Costs and pricing
Part of Seven out of home advertising costs and pricing rules for England
Scoring out of home advertising return on investment without guesswork
How media buyers score out of home advertising return on investment with a weighted 1 to 5 rubric built from cost, audience and measurement evidence.
What to take away
- Take a Manchester retailer weighing £8,000 on a four-week billboard campaign. It needs a written score before signing, not after.
- Build that score from three inputs: total cost, audience delivery and evidence of response. Set the weights in advance.
- Score each input from 1 to 5 so two buyers reach the same number.
- Agree the measurement method before launch. A clean control period still does most of the work.
- Re-score after the campaign. That second number is what improves the next buy.
Why a score beats a single ROI percentage
A single percentage hides its assumptions. Two buyers can both claim 3:1 and mean different things: one counted footfall, the other counted online sales.
A score forces those assumptions into the open, and it survives the meeting where finance asks how the number was built.
Write down what the campaign is for. Awareness, store visits and lead volume need different evidence.
Step 1: total the cost
Add site rental, production, installation, planning time and any measurement fee. Use quotes rather than list prices, and label every figure in pounds sterling.
For example, a team paying £400 a month for a small digital panel adds £900 for production and £250 for installation in month one. The true first-month cost is £1,550, not £400.
Hidden charges distort ROI more than headline rates. Check the out of home advertising hidden costs in England before you commit, because a missed installation fee can turn a positive score negative.
Step 2: score audience delivery
Use the site's audience data, then discount it for your own definition of a relevant viewer. A panel seen by 100,000 people is worth less if only 20,000 match your catchment.
| Score | Audience evidence |
|---|---|
| 5 | Verified audience data for your catchment, with a recent independent audit |
| 4 | Site owner data plus your own footfall or traffic check |
| 3 | Site owner data only, consistent with nearby sites |
| 2 | Modelled audience with no local check |
| 1 | No audience data, or data you cannot inspect |
Checking the audience claim
Ask which panel measured the audience and when. If the answer is vague, drop one point. If the site owner shows a recent audit, keep the score.
Adjusting for catchment
Apply your own filter. A 30% match rate on a 100,000 audience gives 30,000 relevant impressions. Divide total cost by that figure to get a labelled cost per relevant impression.
Step 3: score the evidence of response
This is where most campaigns lose points. Anecdotes are not evidence. A control period or a promo code is.
Digital out of home standards are maturing, and the IAB UK's account of its role in digital advertising explains how the channel's measurement conventions developed.
Cross-media measurement matters when OOH sits beside search or social. The Origin cross-media measurement initiative is worth reading if you need to compare channels on one scale.
Score response evidence from 1 to 5. A control period with a clear uplift scores 5. A single anecdote scores 1.
Step 4: apply the rules that shape the score
Some campaigns carry regulatory risk that changes the expected return. Social and political advertising has specific CAP rules, set out in the ASA's guidance on social and political advertising. Add a risk deduction for that category before you compare scores.
Creative approval delays also cost money. Build a two-week buffer and treat lost days as a cost.
Step 5: combine and act
Weight the three scores. A common split is 30% cost, 30% audience and 40% response evidence.
A campaign scoring 4, 3 and 2 becomes 1.2 plus 0.9 plus 0.8, giving 2.9 out of 5. Set a threshold before you score, for example 3.5 for a go decision.
For the underlying cost lines, work through the out of home advertising costs and budget guide for England before you set that threshold.
Re-score after the campaign using actual costs and measured response. Keep both scores in the file so the next brief starts from evidence.
Common questions
What counts as a good score?
It depends on your threshold. Set the number before you see any campaign, then apply it consistently. A score of 3.5 or above is a reasonable starting threshold for a first test.
Can I score a campaign with no audience data?
Yes, but the audience input scores 1 and the total will rarely clear a sensible threshold. Treat the buy as a test with a capped budget.
How often should I re-score?
Once after launch and once at the end. The final score uses actual costs and measured response, so it is the one to quote in future planning.
