Is the billboard working? How to measure outdoor advertising without guessing

Set a baseline, then watch searches, visits, calls and what customers tell you

You measure a billboard by recording your numbers before it goes up, then watching the signals a board moves: searches for your business name, direct visits to your website, calls and walk-ins, new customers from the areas the board reaches, and what new customers say when you ask how they heard about you. A short web address or offer used only on the board makes the link clearer. On the delivery side, ask for the audience estimate behind each board and which measure it uses. Together these tell you whether the board is seen and whether it is changing behavior.

Owners ask me about measurement at Lamar's Dallas–Fort Worth Billboard Office before almost every campaign, and I would rather they ask than buy a board on faith. Outdoor does not hand you a click report, but it is far from unmeasurable.

Two separate questions: was it seen, and did it work

Measurement gets muddled when two different questions are mixed together. The first is delivery: how many people had the chance to see the board, and who were they? The second is effect: did the board change what people did, such as searching for you, calling or buying?

Delivery is mostly answered before the campaign, from audience estimates. Effect is answered by you, from your own business data, during and after the run. You need both, and you need to keep them apart in your head, because a strong answer to one question says nothing about the other. A board with a large audience that does not move your numbers is in the wrong place or carries the wrong message. A business whose numbers rise while a board is up, in the area it covers, has a strong signal even without a click to point to.

Understanding the audience estimate

Billboard audiences are estimated, not counted at the board. Geopath, the outdoor industry's audience measurement company, builds its estimates from road network data, points of interest and mobile device location and movement patterns. It reports opportunity-to-see impressions and audience impressions, also called likely-to-see impressions, which adjust for whether a passerby was likely to notice the display, along with reach and frequency.

When you compare boards or campaigns, make sure the numbers use the same measure. Ask what the audience looks like, not just how big it is, because where those people live and work tells you whether they could become your customers. If you buy digital displays programmatically, the buy itself is priced on impressions, according to Lamar, so delivery is reported in the same terms as other digital media.

An audience estimate tells you the size of the opportunity, not the result. Two owners on the same board can get very different outcomes because of their message, their offer and what people find when they look them up. Use the estimate to choose and compare boards, then use your own data to judge the campaign.

Record your baseline before the board goes up

The single most useful thing you can do is write down where you stand before launch. Without a baseline, any change during the campaign is a guess. Pull at least the last few months of these numbers, and the same period last year if your business is seasonal.

• Searches for your business name, from Google Search Console and your Google Business Profile
• Direct visits to your website, meaning people who typed your address
• Calls, form submissions and walk-ins per week
• New customers per week or month, with their ZIP codes
• Sales or appointments per week, by location if you have more than one
• How new customers say they heard about you, if you already ask

The signals that move first

A board builds awareness before it builds sales, so the earliest signs are usually about people looking you up. Watch searches for your business name and direct visits to your website. When drivers start remembering your name, they type it in, and both numbers tend to rise before the phone does.

Ask every new customer how they heard about you, and keep a simple tally. Give them a short list to choose from, including the billboard, so the answer is easy. Expect some customers to say they have seen you around without naming the board; in my experience that phrase is often the billboard talking. Over the run, the answers become a useful record.

Your Google Business Profile is worth watching too. It shows how many people found your listing, called from it or asked for directions. A board near your location that tells drivers you are at the next exit often shows up there as more direction requests, while a brand board across the market tends to show up as more people searching for you by name.

Tools that make the link clearer

A few simple devices connect the board to results more directly. You do not need all of them; pick one or two that suit your business and the design. Each has a trade-off, because anything you add to the board uses up some of the few words a driver can read.

• A short web address used only on the board, which shows how many people typed it in
• An offer or code word that appears only on the board, so redemptions point back to it
• Customer ZIP codes compared between the area around the board and areas without one
• A before-and-after comparison of the same weeks, or the same weeks last year
• On a digital board, two messages run in turn for set periods, to see which one brings more response
• A dedicated phone number, only if the board is near your location and the number is short and memorable

What industry research says people do after seeing a board

Industry research gives a sense of what to expect, with the caveat that it is commissioned by the outdoor industry and describes averages, not your campaign. In a 2015 study Nielsen conducted for the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, based on 1,256 surveys in five markets, people who had noticed a digital billboard in the past month were asked what they had done after seeing one. Nineteen percent said they had visited a business advertised on a digital billboard, 14 percent had made a purchase at an advertised business and 36 percent had talked with friends or family about something they saw.

The same study found an average ad recall of 42 percent for an individual digital billboard campaign. Those figures show that boards do move people to act, often in ways that never appear as a click. That is exactly why your own baseline and your own questions matter more than any single number.

Common measurement mistakes

The first mistake is expecting a billboard to report like an online ad. Someone who sees your board, searches your name and clicks your listing will often be credited to the search ad or the website, not the board. If you only look at last-click reports, outdoor will always look weaker than it is. My guide comparing billboards with Google and social ads explains how the channels work together.

The second is judging too early. Awareness builds through repetition, so a quiet first few weeks is normal; my guide on how long a billboard campaign should run covers when to check. The third is not asking customers at all, which throws away the cheapest and most direct evidence you have.

The fourth is changing everything at once. If you launch a billboard, a new website, a radio spot and a price cut in the same month, nobody can tell which one moved the numbers. You do not have to run outdoor alone, but try to keep the other parts of your marketing steady for the first stretch of the campaign, or at least write down what changed and when, so the scorecard means something.

A simple monthly scorecard

Keep one page per month with the same rows every time: searches for your name, direct website visits, calls and forms, new customers, new customers from the board's area, and how-did-you-hear answers that mention the board or seeing you around. Put the baseline in the first column. After a few months you will see a trend clearly, and you will have something concrete to discuss when deciding whether to extend, change the message or move. Add a short notes row as well, for anything unusual that month, such as a holiday, a storm, a staff shortage or a competitor's grand opening, because those explain dips and spikes that have nothing to do with the board.

Print advertisers face the same challenge; the guide on measuring a print ad without guessing uses a similar approach and is worth reading if you run both.

Measuring the campaign together

When we plan a campaign, I help you choose the measures before the board goes up: what to record as a baseline, whether a short web address or board-only offer fits the design and when to check in. During the run, we look at the numbers together, and on a digital board we can adjust the message if response is weak.

If you are still deciding whether outdoor suits your business at all, start with my guide on whether a billboard is worth it for a small local business. If you are ready, bring your baseline numbers to our first conversation and we will plan the campaign around them.

Questions people ask me