Lift Study

A lift study is a controlled experiment that measures the incremental effect of an ad campaign by comparing an exposed group to a holdout (unexposed) group. The lift is the difference between the two groups' outcome rates on whatever metric matters — brand recall, purchase intent, foot-traffic, online conversion. A well-designed lift study isolates the campaign's contribution from underlying trends, seasonality, and other concurrent marketing.

Two flavors. Brand lift studies measure upper-funnel outcomes — aided/unaided ad recall, message association, purchase intent — typically via post-exposure survey panels. Conversion lift studies measure lower-funnel outcomes — foot-traffic, online sales, app installs — via passive observation of exposed-vs-holdout cohorts.

For DOOH, lift studies are the gold-standard measurement because the format doesn't lend itself to click attribution. The exposed cohort is built from mobile-location panels (devices observed near a screen within a time window matching the ad's playout); the holdout is a matched cohort with no exposure. Foot-traffic-lift studies on DOOH show median 4-8% incremental lift for QSR verticals per OAAA's 2025 benchmark.

Sample sizes matter — meaningful lift detection at 3-5% effect size requires exposed cohorts in the hundreds of thousands. Smaller campaigns can't run statistically valid lift studies and should rely on brand-tracker survey data instead.