How to Achieve Higher ROI with the Power of Elevator Advertising

You go to great lengths to ensure your clients’ ads are seen in the right place at the right time. But even with precisely defined parameters, lackluster performance on a single channel can negatively impact your ROI. When you’re tasked with boosting brand recognition, generating leads, and driving sales, you naturally want to keep waste to a minimum. If your usual mix hasn’t been achieving the results your clients expect, maybe it’s time to add the power of elevator advertising to your media strategy.

Advertising on a network of screens installed in high-value commercial properties and upscale residential communities could be one of the best ways to achieve a higher ROI for your clients. Once you know how elevator advertising is helping marketers reach high-value decision-makers such as influential business professionals and shoppers with the means to invest in valuable products and services, it’s easy to see the value of partnering with a network provider that has myriad display screens in premium locations.

Why Marketers Are Investing in Elevator Advertising to Reach High-Value Consumers

In commercial properties and luxury residential communities across North America, property managers are installing digital screens in high-traffic common areas. The displays are so popular with visitors and tenants that they are now considered a high-value amenity.  When placed in elevators, they offer a uniquely uncluttered and distraction-free experience.  

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In elevators, conversation is minimal and most riders keep their gaze facing forward. For passengers who feel awkward standing shoulder to shoulder with acquaintances and strangers, display screens provide a welcome diversion. Marketers placing highly targeted ads on elevator screens in premium locations influence the purchasing decisions of people with considerable spending power multiple times each day—as they’re making their way to the office, stepping out for lunch, gathering for important meetings, or returning home for an evening of online shopping.

How Elevator Advertising Helps Marketers Achieve a Higher ROI for Their Clients

Digital ad spend is predicted to increase by over 11% through 2023, as advertisers continue to battle for consumer attention. Of the many digital channels available, indoor (and outdoor) display screens are the only medium that merges the advantages of online advertising and conventional “old-school” out-of-home ad placement. That’s a huge advantage for marketers trying to compensate for the fact that only four out of every 100 impressions get more than a single second of viewer attention.

Data compiled by NBC Universal determined that ad creatives require at least 2.5 seconds of viewer engagement to be remembered. Studies also show that ads optimized to prolong viewer engagement are three times more effective for brand awareness. Although experts expect the indoor sector of the digital display screen industry to grow at an impressive 18.60% CAGR through 2023, not all companies offering ad space on elevator screens provide the same type of service.

Network providers that understand the value of holding viewer attention optimize their screens by placing ad creative alongside contextually relevant content the target audience the advertisement reaches will appreciate and enjoy—an expertly curated programming mix that adds value to the viewing experience. As you contemplate the advantages of influencing a captive audience, consider how the following benefits of elevator advertising will help you achieve a higher ROI.

Elevating the Impact of Positive Brand Associations

Ads placed alongside expertly curated programming that is relevant to screen location and viewer interests help build and reinforce positive brand associations. Take elevator screens in office buildings, for example. Corporate decision-makers and influential business professionals generally appreciate not only stock market reports, weather updates, and business news but also interesting lifestyle content that speaks to their work-life balance.

Placing your client’s ads alongside a programming mix that makes traveling between floors more enjoyable (or informative) not only increases brand recognition over time but also elevates your client’s brand in the minds of your target audience. The same holds true for elevator advertising in residential communities, where ad creatives can be placed alongside everything from health reports and uplifting stories to entertainment news and real-time transit data.

Maximizing Access to a Medium to Hold Viewer Attention

Since the demise of third-party cookies, marketers have shifted their focus from behavioral ad triggering to contextual placement. Now that the average internet user engages with their screens for close to seven hours each day, most are exposed to anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 ads. The fact that only about four percent of those ads capture attention for more than a second is alarming for advertisers—and falls short of the 2.5 seconds necessary to be impactful. 

Partnering with a media network enhanced with a skillfully curated programming mix ensures your client’s ads are far less likely to be overlooked (or ignored) because they’re displayed where and when viewers have time to and want to pay attention. The NBC Universal data referenced above confirm that ad creatives optimized to hold viewer attention are three times more effective for building brand awareness than those that are not.

Providing Consistent Exposure in a Brand-Safe Environment

The most in-demand media network providers make it easy to achieve a favorable ROI. They partner with reputable, recognizable companies viewers trust to provide reliable, safe, engaging information that brings value. Advertising agencies rely on these sources to help protect the reputations of the brands they represent. 

Even a casual association with content considered inflammatory, factually questionable, or in any way inappropriate for elevator viewing can tarnish a brand’s image. To ensure a brand-safe environment, content curators and their world-class media partners ensure all advertising is placed in a controversy-free programming mix.  

Leveraging Location-Specific Targeting  

When you add elevator advertising into your media mix to achieve a higher ROI, you don’t want to squander resources paying for screen time in the wrong buildings. With the right network provider, you’ll have the ability to fine-tune your ad placement based on ABM, geographic location, job titles, number of employees in the building, corporate revenue, and more.

The best media partners have a dedicated team of professionals available to collaborate on customized content, custom executions, and dynamic integrations—everything from weather triggers to gamification. 

Agencies marketing products and services that appeal to the affluent professionals who make most purchasing decisions for their businesses and families tend to achieve the best ROI by placing ads on elevator screens in upscale work or residential communities based on time of day, local weather conditions, and day of the week.  

Providing Data-Driven Insights

The best media partners add a lot more than a network of screens to your digital toolbox. Although placing ad creatives on elevator screens in locations with the targeting parameters that promise advertising efficiency, you’ll still want confirmation that you’ve made the best placement decisions on behalf of your clients. 

With the right provider, you’ll have access to an impressive assortment of tools designed to help you track and monitor overall performance and calculate the return on your investment.

Related: Luxury Retail Ads Influence Online & In-Store Purchases

When you have the right technology at your fingertips, you’ll also have data sets you can use to measure success. Top network providers offer options for campaign effectiveness studies, brand trackers, creative testing, control studies, and more—services that separate network providers from true collaborative partners.

Achieving More Interaction from Your Call to Action

Elevator ads that get the most attention have short, impactful, memorable messages appropriate for their viewing location. The best elevator ads have a clear call to action that encourages further interaction with your ad creatives or a brand’s website. 

The easier it is for your client’s audience to engage, the more impactful that call to action will be. Having the tools you need to embed your client’s elevator ads with interactive quick response (QR) codes you’ll open up even more ways to bridge the gap between online and offline marketing channels.

QR codes offer a simple way to move prospective customers to the exact stage in the purchasing journey you’d like them to be, whether that’s a landing page with additional information about your client’s products and services, access to discount offers, a direct line to sales representatives, or an appointment portal. 

Adding a QR code to ad creatives can also help your clients collect first-party data, a benefit that can make future ad targeting even more efficient and effective. With the number of people scanning QR codes increasing by 20% Between 2020 and 2022, experts predict that more than 100 million smartphone users will be scanning QR codes by 2025.

Elevator advertising is a natural means of implementing this powerful and flexible tool for encouraging the engagement of your target audience, and it can be easily changed as needed.

Harness the Power of Elevator Advertising to Help Your Agency Maximize ROI

Elevator advertising can deliver an impressive ROI. Partnering with the right network provider ensures access to a vast network of elevator screens in office buildings and high-value residential communities. If your agency and the clients you represent could benefit from adding the power of this cost-effective channel to your marketing mix, Captivate can help.  Captivate is an industry-leading digital media network with screens across 37 active markets. Your ad campaign is displayed alongside an expertly curated programming mix in a brand-safe environment. To learn more about using the power of elevator advertising to achieve a higher ROI, submit a contact form to schedule a call.