What is Attribution for DOOH Advertising 101

Some big ad agencies have about a hundred different ways of disguising the fact that they can’t actually measure a campaign’s effectiveness.

And, honestly, we feel for them.

Because, to be real with you, measuring any kind of advertising does present some problems for both clients and media people. There’s a lot of factors that are, even with current technology, hard to ascribe to one source.

For example, word of mouth. Let’s say your TV ad is seen by one person who doesn’t buy your product but tells two of his friends, who visit your website and buy your product. On paper, that would look like your ad didn’t reach that person and that organic web traffic is what’s driving sales, which doesn’t tell the whole story.

Additionally, media networks (both DOOH and non-DOOH) are quite fragmented and might not have the same measurement standards as each other, making a comprehensive look difficult.

But, instead of giving up and saying advertising is a complete crapshoot, we’ve actually outlined some key ways that Blindspot uses to measure attribution. Each one has pros and cons and we recommend a holistic approach when it comes to tracking attribution.

1. Control groups: We compare audiences who were exposed to the campaign with those who weren’t. By isolating variables, we can draw clearer connections between media exposure and outcomes like visits, purchases, or searches.
   
2. Foot Traffic Analysis: Foot traffic is another great way of assessing DOOH and OOH impact, especially when geo-fencing or mobile location data is available. It allows us to see if ad exposure in a specific area led to increased visits to nearby stores or venues.
   
3. Purchase data: Tying exposure to actual purchases—whether through loyalty cards, POS systems, or ecommerce data—gives us one of the most direct lines to ROI. It’s not always available, but when it is, it’s gold.
   
4. Impression Tracking: While not the most precise measure, impressions still help quantify reach and frequency. When paired with other metrics, they can tell a meaningful story about exposure levels and awareness. Impression tracking for billboards and other outdoor ads uses GPS and mobile data to estimate how many people saw an ad. Special tools can count how often a device passes by, and for digital signs, sensors or mobile pings help estimate how many people saw each ad play. This info is collected safely and helps connect outdoor ads to online activity.
   
5. Online Conversions: OOH ads, like billboards, are now being linked to online actions like website visits and app installs. By using mobile data and cookies, advertisers can tell if someone who saw an ad later visited a site or downloaded an app. OOH also boosts online searches—one report showed a 40% increase in ROI for search when OOH was added to the media mix. A UK study found that 66% of short-term brand actions from OOH were website visits or searches. In one campaign for a streaming app, mobile ad clicks were up to 15% higher in areas where OOH ads ran, proving that OOH helps drive digital engagement and lowers the cost to get new customers.
   
6. MAIDs (Mobile Advertising IDs): These let us anonymously track individual devices across time and platforms. It’s a powerful tool for measuring both exposure and follow-up behavior—like app installs, website visits, or location pings.
   
7. QR Codes: Although it’s significant enough to bear mentioning, Blindspot does not recommend the use of QR codes. Our research has found that most people simply don’t have the time to stop and scan a QR code and, those that do, are likely to give up quickly if their camera or the angle they’re at make scanning impossible. That said, if used in the right context (like say near a bus shelter), QR codes can add value—but they shouldn’t be your main attribution strategy.
   
8. Integration With First-Party Data: Lastly, a broader method gaining traction is integrating OOH exposure data with brands’ own first-party data systems and using Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM). With the deprecation of many third-party cookies, brands are leveraging their customer data platforms (CDPs) and MMM to measure all channels, including OOH, in a privacy-safe way. Some brands upload their customer or subscriber list (emails, phone numbers) to an OOH data provider to do a match-back analysis. For example, a retailer might ask: “Of our loyalty program members in City X, which ones were exposed to our OOH ads, and did their purchase behavior differ from those not exposed?” If the OOH vendor has device IDs or hashed emails from exposures (via data partners), they can intersect that with the brand’s list. This can show, say, higher spending or shorter purchase cycles among those who saw the OOH ad, measured with the brand’s own sales data. It’s essentially like a closed-loop attribution using the brand’s data as the source of truth.
   

There’s other ways of measuring attribution that are still developing as well. Some outdoor ads now use AI and cameras to see who actually looks at the ad and for how long. This helps advertisers measure real attention, like smiles or how many seconds someone watches, not just how many people walk by. More attribution technology will emerge as digital screen technology evolves – another advantage that DOOH offers over traditional billboards (it’s hard to innovate a giant sheet of paper after all).

If you want to learn more about the effectiveness of DOOH, check out this case study we made for our work with AdoreMe. We partnered with AdoreMe to conduct an in-depth analysis of a DOOH campaign they ran with Blindspot, revealing a massive 775% incremental lift from OOH. Remarkably, their customer acquisition cost for those exposed to the campaign was just $5.75!

Similar success stories can be found in our case study section here.