Choosing the Right Metrics to Measure the Impact of DOOH Advertising

Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising is the natural evolution of traditional billboards and posters, providing the head-turning benefits of older outdoor mediums and the dynamic, always-relevant experience we’ve come to expect from online ads. For consumers, DOOH ads are not always easy to spot since they’re delivered through regular digital billboards. Behind the screens, however, these ads offer a level of precision that ad buyers have always dreamed of. DOOH ad installations leverage real-time audience and mobile device data to deliver outdoor advertisements that are always on point, significantly increasing the effectiveness of outdoor promotions.

These emerging advertisements are especially useful in densely-populated, tech-savvy regions like Singapore due to higher mobile device ownership and usage, as well as the foot and road traffic needed to make setting up these ads worthwhile. The challenge of these mediums lies in accurately measuring the effectiveness of DOOH campaigns.

Measuring the effectiveness of DOOH campaigns

As with any advertising campaign, assessing the performance of your campaign is critical for success. You must be able to justify the expense of the campaign to others within your organization by producing a report showing the return on that investment. Assessments during and after the campaign also provide insights that allow you to adjust your creative strategy for the rest of the campaign or for future campaigns to improve performance.

However, in order to access your campaign accurately, picking the right metrics is crucial in benchmarking and maximizing real success. Marketers who are only familiar with outdoor or digital advertising may not always understand how to measure success in hybrid mediums like DOOH, resulting in lost opportunities and disappointing results. Therefore, organizations just dipping their toes into these campaign types should look for vetted experts in this channel, such as digital OOH Singapore.

Let’s examine the key points to consider when choosing the right metrics to measure the impact of your next DOOH advertising in Singapore or anywhere in the world you choose to use DOOH advertising:

Audience reach and impressions

As with traditional outdoor ads or ads in any other channel, one of the fundamental metrics for DOOH campaigns is audience reach, which includes the number of people exposed to your advertisement. This is where a knowledgeable, local DOOH agency can provide valuable support by identifying high-traffic areas where you can achieve the most reach among those in your target market.

In Singapore, for instance, high foot traffic areas like Orchard Road or MRT stations can be great places to maximize impressions. Unlike traditional one-way outdoor ads, DOOH media can directly measure impressions through device data or sensors that detect when people look at an ad. Such impression measurements can give you a baseline for evaluating the effectiveness of your campaign. As we’ll further explore, however, impressions are not the only thing to consider for DOOH.

Dwell time and engagement

Dwell time measures how long people stay within the line of sight of your DOOH ad. If several people suddenly seem to be looking at your ad for longer, this may indicate higher engagement.

For more accurate assumptions, dwell times must be contextualized with the type of ad being run. For example, interactive ads that encourage people to stop and engage will naturally increase dwell time and thus have to be treated differently from more conventional advertisements.

Demographic targeting

One of the benefits of DOOH over traditional outdoor ads is the ability to target specific demographics. In diverse markets like Singapore, tracking the age, gender, and socio-economic background of viewers can give you insights into how, where, and when to run your ads. Just as importantly, this metric can also give you an idea of how to formulate more effective, demographically resonant campaigns moving forward.

By matching your advertising to the demographics of those likely to see the ad, you increase your performance. By the same token, knowing the demographics of your target market allows you to determine the best position for your DOOH ads.

Geospatial data

As with traditional outdoor ads, comparing performance data between ads displayed in different locations can tell you how crucial an area is to a campaign’s success. For instance, the difference between a DOOH ad’s performance in the Central Business District compared with its numbers in residential areas like Tampines can offer insights into how each location impacts campaign success. This data can later be used for more localized marketing with better ROI.

‘Dayparting’ and time-based metrics

Dayparting is the practice of scheduling ads at specific times of the day to maximize their potential visibility to the correct audience. For instance, for DOOH infrastructure located in MRT stations, ads aimed at office workers may perform better during morning rush hours, while ads directed at retirees and tourists may be best run outside of these times. The best approach will all depend on the overall demographics of a given neighborhood and how it changes over the course of a day.

Creative content performance

The effectiveness of the creative content used in your DOOH ads can be measured through metrics like visual attention and interaction rates. Testing different content in various formats and tonal approaches, as well as checking their performance, can help determine which designs are most effective.

Brand lift and awareness

Brand lift measures the increase in audience awareness and shifts in perception of your brand after you run your DOOH campaign. This can be measured using several methods, including surveys and studies of social media conversations.

Return on investment (ROI)

Ultimately, all ad campaign successes hinge on its ROI. Fortunately, the ability of DOOH displays to change ad content according to the interests of nearby individuals usually gives them a better ROI compared to traditional ads that can only fully appeal to one audience at any given time.

Stay on target with the right metrics to assess your DOOH advertising campaign

Picking the proper set of metrics for measuring success puts your DOOH ads firmly within the framework of your business’s goals. Even as DOOH technology continues to evolve, being able to choose the best metrics for a given campaign will give you an edge, keep you on target, and prevent you from being bogged down in a sea of data.

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Hausman and Associates, the publisher of MKT Maven, is a full-service marketing agency operating at the intersection of marketing and digital media. Check out our full range of services.