How do I improve the ROI of Out-of-Home?

Out-of-home has long carried an unfair reputation. It’s often described as hard to measure, difficult to optimize, or—worse—a “nice-to-have” brand channel that underperforms compared to digital or TV.

That narrative is not only outdated, it’s wrong.

The truth is that OOH has a superpower most channels don’t: it makes everything else work harder. When OOH is added to the media mix, the performance of other channels improves—consistently and meaningfully. Across multiple studies over the years, we’ve seen total media ROI increase by 17% or more when OOH is introduced. When layered specifically onto TV, that lift can climb north of 25%.

OOH doesn’t compete with other channels. It amplifies them.

So how can brands plan and buy OOH to drive better ROI?

It is worth mentioning that ROI models are not the only method for measuring the performance of OOH. If you want to isolate OOH attribution, you can - and these will measure OOH's impact towards brand lift, foot traffic, web visits/orders, app downloads and more. We'll share more on these in a later post.

While OOH’s impact is well documented, results aren’t automatic. What separates high-performing OOH campaigns from the rest is not spend levels or format choice, but how the channel is planned and bought.

1. Plan to audience behavior, not just inventory

1. Plan to audience behavior, not just geography

   The strongest OOH plans are built on understanding where target audiences actually spend their time. Using mobility and location data allows brands to align placements with real-world behavior, ensuring OOH is both visible and relevant. In some cases, this approach also enables programmatic OOH, bringing greater flexibility and efficiency to the buy.

2. Optimize for frequency, not just impact

   OOH works through repeated exposure. While high-impact units can play a role, campaigns built around consistent frequency across formats and locations are far more likely to drive meaningful results than one-off “hero” placements.

3. Stay in market longer, with lighter sustained weights

   A lighter-for-longer approach keeps brands present over time, increasing the opportunity for OOH to influence consideration and amplify other channels. Sustained presence often delivers stronger performance than short, heavy bursts.

Why does OOH still get undervalued?

Given the proven impact of OOH—and the planning approaches that consistently improve ROI—you’d expect it to be a core pillar in every media mix.

But that’s still not always the case.

The issue isn’t OOH’s ability to be measured. It’s the data being used to measure it.

I was recently working with a brand that was considering cutting its OOH investment by half, driven by the conclusion that the previous year’s ROI had been “bad.” It’s a familiar scenario—one I’m sure many media buyers will recognize.

We had supplied detailed spend and delivery data for every OOH campaign, yet none of that context had been shared back with us. After several weeks of pushing for transparency, we finally had the opportunity to review the modeling approach with the measurement partner. The reason OOH appeared to underperform became clear very quickly.

First, the geographic inputs didn’t reflect how the campaign was actually planned or bought. Performance was being modeled at a state level, despite the fact that OOH activity was concentrated in just two DMAs. That mismatch alone significantly diluted any in-market impact.

Second, the impressions data we provided for each campaign wasn’t included in the model at all. Without accounting for delivery, it’s impossible to accurately assess scale or exposure—and equally impossible to understand true performance.

Finally, the reporting cadence was set to four-week intervals. While the campaign itself was planned in four-week cycles, data was supplied weekly specifically to capture variation and alignment with other channels. Aggregating that data removed important signal and further weakened the output.

The takeaway is simple: when OOH is reported as underperforming, it’s rarely because the channel didn’t work. More often, it’s because the data wasn’t fit for purpose. We've seen this time and again.

So, if you’re being told that OOH ROI is “bad,” start by checking the inputs. Chances are that the data will tell a very different story. Better yet, run an attribution study in tandem to see the isolated impact of OOH.