To justify the cost of signage, businesses should focus on four goals:
- Determine reach to make sure the signage is being seen by the intended audience;
- Find whether the message stays with the audience after they see it;
- Know how often the signage is seen;
- Estimate and compare the sign’s cost-per-exposure to other forms of marketing
Not all signage delivers results according to the same timetable, which can present a challenge when trying to determine ROI. Traditional, static signage often relies on repeated viewings to imprint a message. By comparison, digital signage, with its ability to present real-time information, looks to deliver more immediate increases in brand-awareness, foot traffic, and sales. Sign owners should observe whether their signs are making customers act as intended. We recommend measuring increases in revenue after sign deployment, analyzing impact on the reduction of other expenses (like insurance or reported accidents), and A/B testing of things like design, text, or messaging elements. Two additional helpful metrics include dwell time (which is a record of the amount of time someone engages with digital content), and session count (which treats each visit as a separate measure to assess number of interactions over a selected time period).