Out-of-home (OOH) advertising has traditionally been considered challenging to measure, but that perception is shifting. Thanks to advancements in analytics and cross-channel tracking, OOH is now demonstrating its strength as a powerful driver of return on investment (ROI).
According to a recent study by Analytics Partners, reallocating even a small portion of your marketing budget to OOH can lead to impressive results. For example, increasing your OOH spend has been shown to boost ROI by up to 27% — especially when combined with other channels like digital and TV.
Ready to harness OOH’s full potential? Let’s explore the strategies and tools that make it easier than ever to measure its true impact and drive tangible results.
The attribution challenge: Why it’s crucial to prove OOH’s ROI
(D)OOH attribution links your out-of-home advertising efforts to measurable outcomes, like store visits, online purchases, or app downloads. It helps advertisers understand how OOH ads impact the customer journey and how they contribute to broader marketing goals.
Today, proving ROI is more important than ever. Recent research shows that 88% of marketing leaders are now responsible for revenue goals, so there’s growing pressure to justify their team’s ad spend with clear, actionable data tied directly to measurable business outcomes. Yet, only 25% of leaders report high visibility into ROI across channels.
Advancements in technology have transformed OOH into a measurable, performance-driven channel capable of delivering actionable insights and proving its impact on modern marketing strategies. The rise of digital OOH (DOOH) and programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) is also helping solve traditional measurement challenges, offering access to tools like geofencing, dynamic audience impression tracking, and real-time analytics.
How to accurately attribute results to OOH campaigns: 4 tried-and-true methods
Tracking the impact of your campaigns doesn’t have to be complicated. By using proven methods like brand lift studies, foot traffic attribution, and interactive elements, you can directly connect ad exposure to measurable outcomes. These strategies help you maximize the value of every campaign and confidently demonstrate ROI.
Collecting brand lift insights through surveys and direct feedback
Brand Lift Studies provide tangible evidence of how OOH influences brand perception and consumer behaviour, uncovering data on ad recall, brand awareness, purchase intent, and more. Insights from these studies can guide targeting strategies, creative design, and placement decisions for future campaign efforts.
Measurement partners play a critical role in this process. They identify survey zones based on the geo-locations of digital OOH screens and use GDPR-compliant methods to gather responses through in-app and mobile ads targeting consumers in these areas. The uplift is measured by comparing survey results from two groups: those who recall seeing the ad (exposed group) and those who don’t (control group). Both groups are matched for demographics like age and gender, ensuring accurate, actionable results. Using targeted surveys as part of a brand lift study gives you a clear picture of how your OOH campaigns resonate with audiences and drive results.
Combining OOH attribution with sales data
One of the most direct ways to measure the success of OOH campaigns is by connecting ad exposure to sales outcomes. Integrating sales data — whether from in-store purchases or online transactions — can help you understand how OOH influences customer buying decisions and contributes to your bottom line.
Similarly, pairing OOH exposure data with e-commerce analytics can reveal spikes in online sales or conversions from specific geographic regions targeted by your campaign. This connection is especially valuable for measuring the effectiveness of location-based ads, like billboards near stores or transit ads in high-traffic areas. Integrating OOH attribution with sales data gives you a complete view of your campaign’s performance, helping you allocate budgets more effectively and focus on strategies that drive the greatest return.
Using geofencing and mobile data for foot traffic attribution
Geofencing has revolutionized how advertisers measure the impact of OOH campaigns on foot traffic, making it simple to track real-world results. By setting up a virtual boundary around your ad placement, you can use mobile data to see how many people are exposed to your ad and visit a specific location, like a nearby store or restaurant. For example, a restaurant with a billboard near a shopping mall can measure how many mall visitors stop by after seeing the ad.
Foot traffic attribution partners specialize in helping brands leverage geofencing and mobile data to measure campaign performance. These platforms analyze mobile location data to determine how exposure to OOH ads influences visits to specific locations. They also compare visitor patterns between exposed and non-exposed audiences to provide a clear picture of ad effectiveness. With tools like these, advertisers can gain actionable insights into customer behaviour, ensuring every OOH dollar is well spent.
Embracing marketing mix modelling (MMM) for cross-channel campaigns
When it comes to measuring the true impact of a brand’s outdoor advertising placements across various marketing channels, marketing mix modelling (MMM) is your secret weapon. MMM looks at the bigger picture, analyzing how different marketing channels — both online and offline — work together to drive results. For (D)OOH campaigns, it offers a way to capture the full value of your ads, even when there’s no direct click or digital trail to follow.
This is important because, while effective on its own, OOH has also been shown to supercharge the reach of your other advertising channels, with one study finding that OOH amplifies all major media by more than 90%. For example, a well-placed digital billboard might boost the performance of your paid search campaigns by increasing brand recall, which MMM can measure alongside your total marketing mix. MMM quantifies these synergies, helping you understand how OOH fits into your broader marketing mix and optimize your investments accordingly.
READ ALSO: Check out our Q&A with subject matter expert Ryan Pogy to find answers to some of the most common questions about measuring DOOH effectiveness
Leveraging technology to optimize (D)OOH ROI
By leveraging new tools that provide real-time data and integrating OOH campaigns with digital platforms, marketers can gain deeper insights and drive greater returns on investment. Here’s how these technological advancements are shaping the future of OOH advertising:
Real-time impression tracking
For digital and programmatic OOH campaigns, tools like the impression multiplier — a dynamic, DOOH-specific multiplication index that’s applied to each play on every individual screen — give advertisers a more accurate idea of how many impressions are delivered in a single ad play.
Depending on the network, the impression multiplier for a given DOOH screen is calculated by analyzing factors like:
- Screen size and visibility: Larger, more prominent screens are likely to capture more attention and generate higher impressions.
- Location and foot traffic: The number of people passing by the screen in a given timeframe, such as in busy urban areas or transit hubs.
- Viewing angles: How easily the screen can be seen from different positions and distances.
- Dwell time: The amount of time individuals spend within viewing range of the screen, such as in waiting areas or checkout lines.
- Content duration and frequency: The length and repetition of ads, which influence the likelihood of being seen.
- Time of day: Variations in audience size and engagement during different hours, such as rush hours or peak shopping times.
- Environmental conditions: External factors like lighting or weather that may impact screen visibility and audience behavior.
This data provides accurate audience exposure metrics, giving you a reliable way to measure reach, which remains a cornerstone of OOH advertising’s effectiveness. Real-time data also allows you to adjust your campaigns on the fly, maximizing impact.
Interactivity and real-time environmental triggers
Interactive elements in DOOH campaigns go beyond capturing attention — they invite participation and create measurable links between ad exposure and consumer action. Incorporating dynamic QR codes, touchscreens, augmented reality (AR), or social media prompts into your DOOH creative make it easy to track engagement, from website visits and conversions to social shares and app interactions.
Pair these interactive tools with dynamic DOOH content that adapts to real-time factors like time of day, weather, or location, and advertisers can deliver highly relevant messages that resonate with their audience.
Want to see more (D)OOH attribution in action?
Explore our collection of case studies and industry-specific strategy guides to discover how top brands are using advanced attribution methods to maximize the impact of their (D)OOH campaigns.
