Unequal Sides of the Coin

A Look at One Seattle Billboard

If you are a Seattleite who commutes via car or bus, you probably spend a lot of time sitting in traffic. Which means you may be spending quite a bit of time pondering the various billboards along the road. But do you get stuck in the same places going to work as coming home? Do you even come home the same way as the way you went to work? These are important questions for the Out of Home advertiser as they determine which ad space holds the best value for their campaign.

We asked ourselves the question "Does one side of a billboard get the same amount of traffic as its other side?" With PlaceProps Analytics data we are able to get to this fine level of granularity, and we're able to tell Out of Home advertisers which boards provide the best value for them. We took a look at one such billboard, located at North 41st St and Aurora Ave N.

Billboard (denoted by the orange pin drop) at N 41st St and Aurora Ave N
with traffic going North (blue) and South (green)

Aurora Ave N is a main commuter thoroughfare, with the vast majority of traffic going North and South. So it stands to reason that the North and South sides of the board get roughly the same amount of traffic. Let's take a look:

Traffic volume by month for traffic heading North (blue) and South (green)
 past N 41st St and Aurora Ave N in Seattle, WA

We analyzed data from August 2014 to the end of July 2015, and we found that there is decidedly more traffic headed North. Even with the dips and rises we see in traffic volume from month to month, there is always about 20% less traffic headed South than there is heading North. What does this mean for our Out of Home advertiser? It means the North facing billboard at this location will provide more exposure to their advertisement. It also means that they should pay less for the South facing billboard than for the North facing billboard, because it sees about 20% less traffic than the North facing billboard.

PlaceProps Analytics can answer this question, and other important questions such as where people come from and where they go after they see a specific billboard for any board location in Seattle. Are you getting the best value on your Out of Home advertising campaign? Ask us to help you find out!

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Dr. Julia L. Meo is a Data Scientist at Avenace Incorporated, operating PlaceProps Analytics.

Find us at: http://www.placeprops.com

PlaceProps Analytics publishes proprietary, GPS-based consumer movement data for commercial real estate site selection, out of home audience measurement, retail trade area definition, and urban planning.  Available online. 

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