If you’ve been around the marketing block, you’ve heard about the power of out-of-home (OOH) advertising. But there’s a natural follow-up question: how do you see the stats for yourself?

Evaluating the impact of your OOH advertising isn’t quite as straightforward as digital advertising. There’s no one-click analytics dashboard that displays the exact number of cars that drove past your billboard yesterday, or the number of 40-year-old women who passed your airport wall wrap.

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t discover just how much reach your outdoor media is getting—and with the huge results that OOH advertising yields, measuring reach and impact for your ads feels less like a chore and more like a win every time.

Ready to discover how to calculate reach and frequency for your outdoor media buys? Keep reading for everything you need to know.

Measuring the Reach and Impact of Your OOH Advertising

There’s no denying that OOH advertising has immense value, but it goes without saying that value only exists if your advertising is making it to your audience.

As an advertiser, you want to know that your strategy is resonating. Learning how to calculate reach and frequency for your outdoor media is the best way to see the facts for yourself. Let’s break down the key terms that matter most.

Reach

First things first: let’s talk about reach. Your ad’s reach is the number of unique individuals who come across it. This is an unduplicated statistic—if someone comes across your ad twice, that doesn’t make the reach two, because it’s the same person both times. Reach tells us how many different people are coming in contact with your advertisement, giving valuable insight into its potential impact.

In OOH advertising, the goal is typically to reach 60–80% reach within your market. This market can be a location, age population, or another specific demographic.

Frequency

The frequency of an advertisement is the number of times a person comes across it. Remember, frequency builds familiarity, which in turn builds trust. The more often a person sees your ad, the more likely they are to act on it. Aim for a minimum of 3 times per ad, but remember that this is the minimum—ideal frequency is closer to 6–8. 

Impressions

A billboard’s number of impressions is the total number of times the billboard is viewed. This number can include duplicates—if the same person views an OOH ad four times, that is counted as four impressions. The more impressions, the better.

TRPs

When someone in your target audience notices your outdoor ad, that’s considered a Targeted Impression. It’s from this audience that TRPs, or Target Rating Points, are calculated. One TRP is equivalent to 1% of your target audience.

How to Evaluate Reach and Frequency in Outdoor Media Buys: Reach and Frequency in Advertising Examples

Let’s walk through a simple example. Say you’re advertising for a mystery book club in a tiny town with only ten residents in your target audience: women in their 60s and 70s.

You post a billboard on one of the main roads in town, and the first week, five of the women in your target audience see the ad, giving you a 50% reach. The next week, a snowstorm hits, and fewer people are out and about, so only three women (30%) see your ad—and two of them saw it last week. That means that only one new woman saw the ad, so your total reach is 60%. 

The official formula for calculating reach is TRPs / Frequency.

Meanwhile, if we look back at the example, we see that five people were reached the first week, and three people were reached the second week, totaling eight impressions and six unique viewers. By dividing eight by six, we get 1.3, which is our frequency for the campaign.

The official formula for calculating frequency is TRPs / Reach.

Craft Outdoor Advertising Campaigns That Reach Your Target Audience With Alluvit Media

Understanding reach and frequency is key to creating outdoor advertising campaigns that put your brand or business in front of the right people—but the process is simpler when you don’t have to figure it out all on your own.

At Alluvit Media, our expert media coordinators have put together hundreds of outdoor advertising campaigns, and they’re here to walk you through every step of the ad process. Determine the perfect location and duration for your ad, let our team handle the graphics for free, and sit back and watch the magic happen.

Ready to get started? Request your free proposal today.

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