Run DOOH campaigns in Vancouver on AdQuick across 2,800+ digital screens -- Robson Street, Downtown, Gastown, YVR airport, and the SkyTrain. CPMs from C$7 programmatic to C$30+ on Robson and Granville LEDs; activate from C$2,000 through Celebration of Light, VIFF, and Canucks playoff takeovers.
Vancouver is Canada's third-largest DOOH market by inventory and the home market of Pattison Outdoor — Canada's largest OOH operator. This is the 2026 AdQuick guide to buying DOOH in Vancouver.
Digital Out-of-Home Advertising in Vancouver
Roughly 4,500–7,500 digital screens across Downtown Vancouver, Metro Vancouver, YVR Airport, the SkyTrain network, and shopping centres — with 2026 CPMs running CAD 10–22 on urban bulletins, CAD 9–22 on transit, CAD 35–75 at YVR, and CAD 12–30 in malls and office towers.
Vancouver DOOH organises into four addressable layers, each with distinct CPMs, audiences, and creative requirements.
Premium LED spectaculars on Robson, Granville, Burrard, West Georgia, plus Downtown sports-arena adjacency and YVR airport gates. Highest-CPM, highest-impact placements for launches and tourism.
SkyTrain Expo, Millennium, and Canada Line platform screens and station mezzanines, the Broadway Extension phasing in, plus West Coast Express and SeaBus — TransLink-franchised commuter inventory.
Digital street furniture and bus shelters across Robson, Granville, West Georgia, Broadway, Main Street, Commercial Drive, Kingsway, and the Surrey commercial corridors — pedestrian and hyperlocal scale.
Shopping centres (Metropolis at Metrotown, CF Pacific Centre, Oakridge, Aberdeen, Guildford), Gastown / Mount Pleasant / Broadway office-tower networks, gyms, forecourts, and Cineplex cinemas.
Vancouver DOOH is priced CPM-first for programmatic activations and a blend of CPM plus four-week flight pricing for direct buys with major Canadian media owners. Rates are quoted in Canadian Dollars (CAD / C$) with USD reference conversions (USD 1 ≈ CAD 1.35–1.38; CAD 1 ≈ USD 0.72–0.74) — Canadian DOOH generally runs roughly 20–30% below equivalent US-market CPMs on a like-for-like basis.
| Venue Type | Example Inventory | 2026 CPM (CAD) | CPM (USD) | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urban digital bulletins / street LED | Robson Street, Granville Street, West Georgia, Burrard, Hastings, Broadway | CAD 10–22 | $7–$16 | Mass reach, retail, entertainment |
| Premium LED / large-format spectaculars | Robson/Burrard corner, Granville entertainment district, Downtown sports arena adjacency | CAD 18–38 | $13–$28 | Launches, entertainment, lifestyle brands, tourism |
| Airport DOOH — Vancouver International (YVR) | International Terminal, Domestic Terminal, US Departures, baggage, duty-free | CAD 35–75 | $26–$55 | Inbound international, Pacific Rim travel, premium CPG, travel retail |
| SkyTrain — Expo / Millennium / Canada Line | Platform screens, station mezzanines, rolling stock (TransLink) | CAD 9–22 | $7–$16 | Commuter frequency, young professionals, tech workers |
| West Coast Express / SeaBus | Commuter rail station screens, SeaBus terminal | CAD 8–18 | $6–$13 | Commuter, North Shore–Downtown |
| Shopping centre digital | Metropolis at Metrotown, CF Pacific Centre, Oakridge Park, Richmond Centre, Guildford, Park Royal, Lougheed, Aberdeen Centre | CAD 12–30 | $9–$22 | Shopper marketing, retail, QSR, CPG |
| Office tower / lobby networks | Downtown financial district, Gastown/Mount Pleasant tech towers, Broadway corridor | CAD 14–32 | $10–$24 | B2B, tech, SaaS, financial services, recruitment |
| Gym / fitness club screens | GoodLife, Anytime Fitness, Steve Nash Fitness, Innovative Fitness | CAD 12–28 | $9–$20 | Wellness, CPG, pharma OTC |
| Forecourt / convenience | Petro-Canada, Shell, Esso, Chevron, Husky | CAD 8–18 | $6–$13 | Auto, CPG, beverage |
| Street furniture / bus shelter digital | TransLink-franchised shelters, Downtown plus transit corridors | CAD 9–20 | $7–$15 | Pedestrian, hyperlocal |
| Cinema | Cineplex (including Cineplex Junxion, VIP, IMAX), Landmark Cinemas | CAD 22–50 | $16–$37 | Younger audiences, entertainment |
| Programmatic open exchange (blended) | Multi-venue across Metro Vancouver | CAD 6–18 | $4–$13 | Scale, always-on, test campaigns |
Standard DOOH levers apply — venue dwell time, audience specificity, dayparting, creative format, programmatic vs. direct model. Six Vancouver-specific factors worth budgeting around:
Three worked budgets, in CAD (USD reference), for brands testing into or scaling DOOH across Vancouver.
Single-DSP, single venue type, 30 days (≈ $1,500–$3,300 USD).
Multi-venue programmatic + one direct deal, multi-neighbourhood, 90 days (≈ $20,000–$50,000 USD).
Blended direct + programmatic, always-on or event-windowed (Lunar New Year in January–February, Vaisakhi in April, Diwali in October–November, VIFF in September–October, Vancouver Pride in August, Celebration of Light summer fireworks, Canucks Stanley Cup playoff runs, BC Lions CFL, Vancouver Whitecaps MLS, Boxing Day / holiday retail) (≈ $100,000–$600,000+ USD).
DOOH in Vancouver is organised by venue environment. Below: the working breakdown planners use, plus the neighbourhoods and corridors where a Vancouver DOOH plan should concentrate impressions.
The highest-impact digital surfaces run through Downtown Vancouver. Pattison Outdoor, Bell Media / Astral, Rogers, and Branded Cities compete across these corridors.
Vancouver International Airport (YVR), operated by the Vancouver Airport Authority, is Canada's second-busiest airport (~26M+ passengers annually) and the primary Pacific Rim gateway for Western Canada — heavily weighted toward trans-Pacific traffic (Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Manila, Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney), US transborder, and European long-haul. DOOH coverage spans the International Terminal, Domestic Terminal, and US Departures zones. Typical dwell is meaningfully longer than other Vancouver venues — CPMs run CAD 35–75 ($26–$55) with high-value audiences. Best for hotels, premium CPG, travel retail, financial services, tourism boards, luxury brands, and international consumer goods.
SkyTrain, operated by BC Rapid Transit Company on behalf of TransLink (Metro Vancouver's regional transit authority), runs three lines across ~80 km. Combined ridership runs ~400,000+ daily riders. DOOH on platform screens, station mezzanines, and select rolling stock reaches commuters, students, and continuously flowing airport traffic via the Canada Line.
West Coast Express is Metro Vancouver's commuter rail, running weekdays from Mission through Port Moody, Coquitlam, and Port Haney to Waterfront Station — reaching a suburban professional commuter audience. SeaBus is the ferry service across Burrard Inlet connecting Downtown (Waterfront) to Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver — high frequency, tourism plus commuter mix.
Metro Vancouver retail concentrates in a mix of premium Downtown and large suburban centres. CPMs run CAD 12–30 ($9–$22) depending on tier and footfall.
Vancouver's tech and professional-services density concentrates across four zones. Office-tower and lobby DOOH delivers concentrated B2B audiences uniquely suited to B2B SaaS, developer tooling, recruitment, legaltech, fintech, biotech, premium automotive, business-class airlines, and premium consumer brands.
Digital street-furniture inventory in Metro Vancouver is franchised through TransLink and municipal-partner agreements. Pattison Outdoor, Bell Media / Astral, and other operators hold concessions across specific zones. Digital density is heaviest along Robson, Granville, West Georgia, Broadway, Main Street, Commercial Drive, Kingsway, Lougheed Highway, and the major Surrey commercial corridors (King George, Scott Road, Fraser Highway). Place-based: GoodLife Fitness, Anytime Fitness, Steve Nash Fitness World (Vancouver-born chain), Innovative Fitness, Club16 Trevor Linden Fitness gyms; Petro-Canada, Shell, Esso, Chevron, Husky forecourts; Cineplex (Canada's dominant chain — including Cineplex Junxion, VIP, IMAX formats) and Landmark Cinemas chains; and bar/restaurant digital networks in Gastown, Mount Pleasant, Yaletown, and the Granville Entertainment District. Best activated via programmatic aggregation rather than individual direct deals.
Where a Vancouver DOOH plan should concentrate impressions, by audience and use case:
Programmatic DOOH in Canada is mature and well-integrated — in part because Broadsign, one of the world's largest DOOH ad-serving and SSP platforms, is a Canadian company headquartered in Montreal, with deep roots across the Canadian OOH operator landscape. Canadian programmatic infrastructure is correspondingly robust.
Buyers activate through a demand-side platform (DSP), which bids into a supply-side platform (SSP) connected to venue owners' ad servers and out-of-home management systems (OMS). When a bid wins, the creative plays in a defined slot inside the venue's loop — typically 7.5-, 8-, 10-, or 15-second slots in a 60- or 64-second loop. The entire transaction happens in milliseconds.
Out-of-home advertising platform and DSP that transacts programmatically across every major SSP and aggregates direct media-owner inventory from Canadian operators (Pattison Outdoor, Bell Media / Astral Out-of-Home, Rogers Sports and Media, Lamar Advertising Canada, Branded Cities, YVR airport concessionaires, TransLink / SkyTrain transit concessions, mall operators) in a single unified plan.
Global pDOOH DSP with active Canadian coverage.
DSP side of the Broadsign ecosystem — Canadian-HQ'd; deep native Canadian operator integration.
Global DSP with Canadian inventory exposure.
Omnichannel DSP with DOOH module — also Canadian-HQ'd, Toronto-based.
Enterprise DSP with DOOH access via OpenPath.
Large enterprise programmatic buyer with Canadian DOOH coverage.
DSP with self-serve options for Canadian DOOH inventory.
Canadian-HQ'd, dominant Canadian market share — the foundational SSP for most Canadian operator inventory.
Programmatic exchange with North American inventory coverage.
JCDecaux's SSP with global and Canadian inventory exposure.
Global SSP with active Canadian supply integration.
Sell-side complement to the Vistar DSP across North American DOOH inventory.
| Deal Type | How It Works | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Open exchange | Lowest CPM, least transparency. | Test and always-on scale. |
| PMP (private marketplace) | Curated inventory with deal IDs (e.g., YVR airport only, Pattison Downtown LED cluster, Metropolis at Metrotown mall-only package, Gastown office network). | Targeted activations against premium curated supply. |
| Programmatic guaranteed (PG) | Locked impression commitments at a fixed CPM, functionally similar to a direct IO but executed through the DSP. | Forecastable enterprise activations with locked supply. |
AdQuick transacts across all three models and operates as a DSP in the pDOOH ecosystem — not a broker sitting above it.
Canadian DOOH measurement combines operator-reported impressions with mobile-panel verification under PIPEDA and provincial privacy law, and has access to the industry-standard COMMB (Canadian Out-of-Home Marketing and Measurement Bureau) currency — Canada's equivalent of US Geopath for OOH audience measurement.
A typical Vancouver attribution setup: DSP serves DOOH impression → PIPEDA/BC PIPA-compliant anonymised mobile-panel exposure captured → exposed panel measured against unexposed control → visit lift, conversion lift, or brand lift reported 2–6 weeks post-flight. For shopper campaigns in the Metropolis at Metrotown, CF Pacific Centre, and Oakridge Park catchments, pair DOOH exposure data with loyalty-card, POS, or payment-provider data where legally consented.
A consistent gap on the current Vancouver SERP is concrete creative specs. Here's the 2026 baseline.
Neutral comparison of the entities a buyer encounters when planning a Vancouver DOOH campaign, grouped by entity type.
Canada's largest OOH operator, owned by Vancouver-headquartered Jim Pattison Group. Deep Metro Vancouver coverage across premium digital bulletins, street furniture, transit adjacency, and large-format. Vancouver is Pattison's home market.
Major Canadian national operator. Bell Media acquired Outfront Media's Canadian operations in 2022, folding significant Canadian inventory into the Astral Out-of-Home portfolio. Strong Vancouver coverage.
Major Canadian national operator with Vancouver OOH and DOOH inventory.
Cross-border operator with significant Vancouver-area digital transit inventory.
Canadian premium OOH operator with sports, entertainment, and landmark inventory.
Canadian DOOH aggregator and service provider with a strong Vancouver presence.
Canadian programmatic OOH rep firm with Vancouver market expertise.
Airport advertising concessions at Vancouver International — Canada's second-busiest airport and primary Pacific Rim gateway for Western Canada.
SkyTrain, West Coast Express, SeaBus, and bus-shelter advertising franchised through TransLink, Metro Vancouver's regional transit authority.
Ivanhoé Cambridge (Metropolis at Metrotown), Cadillac Fairview (CF Pacific Centre, CF Richmond Centre), QuadReal / Oakridge (Oakridge Park), Larco (Park Royal), Morguard (Lougheed Town Centre), and others.
Vancouver-based DOOH creative agency specializing in 3D anamorphic and high-impact DOOH creative.
Vancouver-based pDOOH startup educating the local market on programmatic DOOH adoption.
GoodLife, Anytime Fitness, Steve Nash Fitness; Petro-Canada, Shell, Esso; Cineplex, Landmark.
AdQuick, Vistar Media, Broadsign Ads (Canadian-HQ'd), VIOOH, StackAdapt (Canadian-HQ'd, Toronto), The Trade Desk (OpenPath DOOH), Yahoo DSP, and Adomni.
Canada is one of the most mature DOOH markets in the Americas, with high programmatic integration driven in part by Broadsign's Canadian-HQ'd SSP and CMS market leadership plus StackAdapt's Toronto-based omnichannel DSP. Vancouver is Canada's third-largest DOOH market by inventory and spend after Toronto and Montreal, but meaningfully punches above its size given Pattison Outdoor's Vancouver-HQ'd home-market position, the Pacific Rim tourism gateway at YVR, the concentrated tech cluster, and the Chinese-Canadian and South Asian demographic profile that makes Metro Vancouver one of the most demographically distinct markets in North America.
AdQuick is a DSP and marketplace that transacts programmatically across every major SSP (Vistar, Broadsign Reach, VIOOH, Place Exchange, Hivestack SSP) and aggregates direct media-owner inventory from Canadian operators — Pattison Outdoor (Vancouver-HQ'd, Canada's largest OOH operator), Bell Media / Astral Out-of-Home, Rogers Sports and Media, Lamar Advertising Canada, Branded Cities, Allvision, YVR airport concessionaires, TransLink SkyTrain / West Coast Express / SeaBus / bus-shelter concessions, mall operators, and place-based networks — in a single unified plan, with native mapping, creative delivery, and measurement. That dual capability matters specifically in Vancouver because the Canadian DOOH market combines a three-operator national competition (Pattison, Bell/Astral, Rogers) with a robust Canadian-HQ'd programmatic layer (Broadsign as the dominant SSP, StackAdapt as a Canadian DSP). Running all of it through one DSP + marketplace is meaningfully faster than negotiating with three Canadian national operators separately plus multiple global SSPs, particularly for US planners accustomed to the US market structure who are entering Canada for the first time.
Vancouver DOOH operates under a Canadian federal plus British Columbia provincial regulatory stack.
Three activation paths, ranked by speed and control.
Contract directly with media owners — Pattison Outdoor (Vancouver-HQ'd, Canada's largest), Bell Media / Astral Out-of-Home, Rogers Sports and Media, Lamar Advertising Canada, Branded Cities, Allvision, YVR airport concessionaires, TransLink transit concessions, mall operators (Ivanhoé Cambridge, Cadillac Fairview, QuadReal, Larco, Morguard) — for premium inventory, custom creative treatments, and guaranteed impressions. Typical lead time: 2–5 weeks. Best for Robson/Granville/Burrard LED spectaculars, YVR airport takeovers, Metropolis at Metrotown domination, SkyTrain station dominations, and launch moments where you need locked placements.
Activate through AdQuick, Vistar Media, Broadsign Ads (Canadian), VIOOH, StackAdapt (Canadian), The Trade Desk, Yahoo DSP, or Adomni. Typical lead time: 24 hours to 2 weeks. Best for always-on, test-and-scale, multi-venue blends, and data-driven targeting.
Run direct buys and programmatic in a single plan, with native mapping of Metro Vancouver inventory, transparent CPMs in CAD or USD, creative delivery across every venue (including optional Chinese and Punjabi variants), and attribution rolled up across the whole flight under PIPEDA / BC PIPA-compliant measurement partners with COMMB-backed impression currency. Typical lead time: 48 hours to 2 weeks. Best for planners who want the reach of direct Pattison, Bell/Astral, Rogers, YVR, and TransLink inventory and the flexibility of programmatic without stitching together three Canadian national operators plus multiple SSPs separately.
Common questions on cost, screens, programmatic, measurement, minimums, multilingual creative, and reaching specific Vancouver audiences in 2026.
AdQuick is the DOOH DSP and marketplace that unifies programmatic buying across every major SSP (Vistar, Broadsign Reach, VIOOH, Place Exchange, Hivestack SSP) with direct media-owner inventory across Downtown Vancouver, Mount Pleasant, Kitsilano, Main Street, Commercial Drive, Cambie Village, Fairview / South Granville, Point Grey, Dunbar, and across Metro Vancouver — Burnaby (Metrotown, Brentwood), Richmond, Surrey, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, New Westminster, Coquitlam, and Port Coquitlam — including YVR, SkyTrain (plus Broadway Extension), West Coast Express, SeaBus, Pattison Outdoor inventory, Bell Media / Astral networks, Rogers Sports and Media, Lamar Canada, Branded Cities, Allvision-aggregated supply, shopping centres, Cineplex cinema, plus Gastown / Mount Pleasant / Broadway / Downtown office-tower networks, gyms, forecourts, and retail media.
Get Started ->
Launch hyper-targeted OOH campaigns in minutes