Key OOH Marketing Metrics

Whilst other mediums have their disadvantages when compared to out-of-home (OOH) advertising, they often have a major advantage in that they have more easily trackable metrics.

If you are taking out an ad in a magazine, you know that your audiences are going to be engaging with the medium when they encounter your ad. If you’re running an online campaign your can record click through rates and measure impression.

When it comes to OOH, it’s harder to guarantee exposure to your creative and to find out how effective your campaign has been.

That’s why you should keep your eye on as many OOH metrics as possible to not only measure the success of your campaign, but also plan your future creatives. Let’s take a look at some key OOH metrics.

Social media engagement

Clearly one of the best metrics for OOH is to work out how many people are talking about your brand as a response to your ad. This can be tricky, because it takes a lot for your creative to work its way into your audience’s conscious and thence to their Twitter feeds and so on. If your campaign is structured around a hashtag, make a search for it across various social media platforms. Is it being taken up? Are people responding positively?

If your OOH creative involves a special offer, are people making inquiries about it? Look for ways to trace social media engagement back to your OOH campaign. You should be thinking about this before designing your creative as well; making your ad distinctive by hooking it to a seasonal campaign, a special offer, or new store opening etc.

Lead analysis

Have you noticed an increase of new leads since running your OOH campaign? If your campaign involved a hashtag or in other ways drove people to social media to engage, have you seen an increase in leads via social media?

If your OOH campaign is successful, you should see an increase in the amount of people Googling your brand. That will likely lead to an increase in visits to your website. Keep a keen eye on your Google Analytics; have people been coming to your site after using search terms relevant to your OOH campaign? That’s a sure sign that your creative is hitting home.

Customer acquisition cost

Add up your total ad budget across all platforms in a given period, then divide it by the amount of new customers acquired in the same period. That will tell you the advertising cost per customer. The lower the cost per customer, the more effective your advertising strategy is.

Ad placement

To be effective you need to know if the location you have chosen for your OOH ad is right. If you’re targeting students, have you taken out posters in student cities and, crucially, in the areas of cities where students live or socialise?

Perhaps you’re launching a new fitness app. Maybe choose a site near a gym, or a local park or known running area.

The trick is to think about the demographic you are targeting and where they’re most likely to be found.

For more info on OOH metrics, you may want to check out our blogs on how Outdoor advertising is measured.