2025 Elevator Advertising Benchmarks: Campaign Performance for CTR, Engagement, and ROI

Elevator advertising has evolved into a measurable, performance-driven channel within the broader digital out-of-home (DOOH) ecosystem. As marketers plan 2025 media strategies, the need for credible benchmarks has never been greater. Buyers want to understand what “good” performance looks like, how elevator advertising compares across categories, and how to forecast engagement and ROI with confidence.

This guide uses Captivate’s 2025 benchmark norms—built on years of accumulated research—to help marketers set realistic expectations for ad recall, ad effectiveness, action taken, and downstream business impact. 

Rather than evaluating performance through a single narrow metric like clicks alone, these benchmarks reflect how elevator environments actually perform across the funnel through predictable dwell time, repeated exposure, and measurable paths to action.

Why 2025 Elevator Advertising Benchmarks Matter

As DOOH continues to grow, benchmarks play a critical role in standardizing expectations across campaigns and categories. Without shared norms, it becomes difficult for marketers to plan, justify investment, or compare performance across channels.

Benchmarks help buyers:

• Forecast performance before launch
• Align KPIs to campaign objectives
• Defend spend with leadership and stakeholders

Elevator environments differ fundamentally from traditional billboards or transit DOOH. Audiences are stationary, dwell time is long, exposure is repeated throughout the week, and screens live within trusted, professionally curated content. These conditions drive higher attention and message retention, which in turn influence downstream behavior.

Category-level benchmarks further help marketers set realistic KPI targets. A travel brand and a finance brand may both perform well in elevators, but for different reasons and with different outcomes. Benchmarks clarify where each category typically excels and how campaigns can be optimized accordingly.

The 2025 Benchmark Data: What Captivate Measures

To make elevator advertising performance actionable, Captivate’s benchmarks focus on outcomes that reflect real business impact, not just delivery.

• Ad recall measures memorability driven by attention and repetition.
• Ad effectiveness captures message clarity, relevance, and persuasion.
• Action taken includes behaviors such as making a purchase, researching the brand, visiting a website, scanning a QR code, or discussing the brand with others.

Together, these outcomes provide a more complete view of engagement than impressions or clicks alone. They also map directly to downstream behaviors such as conversion, branded search lift, site visits, and retargeting performance.

Benchmarks should be used responsibly. They are directional planning inputs designed to guide forecasting and comparison rather than guarantees of individual campaign results. Creative quality, offer strength, CTA clarity, and landing page experience all influence performance.

2025 Elevator Advertising Benchmarks by Category

The table below provides a high-level view of elevator advertising performance across major advertiser categories, helping marketers compare norms and identify planning implications.

Categories included: Overall, B2B, B2C, Consumer Goods, Finance, Tech, Travel

Overall norms snapshot

Across campaigns, elevator advertising consistently delivers strong results in:

• Ad recall, driven by captive attention and repeat exposure
• Ad effectiveness, supported by environment context and content alignments
• Action taken, enabled by simple CTAs and low-friction follow-up paths

These norms reinforce elevator advertising’s role as a high-attention, mid-funnel driver with measurable downstream impact.

Category leaders and implications

• Travel: Travel campaigns typically generate the highest ad recall, benefiting from visually compelling creative and aspirational messaging that stands out in elevator environments.
• Consumer Goods: Consumer goods brands often lead in ad effectiveness and action taken, particularly when paired with clear offers, QR codes, and close proximity to purchase.
• Finance and Tech: These categories see stronger action rates with large format creative and when campaigns emphasize clear value propositions, strong CTA clarity, and fast, mobile-optimized landing experiences.

Rather than relying on overly granular numbers, these directional insights help marketers understand where to lean in and how to optimize creative and execution.

Translating Benchmarks Into Omnichannel Engagement & Attribution 

Elevator advertising delivers the most value when it’s measured alongside the rest of a brand’s media mix. Captivate is built to integrate seamlessly into existing omnichannel attribution frameworks, making it easy to measure elevator and lobby exposure using the same DSPs, methodologies, and third-party partners brands already rely on across programmatic, digital, and offline channels.

Through programmatic buying, Captivate campaigns can be activated and measured within leading DSPs, ensuring elevator advertising is included in cross-channel attribution, audience measurement, and downstream performance analysis, right alongside other digital and programmatic media.

For direct buys, brands can leverage Captivate’s partnerships with leading third-party attribution providers to help quantify impact across the funnel. These partners support a wide range of outcomes, from web and search lift to brand and sales lift, store visitation, cross-device exposure, retargeting performance, attention metrics and category-specific outcomes such as prescription lift. This allows campaigns to be evaluated using the metrics most relevant to each advertiser’s goals, including:

• Web & search lift, clicks (MIRA)
• Brand & sales lift (ABCS Insights)
• Store visits, conversions, POI visitation (PLACED)
• Cross-device extensions & retargeting (GroundTruth)
• Prescription lift & healthcare outcomes (Crossix)
  

Within this broader attribution framework, CTR and other direct engagement metrics remain valuable directional signals, particularly when tied to creative execution, CTA clarity, and follow-up path design, but they represent just one input within a more complete view of campaign performance.

What counts as “engagement” in elevator advertising

Engagement reflects intentional follow-up behavior that occurs during or after exposure. Common engagement signals include:

• QR code scans
• Vanity URL visits or typed-in web traffic
• Lift in branded search volume
• Retargeting response from exposed audiences
• On-site behavior, such as session depth or return visits

These signals capture how elevator exposure influences decision-making across channels, not just on-screen interaction.

Importantly, these engagement signals don’t exist in isolation. Captivate integrates into existing omnichannel attribution frameworks, so elevator exposure can be measured alongside other media channels using the same tools, timeframes, and trusted partners brands already rely on. This ensures elevator advertising is evaluated as part of a unified media mix, not as a standalone tactic.

How to estimate CTR within a broader attribution framework

CTR in elevator advertising is highly execution-dependent. Creative clarity, CTA strength, QR placement, offer relevance, and landing page friction all materially affect response rates. For this reason, CTR should be treated as a directional performance indicator, most valuable when analyzed alongside other attribution and outcome-based metrics rather than in isolation.

Captivate uses “took action” as a more reliable planning bridge. This metric represents the share of exposed viewers who engage in any measurable follow-up behavior, allowing marketers to estimate potential response volume without over-promising click precision. CTR can then be modeled as a subset of that broader action rate.

Practical setup to capture measurable clicks

To measure engagement effectively, campaigns should be designed with attribution in mind:

• Use unique QR codes and UTMs per creative
• Align each CTA to a dedicated landing page
• Rotate creative by time, building set, or audience segment

This structure enables clearer connections between elevator exposure and site traffic, search behavior, and conversions.

ROI Modeling Framework Using 2025 Norms

Benchmarks only become meaningful when they are applied to real planning decisions. For elevator advertising, ROI is rarely driven by a single moment or metric. 

Instead, performance accumulates across repeated exposure, attention, and follow-up behavior that often converts later or through another channel. 

The model below illustrates how 2025 elevator advertising norms can be applied during planning to connect exposure and engagement signals to downstream performance.

Step-by-step ROI model

Inputs	Outputs
Impressions and reachFrequency“Took action” rateConversion rateAverage order value or lifetime valueMedia cost	Estimated actionsEstimated conversionsCost per acquisition (CPA)Return on ad spend (ROAS)ROI

Used together, these inputs and outputs allow marketers to forecast impact while accounting for both direct and assisted conversions across channels.

Objective-based KPI selection

• Brand lift focus: Ad recall and ad effectiveness
• Consideration focus: Effectiveness and action taken
• Performance focus: Action taken paired with conversion infrastructure

Best Practices to Improve Performance Against Benchmarks

Benchmarks set expectations, but execution determines whether campaigns meet or exceed them. Elevator advertising performance is highly sensitive to creative clarity, call-to-action design, and post-exposure experience. 

The best-performing campaigns pair strong messaging and large-format creative executions with thoughtful measurement and testing, ensuring that attention translates into action. These best practices outline where marketers can focus to improve results against benchmark norms.

• Creative: Single-minded messaging, strong offers, clear next steps
• QR/URL execution: High contrast, proper sizing, easy scanning
• Landing pages: Fast load times, message match, minimal friction
• Testing: A/B by creative, building set, audience segment, or daypart
• Measurement: QR codes per creative, UTMs, search lift, retargeting analysis

What Makes Elevator Advertising Highly Measurable

Elevator advertising offers unique measurement advantages:

• Predictable dwell time and repeated exposure
• Professional audiences in high-intent contexts
• Transparent delivery and reporting controls
• Optional integrations, including brand lift, site lift, and third-party measurement partners
• Seamless inclusion within existing DSP, programmatic, and third-party attribution frameworks

Campaigns can be measured concurrently with other digital and programmatic channels using trusted third-party partners, ensuring consistent methodology, comparable reporting, and confidence in results.

These characteristics make elevator advertising one of the most defensible and actionable DOOH formats available. 

FAQ

What is a good CTR for elevator advertising?
There is no single benchmark. CTR varies widely based on creative execution and CTA setup and should be evaluated alongside engagement and action metrics.

What does “took action” usually mean?
It includes behaviors such as making a purchase, searching for the brand, visiting a site, scanning a QR code, discussing with a friend/colleague or engaging with retargeted ads.

Which categories perform best?
Travel leads in recall, consumer goods in effectiveness, and finance/tech perform best with clear value propositions and low-friction CTAs.

How should I use ad recall and effectiveness benchmarks?
Use them as directional planning inputs to evaluate message resonance and compare campaigns, not as guaranteed outcomes.

How do I calculate ROI?
By connecting exposure and action benchmarks to downstream conversion rates, AOV, or LTV.

How does elevator advertising compare to other DOOH formats?
Elevator advertising benefits from higher attention, repeated exposure, and more predictable viewing conditions.

What creative elements improve action rates?
Clear messaging, strong offers, prominent QR codes, and fast, relevant landing pages.

Can elevator advertising work for B2B?
Yes. Elevator environments are especially effective for reaching professionals and decision-makers.

Partnering With Captivate for Benchmark-Led Planning

Captivate helps brands and agencies turn benchmarks into actionable planning tools. By grounding performance expectations in proven norms, Captivate supports smarter forecasting, clearer KPI alignment, and more defensible ROI conversations.

From setting objective-based KPI targets to selecting the right measurement approach, Captivate works with advertisers to design campaigns that reflect how elevator advertising actually performs and how it drives measurable business impact.Talk to our team about planning your next campaign using the 2025 elevator advertising benchmarks.