Measuring the success & impact of your digital signage campaigns is done a little bit differently to other digital advertising methods such as online ads or sponsored content.
Both digital signage media owners and DOOH venue owners are interested in the success and metrics of these campaigns.
These media owners need to ensure that the content that they’re creating is effective, and venue owners are interested in knowing just how effective each of their locations are.
Digital advertising screens (such as outdoor digital signage and wall-mounted digital signage) are one-to-many advertising channels, meaning that there isn’t a direct, exact way to measure how many people view a single piece of content.
As technology and data collection improve in the future, this may change. But for now, there are a few different metrics and ways to measure the impact and effectiveness of digital out-of-home campaigns.
All of the following metrics have been outlined by the Outdoor Media Association’s industry standards (2022) document.
These standards were designed in conjunction with both the Media Federation of Australia (MFA) and the Outdoor Futures Council (OFC) with the goal of making buying, selling and measuring easier and simpler for everyone.
Advertising Recall
The advertising recall metric is one of the simpler metrics to understand, but collecting the data can be hard. This is because interested parties have to survey potential audience members.
Simply put, advertising recall rate for digital advertising screens can be defined as the estimated number of people who can remember seeing DOOH advertising after being exposed, usually within a set date range.
Recall rate is an important metric as it essentially measures how likely someone is to remember your brand. If the audience remembers your brand, they’re much more likely to choose it over other, similar brands.
On average, digital advertising screens have a recall rate of over 80%, that’s more than double traditional advertising channels. This is one of many reasons marketers have started adding digital signage to their marketing stack.
Awareness
Similar to advertising recall, outdoor digital signage (and other DOOH methods) can be a great way to improve your brand’s awareness.
Creating effective outdoor digital signage has become easily accessible thanks to changes in technology and simplified processes. Even small, local businesses can generate increased brand awareness with digital advertising screens.
Again, sharing another similarity to recall, whilst a simple metric to understand, data collection for awareness is also hard to achieve.
The OMA defines awareness as “the extent consumers are familiar with a brand or product”. Essentially, this means how likely a consumer is to mention your brand and how in-depth their understanding of said brand is.
Awareness as a metric to track and measure is best used to evaluate a range of marketing activities and goals. As most marketers are aware, their activities should be aiming to improve brand awareness.
Over 40% of consumers have said that digital advertising screens (such as wall-mounted digital signage) influence purchasing decisions.
This means that nearly half of all consumers can be swayed to choose a specific brand simply by employing digital signage advertising to raise brand awareness.
Brand Health
Brand health, or brand equity, is how consumers and audiences view and trust a particular brand. This is similar to the above metrics and is also an intangible metric.
Many different marketing strategies aim to improve brand health, from activations to charity donations, and to more traditional advertising channels.
The idea behind brand health as a measure of success is that consumers who trust and believe in a brand are more likely to purchase it over others. This differs from the previously mentioned metrics as it isn’t easy to give an “absolute” number/percentage.
Brand health can take into account a large number of factors and is more emotionally driven than something like awareness or recall.
Digital advertising screens have a range of positive effects on a company’s brand health. For example, it can increase customer satisfaction by over 40%. It’s also been proven that outdoor digital signage can increase the growth of repeat customers by over 30%.
Brand Uplift
If brand health is how much people trust a brand, brand uplift is the measure of how successful a campaign is at creating positive brand health.
The OMA defines brand uplift as “a measurement of an advertising campaign’s effectiveness in driving a positive shift in customer awareness and perception of a brand”.
Digital advertising screens are incredibly efficient at creating positive brand uplift due to its technological nature and “wow factor”.
Digital signage provides brands with the opportunity to give a great impression at a customer's point of purchase. Well-designed, flashy content is key to leaving a great impression, and this impression can translate to more brand uplift and therefore more sales.
Consideration
The OMA defines consideration as “the extent a consumer will consider a brand for purchase”, essentially boiling down to mean how likely a customer is to choose a specific brand as the one they’ll buy.
This is an important metric for digital signage success and impact as one of the end goals for all marketing is to get consumers to prioritise your particular brand over others.
To successfully measure and understand the impact of digital advertising screens on brand consideration, benchmarks must be set before campaigns go live. This is best done with surveys, in particular, understanding consumer preferences within a product category.
Conversion Window
The conversion window metric is one of the only digital advertising screen metrics that can vary from business to business, and category to category. This metric can vary due to the nature of what is deemed successful.
Defined as the length of time between exposure and when the viewer visits a store/website to purchase a product. For FMCG or impulse buys, this time will be shorter than something like a luxury or expensive product.
Measuring something like this proves to be a challenge at times, as it takes external data points. It’s also worth noting that refined benchmarking and testing are important to be able to accurately attribute digital advertising screens to the visit/purchasing decision.
Favourability
Favorability can be linked to brand health and brand uplift, think of it as their cousin. It’s used to measure the effectiveness in driving a positive consumer perception.
Digital advertising screens, in particular, outdoor digital signage is a great way for brands to improve their favourability. This is because the content that can be created is truly unique and experiential.
If brands are able to create campaigns that involve 3D billboards, it makes audiences stop, remember, and choose their brand. Audiences are also more likely to think of the brand in a favourable manner as they see them as technologically more advanced and revolutionary.
Purchase Intent
To some brands, the purchase intent metric is one of, if not the most important metric for digital signage (if not marketing in general). Especially if the brand's marketing goal is simply to increase sales.
Purchase intent, as defined by the OMA, is “a measure of the probability that a consumer will purchase a service or product”. Essentially, what is the increase (or decrease) in the likelihood of a viewer purchasing your product/service after seeing a digital advertising screen.
Purchase intent is very similar to favourability, the exception being that purchase intent measures actual purchasing behaviour, not just attitude towards brands.
This metric is important for retail venues and brands in the FMCG industry to see how digital advertising screens impact purchasing behaviour.
Collecting Metric Data
As stated several times above, the data needed to form assumptions around these metrics needs to be collected via surveys. Not only that, but to ensure the most accurate results and best understanding, it’s important to develop benchmarks before campaigns go live.
This is why some marketers avoid digital out-of-home advertising, it isn’t as clear-cut as other digital marketing channels like PPC and social media. Channels like these provide instant reports with highly accurate data, something DOOH just can’t do yet.
The thing is, DOOH technology is catching up, and these older advertising methods are losing their effectiveness. Internet cookies are being removed, and user data is becoming harder to come by.
Digital signage isn’t limited by these blockers and can capture and nurture audiences throughout their buying journey, from research to purchase.
Interested in learning more? Reach out to our sales team to get started with one of the most effective advertising methods today.
