Out-of-home delivers higher ROI than digital channels, research shows

Out-of-home advertising delivers substantially higher marginal returns on investment than many heavily saturated digital channels, despite representing less than 1% of total media spending. New research released on October 24, 2025, challenges conventional media allocation strategies that favor search, social, and streaming video platforms.

Keen Decision Systems, a marketing mix modeling SaaS company, announced findings from an analysis conducted in collaboration with Accretive, an OOH data and technology platform. The research examined media spending data from January 1, 2024, through March 31, 2025.

OOH achieved a marginal ROI of $7.58 per incremental dollar invested. This figure surpasses the average media type marginal ROI of $5.52 and exceeds print ($7.18), radio ($6.61), and linear TV ($6.53). The marginal ROI metric measures the return on the next unspent incremental dollar based on proprietary response curves, distinguishing it from traditional ROI measurements.

"Search, social, and streaming video have become extremely saturated, accounting for more than half of all media dollars spent, which leads to diminishing returns," said Justin Jefferson, VP of Strategy and Analytics at Keen Decision Systems. "Marketers who shift spend from saturated channels to high-marginal channels like OOH are coming out ahead as they boost total marketing efficiency and ROI."

The research examined OOH performance across multiple industry sectors. The average ROI across all industries reached $1.58. Retail and e-commerce led with $3.64, followed by travel and hospitality at $2.96, consumer goods at $2.49, and sports and fitness at $2.47.

When evaluating marginal ROI by industry, OOH exceeded the overall industry average marginal ROI of $7.54. Sports and fitness demonstrated particularly strong performance at $9.51, while food and beverage reached $7.72.

The distinction between ROI and marginal ROI matters for media planning decisions. Traditional ROI measurements can mask diminishing returns in saturated channels. Marginal ROI provides a more accurate indicator of where to invest the next marketing dollar, particularly as channels reach saturation points.

Digital advertising channels have experienced increasing saturation, particularly among platforms that dominate media budgets. Search, social, and streaming video collectively account for more than half of all media spending, creating conditions where additional investment generates progressively smaller incremental returns.

"OOH has proven its ability to produce outsized returns compared to incremental returns in other channels," Jefferson said. "Marketers should consider reallocating spend to OOH to improve overall marketing efficiency and ROI, helping them weather economic headwinds."

The finding carries implications for how marketing organizations evaluate channel effectiveness. Marketing mix modeling has gained renewed prominence as measurement methodology directly impacts perceived channel performance and subsequent budget allocation decisions.

Keen Decision Systems has established a partnership with Accretive to help marketers validate and optimize OOH investments. Through this collaboration, Keen clients can integrate Accretive's activation data to understand how current or future OOH placements enhance overall media mix performance.

"Accretive was founded on the premise that OOH has always been an effective channel—it just needed to be proven," said Craig Benner, Chief Executive Officer at Accretive. "By partnering with Keen, we're helping marketers prove and maximize the role of OOH as a pivotal, yet often underfunded, part of the marketing mix."

The partnership enables marketers to unify planning and activation, simulate performance scenarios, and optimize spend across retailers and media channels. The result aims to deliver faster, data-driven decisions that drive measurable growth and maximize financial return on retail media investments.

The research arrives as media fragmentation demands new budget allocation strategies. Traditional channel loyalty has diminished as content-driven consumption patterns emerge, forcing advertisers to restructure budget allocation across multiple platforms.

The OOH sector has demonstrated stability within the broader traditional media landscape. WPP's analysis indicates that out-of-home advertising has maintained its share of total advertising better than any other traditional advertising format over the past two decades. The format is expected to maintain its post-COVID recovery share of 4.8% through 2030, when it will total $68.2 billion—1.8 times its 2019 size.

Digital out-of-home represents 41% of the $52 billion OOH market in 2025. Programmatic digital out-of-home has expanded rapidly, with adoption rates increasing across major markets as advertisers seek efficient, data-driven campaign execution.

The measurement framework employed by Keen Decision Systems combines historical measurement with predictive planning to deliver media strategies grounded in business outcomes. On average, Keen customers see a 25% improvement in brand performance within the first year.

Technical implementation requires sophisticated marketing mix modeling capabilities. The methodology must account for the interconnected nature of modern media ecosystems, where individual channels influence each other's performance. This comprehensive understanding supports budget allocation decisions based on actual incremental impact rather than last-touch credit assignment.

The analysis covered spending data across a 15-month period, providing sufficient historical context to identify meaningful patterns. Marketing mix modeling demands comprehensive data collection practices across all marketing channels to accurately isolate the contribution of each media channel while accounting for external factors like seasonality, economic conditions, and competitive activity.

Measurement methodology has evolved to address growing demand for transparent, standardized cross-platform audience measurement as media consumption fragments across multiple channels and devices. Industry experts recommend implementing systematic approaches that combine marketing mix modeling, experimentation, and attribution methodologies.

The research highlights structural inefficiencies in current media allocation practices. Channels commanding the largest share of media budgets may no longer deliver proportional incremental returns. Each new dollar invested in OOH is expected to generate more incremental sales than the same investment in heavily saturated channels.

For marketers navigating budget reallocation decisions, the findings provide quantifiable evidence supporting diversification away from oversaturated digital platforms. The 37% difference between OOH's marginal ROI ($7.58) and the average media type marginal ROI ($5.52) represents substantial efficiency gains available through strategic reallocation.

Keen Decision Systems operates as a next-generation marketing mix SaaS platform helping marketers and agencies tie investment decisions to business outcomes. The platform combines historical measurement with predictive planning to deliver clear, dynamic, and financially grounded media strategies.

Accretive operates an OOH data and technology platform through its OOH Graph and patent-pending Accretive Outcomes measurement platform. The technology delivers addressability and accountability to the OOH space, creating opportunities for brands to engage high-value consumers within the format.

The collaboration between Keen Decision Systems and Accretive addresses persistent challenges in OOH measurement. Traditional outdoor advertising measurement struggled to demonstrate concrete performance metrics comparable to digital channels. The partnership aims to provide validation and optimization capabilities that bring OOH measurement standards in line with digital advertising accountability.

China remains the largest OOH market through 2030, followed by the United States and Japan. Industry standards continue evolving to ensure consistent, comparable audience measurement across formats, enabling accurate campaign analysis and cross-media comparison.

The research underscores why marginal ROI serves as a more accurate indicator than traditional ROI alone when evaluating channel saturation. As digital channels reach capacity constraints, the incremental value of additional spending diminishes even when overall ROI appears acceptable. OOH's significantly higher marginal ROI indicates substantial headroom for growth relative to current investment levels.

Timeline

• January 1, 2024 - March 31, 2025: Keen Decision Systems analyzes media spending data across channels
• October 24, 2025: Keen Decision Systems and Accretive announce research findings on OOH marginal ROI performance
• June 2025: WPP analysis confirms OOH stability within traditional media landscape
• August 2025: Programmatic DOOH adoption reaches 30% in China, marking 6-percentage-point increase from 2023
• August 2025: Media Rating Council opens public comment for out-of-home audience measurement standards
• September 2025: Marketing measurement methods research emphasizes combining MMM with experimentation and attribution
• July 2025: Media fragmentation analysis reveals need for restructured budget allocation strategies

Summary

Who: Keen Decision Systems, a marketing mix modeling SaaS company, collaborated with Accretive, an OOH data and technology platform, to conduct the research. Justin Jefferson, VP of Strategy and Analytics at Keen Decision Systems, and Craig Benner, Chief Executive Officer at Accretive, provided analysis of the findings.

What: Research analyzing media spending from January 1, 2024, through March 31, 2025, revealed that out-of-home advertising achieves a marginal ROI of $7.58 per incremental dollar invested. This performance exceeds the average media type marginal ROI of $5.52 and surpasses print, radio, and linear TV. Despite these results, OOH accounts for less than 1% of all media spending.

When: The research findings were announced on October 24, 2025, from Cary, North Carolina. The analysis covered a 15-month period spanning from the beginning of 2024 through the first quarter of 2025.

Where: The research examined media spending patterns across multiple markets, with particular focus on industries including retail and e-commerce, travel and hospitality, consumer goods, sports and fitness, and food and beverage. China represents the largest OOH market globally through 2030, followed by the United States and Japan.

Why: The research matters for marketing professionals because it reveals substantial efficiency gaps in current media allocation practices. Search, social, and streaming video have become oversaturated, accounting for more than half of all media spending and producing diminishing returns. The findings demonstrate that OOH offers significantly higher marginal returns per incremental dollar invested, indicating marketers are leaving substantial value on the table by underfunding the channel. Understanding marginal ROI rather than traditional ROI alone provides more accurate guidance for where to invest the next marketing dollar as channels reach saturation points.