OOHGuide

Is Out-of-Home Advertising Profitable? OOH ROI Data for 2026

Updated 2026-10-19

Short answer: for most brands that buy it, yes. An October 2026 analysis from marketing mix modeling firm Keen Decision Systems and OOH agency Accretive found that 89% of brands investing in out-of-home saw profitable returns, with an average profit ROI of $1.48 per dollar spent (PPC Land). The headline figure you may see, $7.97, is a best-case number, not an average.

The 2026 numbers at a glance

Metric 2026 figure What it means
Brands with profitable OOH returns 89% Share of OOH-investing brands that made money on it
Average profit ROI $1.48 Typical profit return per dollar spent
Median ROI, all OOH $1.78 The middle advertiser
Median ROI, digital OOH $1.76 Almost the same as OOH overall
Optimized marginal profit ROI $7.97 (up from $7.58) Return on the next dollar in the most favorable week
Brands using OOH 21.3% to 25.2% Year-over-year adoption in Keen's data
Brands using digital OOH 1.1% to 3.4% About triple in a year
OOH share of media spend 1.3% to 1.6% Still a small slice of budgets

Sources: PPC Land and Media4Growth, October 2026.

Average ROI vs marginal ROI: why there are two numbers

  • Average (profit) ROI divides the profit a channel produced by everything spent on it. This is the closest to "what did my campaign earn?" The 2026 figure is $1.48.
  • Marginal ROI estimates what the next dollar would return, using response curves from marketing mix models. The $7.97 figure is the marginal return in the most optimal week for investment. It shows there's room to grow spend profitably, especially for brands that barely use OOH, but it isn't what a typical campaign earns.

When a vendor quotes a big OOH ROI number, check which one it is.

The digital OOH spread

Digital out-of-home results varied the most:

DOOH advertisers Return per $1 spent
Top quarter (75th percentile) $3.37
Median $1.76
Bottom quarter (25th percentile) Under $1

The same type of media produced losses for one advertiser and more than three dollars back for another. The difference is usually in the buying and the creative: screens near your customers, enough share of the loop to build frequency, a message readable in a glance, and measurement. More in what is DOOH?

Big brands use OOH far more than small businesses

58% of brands with more than $1 billion in revenue use out-of-home, compared with 10% of businesses under $50 million. Smaller companies tend to see billboards as expensive or hard to measure. In practice, local boards can start around a few hundred dollars a month (see cheap billboard advertising), and self-serve digital platforms let you test with almost any budget.

How this fits with other research

  • Lift: a May 2026 OAAA and Kochava study found out-of-home produced a median 20% lift in in-person visits and 14% in digital actions, about twice the lift of TV. See does billboard advertising work?
  • Last year's edition: the 2025 Keen and Accretive analysis reported a $7.58 marginal ROI and said OOH outperformed print, radio and linear TV (Media4Growth). The 2026 release dropped that cross-channel marginal comparison, so it can't be checked against this year's data.

Caveats worth knowing

  • Both companies have a commercial interest in OOH. Keen sells marketing mix modeling, and Accretive sells out-of-home media.
  • The methodology isn't public. The release didn't state how many brands were analyzed, the time period, or how "profitable" was defined.
  • These are brand-level averages. Your results depend on your locations, creative, run length and what you sell.

Treat the figures as a useful signal that OOH earns its keep for most advertisers, not as a guarantee for your campaign.

How to measure your own billboard ROI

  1. Set a baseline. Note sales, calls, web visits and branded searches for the months before your campaign.
  2. Make the ad trackable. Use a unique phone number, short URL or offer code that only appears on the board.
  3. Compare areas. Look at sales near your boards against similar areas without them.
  4. Run long enough. Results build with frequency, so judge a campaign after a few months, not a few weeks.
  5. Do the math. ROI = (profit from the extra sales minus campaign cost) divided by campaign cost.

Example (hypothetical): a $3,000-a-month board that brings in $12,000 in extra sales at a 40% margin produces $4,800 in profit. ROI = ($4,800 minus $3,000) divided by $3,000 = 0.6, or 60 cents of profit per dollar on top of getting your money back.

Frequently asked questions

What is the ROI of out-of-home advertising?

A 2026 Keen Decision Systems and Accretive analysis found an average profit ROI of $1.48 per dollar for out-of-home, with 89% of brands investing in it seeing profitable returns. The optimized marginal profit ROI was $7.97, a best-case figure for the next dollar spent in the most favorable week.

Is billboard advertising profitable?

For most brands that use it, yes. 89% of brands investing in out-of-home saw profitable returns in the 2026 Keen and Accretive data. Results depend on location, creative, run length and measurement.

What is marginal ROI in advertising?

Marginal ROI is the estimated return on the next dollar of spend, usually from marketing mix model response curves. It differs from average ROI, which divides total profit by total spend.

What is the ROI of digital billboards (DOOH)?

The 2026 data showed a median DOOH return of $1.76 per dollar. Top-quarter advertisers earned $3.37, while bottom-quarter advertisers earned under $1.

Why don't more small businesses use billboards?

Only 10% of businesses under $50 million in revenue use out-of-home, versus 58% of $1 billion-plus brands. Common reasons are perceived cost and measurement, though small local boards and self-serve digital options keep entry costs low.

Plan a profitable campaign

Estimate your budget with the billboard cost calculator, read how to plan an OOH campaign, and request quotes from up to 3 local operators.

Sources

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