Imagine you’re walking around New York City in 1835 (yes, this is a pretty specific thing to imagine, but just go with it). While dodging horse-drawn carriages and cholera, you catch a glimpse of a 50 square foot advertisement for the Barnum & Bailey Circus. A few days go by, and you’re walking down a different street, getting some fresh air to help with your tuberculosis, when you pass by the Barnum & Bailey Circus. You have a “That’s So Raven” style flashback (which is canonically cool because you aren’t from 1835 because remember you’re a time traveler) to when you saw that advertisement a few days ago. The branding of the circus feels familiar, and you suddenly want to buy a ticket to the spectacle.

That was the story of America’s first billboard, and the principle behind its success hasn’t changed in almost 200 years. There’s a way of thinking (a misconception, even) that newer means better when it comes to advertising. Everything needs to have AI or be on the blockchain to sell a product. In reality, billboards continue to be one of the most effective forms of advertising there is.

Billboards are out of home (OOH) advertising’s most effective marketing tool and their fantastic return on investment (ROI), make them as much a consideration as CTV or any digital ad.

What Is OOH Advertising

People tend to see TV, CTV, and social ads while consuming media inside their homes, so the OOH distinction is for ads that people see in that great wide world out there. These aren’t limited to billboards. There are ads on the sides of buses, on buildings, flyers, and countless other mediums. However, billboards are still king when it comes to OOH for their wide reach and versatility.

Total Ad Spend on Billboards

Part of billboard advertising continued dominance in the OOH space is their total ad spend is still outpacing other OOH mediums, despite not being the most numerous. Transit and place-based displays account for over 3 million combined pieces, compared to billboard displaces only having around 355,000. But over the 6 billion dollars spent on billboards is more than double that spent on transit and place-based displays.

Cost Per Mille (CPM)

Billboards still offer the most bang for your buck in terms of CPM (cost per mille) at just $3.65 for a traditional static billboard. On average, billboard rents cost $5.21 per thousand impressions (CPM), according to PJ SOLOMON. A freeway billboard with 400,000 impressions in a four-week period might cost $2,000, while a rural road billboard with 30,000 impressions could rent for $600 for the same period.

Return on Investment for Billboards

Physical billboards have an industry-wide ROI of 40 percent, still beating digital advertisements, which have an industry-wide ROI of 38 percent.

Digital advertising had total ad spend of $740 billion in 2024, but don’t conflate total amount spent with effectiveness. Just like the longest movie isn’t necessarily the best. Sorry, “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Director’s Edition with live commentary from the third assistant editor).”

Some assume that because the medium of billboard advertising is old, it is therefore less effective than more recently developed mediums. Why else would the total ad spend for newer mediums like TV and digital advertising be so much greater? This couldn’t be further from the truth, though.

There are plenty of reasons why billboards have a lower total ad spend, while still being as effective, if not more. For one thing, there are a finite number of places you can put a billboard. Some cities, like Los Angeles, California, have even banned the construction of new billboards, so what you see is all you’re going to get. Meanwhile, the number of web pages you can advertise on is practically endless.

Another misconception is that newer advertising mediums are always the most effective for younger audiences. But just how many young people appreciate a good vinyl, they appreciate a good billboard.

Nearly half of Gen Z (48 percent) and Millennials (48 percent) say they recommend products they’ve seen advertised on posters and billboards.

All that is to say, that despite the disparity in total ad spend, billboards actually have a higher return on investment than its more recent counterparts.

How Pricing for Billboard Ad Space Varies

There are several factors that affect the billboard advertising expenses and the value of billboard ad space. These include (but are not limited to):

  • Size: The bigger it is, the more valuable it is.
  • Duration: The longer you advertise, the more it’s going to cost.
  • Location: Advertising in a densely populated city is more valuable. More people means more people to see your billboard. And even within a city, there’s still a ton of variance based on the amount of traffic (and foot traffic) there is in an area.
  • Visibility: Billboard space being obscured by trees or buildings makes it less valuable.
  • Distance From Other Billboards: Are there other ads vying for people’s attention?
  • Type: Electronic billboards tend to be pricier than static billboards.

Times Square is home to some of the most (if not the most) expensive billboard ad space in the world, and it’s easy to see why when you go down the aforementioned list of factors that affect cost. The size of the billboards in Times Square vary quite a bit, but the largest is 100 meters long and 23 meters tall. It’s in the most populous city in the country, in an area that 330,000 people pass through in a typical day. And it has electronic and “3D billboards” that use perspective to make it look like the animations are coming off the screen. All these factors add up to billboard ad space that can cost tens of thousands of dollars per day.

Yes, they have to compete with other billboards, and that should make the ad space less valuable, but Times Square is a special case. The billboards themselves are a tourist attraction.

And behind door number two: a static billboard in a rural area next to a seldom-traveled highway that’s partially blocked by a telephone pole. That could be as little as a few hundred dollars per month. Of course, there is a broad spectrum in between where you’ll find the vast majority of billboards, and that means countless options for you.

How Mad Genius Approaches Billboards

How do we approach billboards? Silently, so they don’t see us coming. But in all seriousness, writing and designing a billboard involves a surprising amount of strategy–arguably more than static digital ads. When it comes to outdoor advertising effectiveness, we need to tailor them to the specific circumstances (driving) of the people consuming them. What makes this such a unique form of advertising is that the people seeing them, will likely only get to see them for about three seconds.

Our Philosophy on Billboards

At Mad Genius, we have a few principles, if not hard-and-fast rules, that we adhere to when writing and putting together billboards.

  1. Headlines should be nine words or fewer. Keeping headlines short ensures that they get the message at a glance because they have three seconds to read it. If you make your headlines too long, you run the risk of the drivers passing the billboard before they finish reading it. “What was that an ad for?” they’ll think to themselves. And they’ll never know because in this example they were from out of town and don’t get to drive this particular stretch of highway ever again. The greatest tragedy of all. Furthermore, the longer the headline, the smaller the words have to be.
A purple billboard featuring a young girl playing a video game with the headline “Play without lag, and the win's in the bag”
  1. Keep graphics/backgrounds simple. To aid in the readability of your optimum, nine-word headline, there should be a significant amount of contrast between the background and the color of the copy itself. If the copy is white, go with a darker background, instead of your favorite eggshell. Designers often get told to “make it pop” and they always say “that doesn’t mean anything.” But if it did mean something, it would be this. The background needs to be simple enough not to overwhelm the reader because they only have three seconds to look at it.
A billboard featuring a black and white image of a pastor with the headline, “Yes You Should”
  1. Make logos prominent. This is one of those aforementioned “more important elements.” If nothing else, the company that’s advertising is going to want people to recognize their branding. Probably. The logo needs to be prominent because people only have three seconds to read them.
  2. If you have a URL, make it legible. We generally advise against putting URLs on billboards. It’s usually too much copy, and it’s typically difficult for people to remember them after seeing a billboard for a fleeting instant. Like most things, there are exceptions. The most likely reason is that the client wants us to (and the client is always right), but it could also be that it’s a campaign-specific URL, or one that’s particularly short and catchy. URLs, when they’re invited to the party, tend to be in the corner of billboards and aren’t included in the “nine words or fewer” rule. You want them to be short and memorable because people have—all together now—three seconds to read it.
A green billboard featuring an image of a man vaping with the headline, “Vaping? Aura.”

Billboards Still Get It Done

Even as billboards approach their bicentennial, they remain one of the most effective forms of advertising. More modern forms of advertising definitely have their strengths, but few things can beat the ROI of a well-designed, perfectly placed billboard.

What better way to get people’s attention than a big, beautiful billboard? Fill out the form below and speak with a genius and learn how Mad Genius can get your face (or logo, or whatever) on a billboard today.

Okay, maybe not this face.