Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising spend is growing, but further investment is limited by uncertainty around measurement and attribution. Meanwhile, the dominance of familiar, upper funnel metrics is limiting the channel’s potential.
These are the key findings of ‘The State of UK DOOH: Momentum, Measurement and the Road to Maturity’ carried out by omnichannel advertising platform Azerion, with specific data as follows:
- Market growth: 68% of planners and buyers have increased their OOH usage in the past year, and 61% expect to spend more in the next 12 months. 93% report that the channel is important in their omnichannel strategy.
- Measurement barriers: 58% say that measurement and attribution uncertainty is the biggest obstacle to investing more in OOH advertising. (Difficulty comparing OOH to digital, social and CTV were next on the list according to 47% of respondents, while 39% cited budget constraints.)
- Limited metrics: Brand uplift (74%) and footfall (60%) are the metrics most widely-used in determining OOH success; lower-funnel measures such as online conversions (16%) and incrementality (14%) are deployed less often.
Having identified the issues around measurement, the report notes that OOH is being judged by the metrics with which the industry feels most comfortable – but that these don’t reflect its full capability. Wider adoption of performance indicators for example would increase insight and strengthen the case for bigger budgets.
Diving deeper into the results to look at how to increase confidence in OOH measurement, better cross-media measurement (53%), more case studies that demonstrate the delivery of business outcomes (46%) and improved data partnerships (42%) were listed as the main contenders.
But the study also detected a contradiction: despite stating that measurement uncertainties were holding back their OOH spend, when asked directly about their current satisfaction with OOH measurement, only 18% of respondents were actively dissatisfied (41% are satisfied or very satisfied, while 42% are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied). This finding indicates ambivalence rather than frustration.
This body of knowledge presents significant opportunities for DOOH players. Buyers and planners want DOOH measurement to behave more like digital; they also require proof points that demonstrate the effectiveness of the channel. This calls for education and building awareness of the capabilities that already exist to move the industry up the measurement curve towards real-time, cross-channel approaches.
Ruth Reynolds, insight and strategy director at Azerion UK, says: “Measurement in digital out-of-home is clearly a core concern. However, some solutions already exist but are underused, so this is partially down to perception. Continued investment in measurement infrastructure is important, but more than that, there needs to be a concerted effort to communicate and demonstrate what is already available. Building trust in these tools at scale will inject new confidence into existing DOOH markets and pave the way for the industry to drive an additional wave of spend from performance-focused planners.”
Rebecca Callaghan, head of out-of-home (OOH) at Azerion, says: “What’s clear from this research is that measurement isn’t just a technical challenge for DOOH – it’s a confidence gap. While many planners cite it as a barrier to greater investment, robust measurement solutions already exist across a wide range of KPI’s but aren’t yet fully understood or consistently applied. As an industry, we must shift the narrative by better demonstrating how programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) can deliver against both brand and performance objectives; this will align it more closely with cross-channel measurement standards and advancing reporting tools so that pDOOH corresponds with other programmatically available channels. Closing the perception gap will be the next step in the pDOOH journey and will unlock a significant new wave of growth for the channel.”
Azerion carried out its study in February and March 2026; the 128 respondents include planners, buyers, strategies and media owners working across agency and brand environments in the UK. The objective was to take a snapshot of this high-growth sector and, by understanding where the friction points are, gain insight into unlocking the next phase of investment.
