Canada's DOOH Ads Now Prove Their Worth with Sales Lift Measurement

TORONTO, ON – February 10, 2026 – A major evolution is underway in the Canadian advertising landscape as digital billboards and screens in the physical world gain the ability to prove their direct impact on checkout sales. ABCS Insights and Neptune Retail Solutions announced today they are expanding a collaboration that introduces sophisticated, outcome-based measurement for digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising across Canada.

The partnership enables brands, for the first time in this market on a standardized scale, to quantify the incremental sales lift and return on ad spend (iROAS) generated by their DOOH campaigns. This move directly addresses a long-standing analytical gap and promises to elevate DOOH from a channel primarily valued for brand awareness to a performance-driven component of the modern marketing mix.

Closing the Measurement Gap

For years, Canadian advertisers have invested in DOOH advertising with limited visibility into its true business impact. While metrics like audience reach and impressions were available, they failed to answer the critical question for marketers: did seeing that ad actually lead to a purchase? This "measurement gap" has made it difficult to evaluate DOOH with the same analytical rigor applied to digital and retail media, often leaving it undervalued in budget allocation meetings.

"Media that isn't measured is too often undervalued," said Jerome Shimizu, chief executive officer of ABCS Insights, in the announcement. "Canadian brands have had limited visibility into what digital out-of-home advertising actually delivers beyond reach. By bringing outcome-based measurement to the market, we're helping shift DOOH from a reach-focused channel to a performance-evaluated investment category—and powering smarter growth decisions."

The challenge has been rooted in inconsistent standards and a lack of tools to connect exposure in public spaces—like transit shelters, gyms, and retail plazas—to specific purchasing behavior. Industry analysts note that while the Canadian DOOH market has seen robust growth, reaching an estimated $153 million in 2024, the demand for data-driven accountability has grown even faster. Marketers are now expected to justify every dollar of ad spend with clear ROI, a standard that DOOH has struggled to meet until now. This new capability aims to solve that problem, providing the tangible performance metrics needed to integrate DOOH seamlessly into data-centric omnichannel strategies.

From Eyeballs to Incremental Revenue

The technology powering this shift combines vast, disparate datasets to draw a clear line between ad exposure and sales. The methodology moves beyond simple correlation to establish causation through a rigorous, privacy-first approach.

At its core, the solution provided by ABCS Insights employs an experimental test-versus-control design. The platform uses geofenced location data from a panel of 70 million users to identify households exposed to a specific DOOH campaign. It then matches this exposed group with a statistically identical control group of unexposed households. By comparing the purchasing behavior of the two groups, the platform can isolate the "incremental lift"—the sales directly attributable to the ad campaign, stripped of other influencing factors.

This analysis is fueled by massive real-world purchase datasets, including itemized, SKU-level receipt data from 23 million households and financial transaction data from another 18 million. This granular view allows brands to see not just if a customer bought something, but what they bought, providing precise iROAS calculations for specific products.

Neptune Retail Solutions brings its formidable retail footprint and first-party data to the partnership. As a leader in omnichannel retail marketing with a network spanning 60,000 locations and 140 retail banners across North America, including major Canadian players like Loblaw, Metro, and Sobeys, Neptune provides the crucial link between out-of-store advertising and the in-store point of sale. Their proprietary Polaris platform uses machine learning and exclusive retail datasets to place DOOH ads in locations that are contextually relevant to a consumer's path to purchase, enhancing the campaign's effectiveness.

"This collaboration with ABCS has proven wildly successful in the U.S. in 2025, delivering market-leading outcomes for brands by driving consumers from out-of-store DOOH exposure to the shelf, in a way that is directly measurable to purchase," stated Bill Redmond, chief executive officer of Neptune.

A Proven Model Comes North

The expansion into Canada is not a speculative venture but the extension of a highly successful model in the United States. In 2025, ABCS Insights established itself as a dominant force in U.S. advertising measurement, evidenced by its ranking as the 59th fastest-growing private company on the Inc. 5000 list and its designation as the primary measurement partner for Screenverse, the largest U.S. network of DOOH inventory.

The effectiveness of their measurement is backed by a normative database compiled from thousands of studies. This data shows that U.S. out-of-home campaigns deliver a median incremental return on ad spend (iROAS) of $2.61, with DOOH-specific campaigns at $2.00. Crucially, when OOH is added to a digital campaign, the median iROAS for the combined effort rises to $2.00, an 80% lift compared to the $1.11 iROAS of a digital-only campaign. These figures provide concrete evidence that physical-world advertising not only performs well on its own but also significantly amplifies the effectiveness of other channels.

By bringing this proven system to Canada, the partners are offering a solution that has already demonstrated its ability to deliver tangible results, providing Canadian brands with newfound confidence to invest in the growing DOOH medium.

Reshaping Canada's Ad Tech Landscape

This announcement marks a significant milestone for Canada's advertising technology ecosystem. While established players like Pattison Outdoor, Broadsign, and Vistar Media offer valuable measurement tools, including foot traffic attribution and brand lift studies, the direct, SKU-level sales lift and iROAS measurement integrated with a vast retail media network represents a new frontier. It moves the conversation from potential influence to proven financial return.

The industry is poised for this evolution. Canadian advertisers and media agencies have been increasingly vocal about the need for greater accountability and performance-based metrics across all channels. This new offering directly meets that demand, allowing DOOH to be planned, executed, and evaluated as a strategic performance layer within a holistic marketing plan, rather than being siloed as a top-of-funnel awareness tactic.

By connecting the dots between a digital screen on a city street and a product scanned at a grocery checkout, this collaboration empowers marketers to make more informed, data-driven investment decisions. It allows them to optimize campaigns in-flight, understand the true value of their media spend, and ultimately justify DOOH's place as an essential, high-performing component of the omnichannel marketing future. For Canadian brands, the era of guessing the impact of their out-of-home advertising is officially coming to a close.