Why Linking IRL to URL Is an Omnichannel Superpower

April 14, 2026

In an increasingly digital world, bridging the divide between online and off has become a best practice for brands to create meaningful and memorable experiences. For those of us in the business of IRL advertising, this is part of the fun! Billboards, transit, and other outdoor formats are rocket fuel, the ultimate booster, a key technique to hypercharge any campaign. It’s the ultimate companion to any media mix and we’ve got the evidence to prove it.

Here are just a few examples of how we’re helping brands align with consumer experiences and the buyer’s journey.

Texas Woman’s University tested its ad designs by customizing them across boards, mobile display, and audience types to learn which images and messages resonate most with their audiences. TWU further refined its imagery and messaging with each campaign. “Working with OUTFRONT has helped us expand our visibility and track the impact,” the university told us. Our footfall attribution studies tracked nearly 10,000 real-world visits to the university campus.

Key to TWU’s campaign success was an important link between IRL and URL: viewshed retargeting, the delivery of digital ads to those who’ve been where the advertiser’s OOH canvas can be seen. Viewshed retargeting considers traffic flows alongside the size, positioning, and facing of the ads. By targeting audiences who’ve seen the ads with 99% location accuracy, advertisers can create a direct connection to digital ad placements across a variety of devices, driving engagement feedback and campaign success. Through years of data collected across many of OUTFRONT’s campaigns, we have observed that combining IRL media and display doubles store visitation and can lift visit frequency by 38% and ad engagement by 48% (SOURCE: GroundTruth).


Law firm Gordon & Partners is another prolific OUTFRONT advertiser, running across billboards, transit, programmatic, and mobile. They know that especially in the legal category, it’s vital to put yourself top of mind by building recognition across the community. That multi-pronged strategy amplified the campaign across connected devices, layering on digital touchpoints to fill in the gaps where IRL media isn’t available. Since working with us, the firm has reported significant increases in calls and cases.


You might not know that OUTFRONT now also offers OTT-CTV retargeting of IRL ads. That means even more omni-channel opportunities to tell meaningful, relevant brand stories. Combining IRL media and television can deliver 90% ad recall rates and increase ROI by 18%. Make it a trio with digital media and ROI increases to 27% (SOURCE: Analytic Partners). When San Diego’s Coronado Brewing Company aligned all three channels, it saw meaningful results like a .48% clickthrough rate, 99% video completion rate, and over 3,000 brewery visits (SOURCE: GroundTruth)!


Research from global marketing measurement firm Analytic Partners shows that “OOH delivers returns across all campaign objectives and through the marketing funnel, delivering above average returns for brand building objectives (+9%)”. And while there’s plenty of research and more stats like this, the proof is in the pudding: OUTFRONT executes over 1,500 of these multi-media campaigns annually across all categories.

As advancements in tech improve and enhance the outdoor medium, we still always find ourselves going back to the fundamentals – great ads that cut through the clutter and reach people where they are: in real life!

It’s the superpower OOH has always possessed, and it’s how we keep pushing the boundaries! To claim this superpower for yourself, contact OUTFRONT today.

Author: Jamie Valencour, Senior Director, Mobile @ OUTFRONT

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