A residential launch where the outdoor spend was the measurable channel
Vantage Property Group launched a residential development using outdoor, on-ground activation and digital acquisition under a single measurement model, which showed that site-visit intent was driven substantially by physical presence rather than by the digital campaigns receiving most of the budget.
Measured outcomes
- Attended site visits
- +72%
- Against the previous launch at comparable total spend
- Cost per attended site visit
- −31%
- Blended across all channels, months 3 to 8
- Hoarding placements retired
- 3 of 9
- Zero attributable visits over eight weeks
- Walk-ins with a known source
- 23% → 88%
- After structured intake replaced the open question
The situation
Property launches in this market run heavy outdoor and on-ground spend on the assumption that it works, because it has always been done, and measure only the digital component because that is what is measurable.
Vantage wanted the outdoor and activation budget defended or cut. Nobody could tell them which, because no measurement existed that connected a hoarding to a site visit.
The sales team logged walk-ins by asking 'how did you hear about us', which produces data that is confidently wrong.
What we did
Instrument the physical channels before spending on them
Location-specific vanity URLs and QR destinations per hoarding and activation site, distinct call-tracking numbers per placement, and a structured walk-in intake replacing the open question. None of this is sophisticated. It was simply absent.
Run the channels as one campaign
Outdoor placements were selected against the catchment the digital targeting showed was responding, and activation timing was set against the days site visits actually converted. Creative was consistent across hoarding, activation collateral and landing page so recall transferred.
Measure to site visits, not to leads
A property lead is close to meaningless; a site visit is the real qualifying event. We reported to booked and attended site visits, and to cost per attended visit by channel.
Report the uncomfortable finding
The data showed the two best-performing hoarding placements outperformed most of the digital spend on cost per attended visit, and that three placements were worth nothing at all. We recommended cutting those three and reallocating into the two, which reduced the total budget we were managing.
What we would do differently
Instrumenting physical media is straightforward and almost nobody does it, which means most outdoor spend in this category is defended by conviction rather than evidence. The awkward part of this engagement was that the finding reduced our own billings.
“They recommended we cut a third of the outdoor plan they were managing. That is when I started trusting the rest of the numbers.”