Data is key to working out accurate OOH ROI: Jim Spaeth at Geopath/OAAA Convention

Addressing the Geopath/OAAA National Convention being organised in New Orleans, Jim Spaeth, Co-Founder of Sequent Partners, a New York-based analytically-driven consulting firm on media investments and brand building, shared his insights on how to work out the best ROI on OOH campaigns. Speaking on the theme ‘Don’t Let An ROI Model Ruin Your Day! – 5 ways to turn around death by marketing mix or attribution models’, Spaeth pointed out the key challenges that result in poor OOH ROI estimates: (i) How far off the OAAA OOH norms were they? (ii) Were formats evaluated individually, or was their performance averaged? (iii) Was the creative good? (iv) Did the data in the model reflect market GRPs as actually ran? (v) Was it sufficiently granular?

Acknowledging that OOH faces specific data and modelling challenges, Spaeth urged the industry to support Geopath’s drive for increased data granularity.

Throwing more light on the evaluation of formats, he called for individual evaluation of the formats as “not all elements of a campaign may have performed equally”. “Were some formats better aligned with the campaign objectives and KPIs” is a question to be addressed, he said.

He asserted that “future ROIs could be improved by dropping under-performers”. For that, the under-performers will have to be identified.
In his presentation he suggested re-planning the OOH format mix based on the findings of the evaluation.

Spaeth was categorical in highlighting the importance of creatives in a campaign. “As much as 70% of ROI is attributable to creative quality”. Some of the imponderables that he referred to in this regard were: (i) Was the creative aligned with the objectives, and in particular, the media strategy? (ii) Did the campaign use the principles of effective OOH communication (iii) Were some executions stronger than others (iv) Could new creatives be tested?
Laying particular emphasis on use of extensive data for evaluation, he pointed out that the evaluation would require accurate, as ran, weekly market level GRPs. Any significant difference between the data provider to the modeller and the campaign as ran will reduce the OOH ROI estimate. Maximum granularity in the evaluation of the individual formats and creative execution will provide the most accurate ROI, he said.