How To Measure The Success Of Your Digital Signage?

Today we want to talk about digital signage analytics. Knowing the nuts and bolts of it allows you to determine if your marketing is in the right place. Getting a deeper understanding of the target audience also gives you the power to create even more effective content. So here is the guide on how to measure digital signage effectiveness.

Digital signage analytics, why do you need it?

No marketing solution is effective without a thorough understanding of the analytics. Digital signage is not an exception in this regard. You need data to clearly determine what works and what doesn’t. 

But while other solutions, like online advertising, give you straightforward tools to measure the success of your campaigns, it’s trickier when it comes to screens. The views here exist in the real world and don’t exactly come counted. 

Digital signage is a tech-first successor to classical static billboards, after all. It is found in the physical world where metrics don’t quite go by the rules of the internet.

But there’s no need to worry, digital signage effectiveness can be successfully measured and there are industry-approved methods to do so. The main thing you should do is embrace the importance of the digital signage analytics. Don’t undermine the power of data, you can do much more when you get the hold of it.

And let’s not forget that digital signage technology is always an investment. It’s odd to see the businesses that don’t pay enough attention to digital signage analytics. There’s a common mistake when it comes to the screens, that it’s enough to have one to boost sales and drive engagement. That’s a big misconception, the whole network requires your full attention and a 360-degree marketing approach.

Simply put, if you’re spending money on a tool like this, you want it to be worth of every penny. Getting the digital signage analytics right is indispensable for just that reason.

ROI and ROO

Marketing newcomers and veterans know the ROI and ROO drill. The return on investment is super important. 

Let’s see the definitions: 

Return on investment (ROI) is the key measure of the profit derived from any investment. It is a ratio that compares the gain or loss from an investment relative to its cost.

Return of Objective (a.k.a. Return on Objective or ROO) refers to the use of non-sales metrics to gauge the impact of marketing activity.

In our case, the investment is a digital signage network. However, the ways to calculate your ROI and ROO will depend on the objectives you’re setting for your signage technology and the character of the activity. That’s why here it’s not always about the monetary return but about reaching the goals you set forward in your initial digital signage marketing strategy.

Setting the right objectives 

There may be such objectives as: 

1) making more sales of certain product/group of products/services 

2) increasing the number of engagement with your content 

3) providing a clearer wayfinding 

4) facilitating the internal communication 

5) promoting a special social media campaign 

The reasons you may want to have the digital signage in place vary and that’s okay. What’s essential is to understand your primary objective. The narrower your objective is the easier it will be to measure the success of your digital signage.

However, contrary to the common ROI calculation formula where there are clear numerical indicators, in some cases, the success of digital signage can’t be measured precisely. 

For example, if your objective is to sell more T-shirts with the Metallica logo on them and you use screens to promote this very product, the success of the system will be indicated by the increase in sales in a certain period. 

But if, for instance, you’re looking to boost the motivation of your employees and running motivation content throughout your office screens, it’s the employee feedback that’s going to give you a clearer picture of how your system fares.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) and digital signage

To effectively understand if your digital signage is doing great, setting the KPIs is a must. They will be the metrics that show the real picture. Keep in mind, that determining the KPIs should be done in the very beginning with the drafting of the strategy.

In the future, the metrics can be adapted according to the real performance, but having them for day 1 is necessary. 

Here are the main KPIs traditionally used for measuring the success of digital signage: 

1) Views

This indicates how many people saw your content. If you’re running a retail store, for example, it will be calculated by the number of people that enter your location daily. If it’s the DOOH, the metric will be measured in the same way the billboards are by taking the average number of passing cars/people and by taking into account the time of the day, weather, and the message. 

2) Engagement Rate

It’s impossible to calculate a precise engagement rate from the screens without setting the metrics that will give you numerical data. We will talk about them in the next section.

3) Conversion

This is more of a sales-focused metric. To calculate it you need to analyze the mechanism of getting customers to buy your product and determine the role of the screen content in that purchase. Usually, it is measured by special screen-enabled internet links, QR-code visits, and feedback gathering.

Practical ways of measuring digital signage engagement

Unlike static billboards, digital signage is much more versatile when it comes to practical engagement measuring. You can do so by implementing the following tools in your digital signage content: 

QR codes

QR codes are perfect for businesses and organizations that want to understand where the traffic comes from. They are tags that give you information that a person went in the direction that is set in the QR code from seeing the screen.

Screen-only URLs

Another way to measure the success of your digital signage is by implementing screen-exclusive URLs that will give you a clear indication that a person went there after engaging with your display.

Social media campaigns

Social media campaigns that are enabled by digital signage are great ways to interact with your audience and have juicy digital signage analytics regarding your target audience.

Feedback (surveys, questionnaires)

Asking for feedback is a centuries-long technique to determine the success of marketing tools. In the case of digital signage, you can easily take feedback using the visual power of the screens.