OUTFRONT Media and StreetMetrics have partnered to enhance dynamic measurement for bus advertising campaigns. Through this alliance, the two companies are teaming up to bring dynamic measurement and attribution to the industry. Out-of-home media (OOH) companies in the U.S., and StreetMetrics are taking a new step that aims to leverage dynamic data to plan, to uncover campaign insights, and provide attribution analysis for bus advertising.

Market Marketers have long recognized that placing their brands on bus exteriors provides mass reach and connects with consumers along their journeys and that campaigns are seen by riders, pedestrians, and others along each route. However, through qualitative research, a transformative shift of how bus advertising is being leveraged by brands has now become apparent. Beginning in 2020, of the attribution studies commissioned by OUTFRONT across all media, 90% were focused predominantly on brand lift, but the pendulum has swing: over 50% of the studies commissioned in 2023 alone has been dedicated to lower funnel metrics (e.g., store/we website visits and app downloads), demonstrating brands' changing perception of the value and role of OOH in omnichannel marketing.

This partnership ties into the OUTFRONT Powered By Audiences (PBA) strategy, putting data at the center of its approach to positively impact its clients' businesses. Leveraging StreetMetrics' measurement and analytics capabilities, OUTFRONT is able to share to its clients actionable insights that measure media performance, and provide campaign effectiveness and ROI for bus advertising, similar to digital media. This shows that bus advertising can be effective in accomplishing advertisers' performance goals and will also enable bus advertising to be included in multi-touch attribution (MTA) and media mix modeling (MMM).

OUTFRONT, in partnership with StreetMetrics, conducted several attribution studies across a variety of categories, which produced great results. For example, in spring 2023, a popular app took to the streets with ariad of bus ad formats and StreetMetrics' analysis showed that those exposed to the ads were 79% more likely to download the app. OUTFRONT through StreetMetrics has seen similar client success in driving website visitation and store visitation using bus advertising.

For example, Sheertex ran a 4-week campaign in New York with the intention of increasing visits to their website. Those exposed to the bus ads, overall, were 98% more likely to visit the website than those not exposed, additionally, those exposed to the bus ads were 117% more likely to visit a Wendy's in the area than those not exposed. All proving that bus advertising not only creates awareness but can drive consumers down the functions.

While OUTFRONT has successfully used these attribution solutions to show that exposure to bus advertising can lead to a positive change in consumer behavior, the ultimate aim is to use the StreetMetrics' data set through the entire campaign lifecycle from planning to attribution and leverage those insights to inform and optimize future campaigns.