How to run out of home advertising competitor research

What to take away

Out of home advertising competitor research is the routine of collecting what rivals spend, where they buy and who they reach, then turning it into buying decisions.
It works best as a fixed monthly cycle rather than a one-off audit.
Start with a written question, because each question points to a different source.
Treat third-party spend figures as estimates, not invoices.
Keep a dated record so you can compare quarters rather than argue from memory.

Define the question first

Write one sentence before you open any tool. A question about which roadside formats rivals added this quarter points to site lists and creative capture. A question about audience overlap points to survey data instead.

Without that sentence, teams collect everything and decide nothing. Our audience research guide for England sets out how to match a research method to the decision in front of you before you compare anyone else.

Build a competitor set

Keep the set small and defensible. Six to ten advertisers is usually enough for a regional campaign. Include direct rivals, one national advertiser in the same category, and one advertiser from an adjacent category if it competes for the same audiences.

Building a Competitor Set

Keep set small and defensible
Six to ten advertisers for regional campaign
Include direct rivals
Add one national advertiser same category
Add one adjacent category advertiser
Review set each quarter

Review the set each quarter. Advertisers enter and leave a market, and a stale list distorts every comparison you make afterwards.

A worked example

Suppose you sell home furnishings across the Midlands. Your set might be two national furniture retailers, one supermarket with a homeware range, one regional independent, and one adjacent advertiser, such as a flooring brand, chasing the same homeowners.

Six-sheet and 48-sheet activity near retail parks and transport interchanges shows where they buy; Route data gives you the audience volumes around those sites. Run the same capture next quarter, and the movement between formats is the finding.

Sources worth using

Planning tools and site lists from media owners — JCDecaux UK, Clear Channel UK, Global Outdoor, Ocean Outdoor and Alight Media — for formats and locations.
Route, the UK's audience measurement currency for out of home advertising, for audience volumes and profiles by site and format.
Outsmart, the trade body for UK out of home advertising, for market structure and its quarterly revenue reports.
Industry spend reportsthe AA/WARC Expenditure Report, Nielsen and SMI (Standard Media Index) — read as estimates.
Creative capture, either your own photography or the campaign galleries the media owners publish.
Market commentary from specialist out of home agencies such as Talon and Kinetic.
Your own sales team notes, dated and attributed.

Spend reports are the weakest link. They infer budgets from rate cards and observed activity, so treat any single figure as a range. Outsmart's quarterly figures cover the market as a whole, while Nielsen and SMI publish brand-level estimates worth comparing with your own. Buy audience data from a broker and the ICO guidance on using data broker marketing services sets out the checks and lawful basis you need first.

Track creative over time

Photograph or download each rival execution and log the date, format and location. Over two or three quarters, patterns appear: a retailer that always runs six-sheets near transport hubs, or a brand that switches to 48-sheets in the run-up to Christmas.

Creative rotation tells you more about intent than a spend estimate does. A rival repeating the same message across the same sites is buying reach. A rival testing new copy in new locations is buying learning.

Check the digital side

Many out of home buyers also run paid social, so compare the two channels. A rival building product catalogues for social campaigns is often preparing a coordinated push. The TikTok Ads Manager guide to creating a catalogue shows the asset work involved.

On the out of home side, digital inventory from media owners such as Ocean Outdoor and JCDecaux UK sits in the same site lists and the same Route data as classic formats.

Digital delivery also meets ad blocking, which affects how many impressions a rival actually lands. The IAB UK guidance on solutions to ad blocking is a reminder that reported delivery and seen delivery are not the same number.

Run a monthly checklist

Confirm the question for this cycle.
Update the competitor set and remove dormant names.
Capture new creative with dates and locations.
Note format changes and any new sites.
Pull audience data for the locations involved.
Record spend estimates as ranges, with the source named.
Flag anything that changes a live buying decision.
File the notes so next month starts from evidence.

If you need to commission your own fieldwork rather than rely on published data, our guide to survey tools for out of home research in England covers sampling, question design and the practical limits of each method.

Common questions

A few questions come up every time a team sets up a competitor research cycle.

How often should competitor research be repeated?

Monthly for creative and site changes, quarterly for spend estimates and audience comparisons. Anything more frequent adds cost without much signal.

Can I rely on published spend figures?

No. Use them as directional ranges and say so in any internal paper. A single precise number invites false confidence when the budget is reallocated later.

What if a rival buys formats I cannot afford?

Record it and move on. The useful question is which audiences those formats reach, not whether you can match the buy pound for pound.

Does this work outside England?

Rules and data sources differ across the UK. Check the relevant nation's guidance before applying an England-based method to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.