Can you help me create a 3 month DOOH media plan with a budget of $10,000?

Short answer

Yes. With $10,000 over three months, concentrate spend in one city or a cluster of neighborhoods, put 70-80% toward media buying, choose one or two DOOH formats, and measure performance through impressions, foot traffic lift, and CPM benchmarks.

What campaigns actually cost on AdQuick

Campaigns built on multi-format ran a median $39,300 in total campaign spend, with a typical range of $14,200 to $68,450 (80 campaigns). Campaign composition varies widely, so treat the midpoint as indicative rather than a quote.

Source: AdQuick marketplace transactions, July 2025 to June 2026. Figures are transacted prices, not rate cards; percentiles are shown as typical range (25th to 75th) around the median.

Setting objectives and understanding budget constraints

Before selecting any inventory, define what the campaign needs to accomplish: brand awareness, foot traffic lift, lead generation, or direct sales impact. A $10,000 DOOH budget naturally suits upper-funnel goals like awareness and consideration, though careful targeting and channel integration can support performance objectives as well.

The most important constraint to accept early is geographic scope. This budget level limits you to one city or a cluster of high-value neighborhoods rather than a broad regional approach. Trying to spread $10,000 across a wide area dilutes frequency to the point where the campaign loses impact. Depending on market CPMs, this budget might cover roughly one to three large digital billboards or a larger network of smaller screens.

Budget allocation across media, creative, and measurement

A practical split for a $10,000 campaign looks like this:

Reserving funds for creative and measurement matters. Underfunding creative leads to generic visuals that waste the media spend, and skipping measurement leaves you unable to justify or improve future campaigns.

For monthly pacing, two approaches work within this budget. Continuous flighting spreads spend evenly across all three months for steady brand visibility. Pulsed flighting runs two weeks on and two weeks off each month, which concentrates impressions into shorter windows, can improve recall, and creates natural checkpoints for mid-campaign optimization. Either approach is viable; the right choice depends on whether your objectives call for sustained presence or high-intensity bursts around specific dates or events.

Choosing formats, scheduling, and targeting

Keep the channel mix simple: select one to two DOOH formats that match your audience's movement patterns and your objectives.

Common formats and their uses: - Large digital billboards: high visual impact, higher CPM, well suited to mass awareness - Street-level digital screens: close proximity to pedestrians, effective for local targeting - Transit screens: reach commuters, useful for time-of-day targeting - In-store screens: support point-of-sale messaging, require retail partnerships

A reasonable split is 60-70% of the media budget to your primary format and 30-40% to a complementary format to broaden reach without overcomplicating execution.

On the buy type, programmatic DOOH allows more precise audience targeting and flexible budget control through DSPs. For smaller budgets, however, direct buys with local providers often offer better transparency and simpler execution.

For scheduling, use dayparting to concentrate impressions during morning and evening commutes and lunch hours, and minimize spend during low-traffic periods like overnight. DOOH creative lead times are shorter than TV or print, but plan at least two to three weeks for production and approval to avoid missing inventory booking deadlines. Book premium screens early.

Targeting options have expanded beyond simple geography. Many networks now offer audience data overlays covering age, gender, and interests, as well as contextual targeting by location type such as gyms or malls. Proximity targeting places screens near your stores or event locations to drive foot traffic. If DOOH is part of a broader campaign, align audiences across channels so that messaging is consistent and sequential exposure is possible.

Creative approach, KPIs, and measurement

For creative, keep visuals simple, bold, and readable in a few seconds. Use minimal text, strong branding, and reserve QR codes or direct-response CTAs for placements where the audience has time to act. Produce two to three versions to rotate by daypart or message variant without overextending your production budget. Allow two to three weeks for production and approval.

The right KPIs for a campaign at this scale are:

• Impressions and reach: ad plays and estimated audience size
• Frequency: average exposures per viewer
• Foot traffic lift: store visits measured through mobile location analytics
• Web traffic or brand search lift: correlating online activity spikes to DOOH flight periods
• CPM: cost per thousand impressions for efficiency benchmarking
• Cost per acquisition or lead: where direct business impact can be isolated

DOOH platforms provide play logs and estimated impressions as baseline data. Attribution can be strengthened through view-through analysis, matched panel studies, or footfall attribution tools. Integrating digital analytics such as CRM data or web analytics helps correlate online behavior shifts with active flight periods. Schedule at least one mid-campaign review to adjust flighting, reallocate budget, or swap creative based on early performance data, then conduct a full post-campaign analysis against your defined KPIs.

How AdQuick handles DOOH media planning

Planning a DOOH campaign across formats, markets, and flighting schedules involves a lot of moving parts, especially when working within a defined budget. DOOH advertising on AdQuick gives buyers access to inventory across digital billboard, transit, and street-level formats through a single platform, with tools to compare CPMs, map screen locations, and pace spend across a campaign window. The platform supports both direct buys and programmatic execution, making it practical for campaigns where transparency and budget control matter as much as reach.