the budget.

• Access to the new custom audience product and a test budget for onsite video clearly sit in the go gets bucket: they open up new targeting and new creative formats you can’t easily replicate elsewhere.

• The “$300K value” impression package gets reclassified once you strip away the marketing language. Some of it supports tests, some is simply added volume on existing placements.

Now the picture looks different:

• Most of the “value” is baseline.

• A smaller set of go gets have real potential to improve efficiency and build capability.

3. Use this view to decide where in the range to land

Armed with that view, you respond:

• You confirm you’re open to an increase within the 0–25% band based on performance and proof points.

• You ask the retailer to:

  • Tie the custom audience and video tests to clear KPIs (incremental ROAS, new-to-brand, or category growth).

  • Ring-fence the test budget and audience access so they don’t disappear mid-year.

  • Agree on a readout plan so both sides can evaluate outcomes before next year’s JBP.

You might land on something like:

• A 20% increase in committed spend this year

• Access to the custom audience product for your top 2–3 priority brands

• A defined test-and-learn budget for onsite video, with a commitment to review results and revisit spend levels next year if targets are met

Now the JBP is no longer a binary “Do we double our spend?” decision. It becomes a structured plan:

• The investment level matches the retailer’s current role.

• Table stakes are covered without overpaying.

• Go gets are used to justify the higher end of your range, with measurement baked in.

Turning the JBP framework into a repeatable playbook

The real unlock is making this systematic. If you apply the same framework to every JBP:

• You evaluate different retailers on an apples-to-apples basis.

• You can explain internally why you said yes, no, or “not at that level.”

• You move away from reacting to big numbers and toward designing partnerships that work for your total business.

A JBP should be a structured agreement where:

• The investment level reflects the retailer’s true role in your business.

• The benefit mix is thoughtfully designed. Table stakes as the foundation, go gets as the accelerant.

• Both sides can point to a clear story of how the plan grows the category and the business, not just the media line.

That’s the mindset shift: from “How do we respond to this ask?” to “How do we architect JBPs that create joint value and make sense for our portfolio this year and next?”

If you’d like a partner in the room for your next JBP cycle, or want to pressure-test a specific plan, let’s connect and dig in together.