Despite the rise of digital media, out-of-home advertising remains a steadfast component of integrated advertising campaigns. The allure of large format advertising still resonates with brands and audiences, and much like the persistency of digital, it’s “always on.” But with advantages come challenges. Attribution is one of the biggest unknowns in the out-of-home industry. When you get outside the world of digital impressions, calculating return on investment is difficult. While various data sources (Census data, department of transportation counts) provide a rough estimate of ‘eyeballs’ that are exposed to your ad, it’s a ballpark measurement at best. It’s difficult to know who is in your target audience, even more difficult to know how many engaged, and nearly impossible to determine who then acted on that impression later that day, week or month.
Mobile data is the only direct way for out-of-home marketers to track attribution – linking exposure of outdoor media to an action taken later on the mobile device. Attribution is just the beginning of mobile’s influence in outdoor media. Our out-of-home experts continue to leverage methodology used in mobile advertising — along with tech innovations specifically designed for outdoor media —to discover new means for how advertisers interact with and measure their communications with consumers.