OOH Metrics: Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB)

There are numerous methods for measuring out of home media effectiveness, usually in relation to OOH viewing compared to radio listenership, television viewership, newspaper and magazine readership, and internet usage. OOH metrics often includes demographic and psychographic information to help advertisers determine who is being exposed to advertising, rather than how many people are being exposed to a message. A cornerstone of OOH metrics is Geopath’s Audience Measurement Ratings. They are a standardized, quantitative and reliable measurement that is consistent with other common media metrics.

Out of home advertising types include:

Street furniture: Street furniture advertisements place ads at eye-level with potential customers. Street furniture advertisements use infrastructure like bus stops, newsstands and kiosks, transit shelters, phone kiosks, and more.

Commuters, pedestrians, and motorists are the most common targets of street furniture advertising.

Billboards: This traditional form of media is most commonly displayed next to freeways, interstates, highways, and other heavily travelled areas where consumers can see them from passing cars or trains.

Wallscapes: Wallscapes are advertisements that use the exterior surfaces of existing buildings to promote brands. These ads may be painted on or be temporary, but they’re often quite beautiful, which makes them part of the urban beautification process. Consumers often view these advertisements as an enhancement rather than as an annoyance, which helps place the product in a positive light.

Transit advertising: Transit advertising includes wraps placed on the sides of busses, trains, subway rail cars, and taxis. Both users of public transportation and commuters within the city, as well as anyone else in the vicinity of these vehicles, are considered targets of the advertisements. Because they’re not stationary, transit advertisements may be able to reach more people than other forms of media.

Wildpostings: Cities are synonymous with flyers that promote events, concerts, and special appearances and seem to be plastered to every available surface. These advertisements are called wildpostings, and they’re a popular and low-cost way to get the word out about things like events, album releases, and appearances in urban areas.

Well, the first method of measuring OOH is also the simplest. Known as the before and after method, you simply look at sales figures before and after running the ad. If sales increased, the likelihood is that the ad is working. Compare the cost of running the ad against how much additional profits were generated and you can calculate your return on investment (ROI). This, however, is a rather crude methodology for measuring the effectiveness of your campaign and if conducted in isolation, it may not be producing accurate results.

Measuring OOH Impressions

With OOH, you can measure with great accuracy how many people will walk or drive past your advertisement and see its content. Impressions can be measured using travel surveys, data modelling and census data, amongst others.  However, today, there are even more accurate ways to calculate impressions that can provide information to advertisers in real time. This is achieved through Location Data or location based mobile data.

Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB)

OOH advertising is predominantly measured in four different ways.

Demographics: Census information and surveys are used to provide demographic and psychographic information that measures OOH advertising. The data is modelled into millions of trip paths, which helps advertisers understand who is being reached by their content.

Impressions: Impression’s gauge who your ad is reaching, and are typically provided in the form of weekly figures. Impressions measure the average number of times an individual consumer views an advertisement. Impressions include information about traffic data, which helps estimate the number of vehicles that have passed an advertisement. Impressions may also include travel surveys, data modelling, and census data.

Digital trails: Digital trails are a simple way to track OOH advertising. They include things like promo codes, social media accounts, links, and other online information that is incorporated into an advertisement. Each of these items can be tracked based on the number of people using a promo code, for example, or following a social media account.

Visibility research: Visibility research is calculated using contact zones that determine the distance from which an advertisement can first be seen and how fast traffic moves past the advertisement each hour. Another calculation is the time in which people “dwell” in an area while sitting in traffic, waiting for a train, or waiting for a bus. Visibility research helps to determine a person’s likelihood of actually noticing an ad based on their opportunity to see it.

Measurements:

Slogan Analytics

If you used a particularly catchy slogan or phrase on a recent OOH advertisement, you can use slogan analytics to get an idea of the ad’s effectiveness. Look on your website’s analytics tool to see how many times the keywords or tagline from your slogan has been entered into search engines.

While people might not be able to remember a promo code or a website, if the slogan stuck with them, they may try to find your brand by searching for the words they remember.

Hashtag Metrics

Hashtags are a great way to measure the success of a billboard or wildposting campaign. Include a campaign-specific hashtag on your ad and check for its use on different social media platforms.

If you notice people starting to engage with the hashtag, you’ll get an idea of the impressions of your advertisement. Hashtags also enable you to search across social media platforms to get an idea of the number of people connecting with your brand.

Before and After

If you’re only running one OOH advertising campaign at a time, the before and after method is an obvious way to measure the effectiveness of your campaign. Take a look at sales immediately prior to starting a campaign, and then look at sales after the campaign begins. If you notice a significant increase in sales, it’s likely due to your OOH advertising campaign.

The tricky thing about using the before and after method of measurement is that it requires you to keep all other forms of marketing the same. Otherwise, the variability may be attributable to other campaigns.

Promo Code Campaigns

Adding a promo code to a billboard or flyer helps to measure the impressions of your OOH campaign. Assign a campaign-specific promo code, discount voucher, or QR code to the campaign, and run the promo code only during the period of the campaign. This will enable you to track the number of people who enter the campaign-specific code on the website, giving you an idea of how many sales your campaign has generated.

Campaign-Specific URL

Placing a campaign-specific URL on your OOH advertisement is another way to measure impressions.

Survey

Perhaps the simplest measure of all is to give customers a short survey during or after a purchase that asks them where they heard about your brand.

If they tell you that they first learned about your company on a billboard, then you have your answer about the effectiveness of your OOH campaign.