For businesses · 5 min read · Updated July 2026

How many people see your ad on a local car every day?

A single advertised car generates an estimated 30,000–70,000 impressions a day (OAAA), whether it's driving or parked on a busy street.

Industry estimates put a single advertised vehicle at roughly 30,000 to 70,000 impressions a day — about 400 to 600 views for every mile it drives, according to OAAA (Out of Home Advertising Association of America) figures widely cited across the out-of-home industry. That number holds up even when the car isn't moving: a car parked on a typical urban street is passed by an estimated 18,000 to 20,000-plus vehicles a day, based on standard arterial traffic-count data. Lunar (lunarcar.me), a car advertising marketplace live in Vancouver, BC and Tulsa, OK, reports these as estimated impressions on a business's dashboard — the same way billboards and transit ads are sold, never as a promised view or click count.

How do you actually estimate impressions on a moving car?

There's no camera counting eyeballs — impressions on any out-of-home format, from billboards to bus wraps, are modelled, not measured one-by-one. For a vehicle, the model starts with verified mileage (Lunar checks this weekly via odometer photo) and applies an impressions-per-mile rate drawn from OAAA industry benchmarks — roughly 400 to 600 per mile in typical traffic. A car that logs 600 miles in a month is doing meaningfully more advertising work than the same car sitting in a garage, which is exactly why Lunar pays drivers a mileage bonus and matches higher-mileage cars to premium zones.

Does a parked car still count as an ad?

Yes — and this is the part most people underestimate. A car is parked roughly 95% of the time, a widely cited figure that traces to UCLA researcher Donald Shoup and has been cross-verified at 92–96% across multiple countries. That's usually framed as a knock against car ownership. For advertising, it's the opposite: a parked car isn't dead time, it's continuous coverage. A decal sitting in a grocery store lot, outside a school pickup line, or on a residential street in the exact neighbourhood a business serves is still visible to everyone who passes it. The ad doesn't clock out when the driver does.

How does that compare with how often people notice other ad formats?

A 2019 OAAA and Nielsen out-of-home report found 64% of US residents 16 and older noticed a wrapped vehicle in the past month, and 44% noticed one in the past week — ranking wrapped vehicles the single most-noticed moving out-of-home format measured. An older, frequently cited 3M fleet study (the source behind a widely repeated stat in the vehicle-advertising industry) found vehicle graphics recalled at 97%, versus 19% for a stationary ad in the same setting — worth reading as a directional, marketing-sourced figure rather than an audited number, but consistent with the broader pattern: things that move through a neighbourhood get looked at more than things bolted to one spot.

• 30,000–70,000 estimated impressions per day for one advertised vehicle (OAAA)
• ~400–600 estimated impressions per mile driven (OAAA)
• ~18,000–20,000+ vehicles pass a parked car on a typical urban arterial each day (traffic-count data)
• 64% of US adults noticed a wrapped vehicle in the past month; 44% in the past week (OAAA/Nielsen, 2019)
• 97% ad recall for vehicle graphics vs. 19% for stationary ads in the same setting (3M, industry-sourced)
• Lunar reports estimated impressions on a business dashboard, modelled from verified mileage — figures are always estimates, not a promise of exact views

How does Lunar turn this into a number a business can actually use?

A local business on Lunar sets a target zone — its own neighbourhood or service area — and cars are matched inside it, not spread across a whole metro. Each business's dashboard shows active cars, verified mileage, and an estimated-impressions figure built from that mileage, so the reported number reflects real driving, not a media buyer's guess. It's an estimate in the same sense a billboard's daily-traffic count is an estimate: directional, based on real data, and useful for comparing options — not a promise that a specific person saw the decal on a specific day.

Why does this matter more for a $500–$2,000 monthly budget than for a billboard?

A static billboard's audience is fixed to one location; its impression count doesn't change no matter how the neighbourhood shifts. A fleet of decal cars covers multiple streets, parking lots, and routes inside the same zone at once, and the reach moves with them. For a local business trying to be seen specifically by the people who live and shop nearby — not a citywide audience passing one intersection — that distributed, always-on coverage is the practical difference between paying for a fixed spot and paying for a moving one.