Outdoor advertising in Atlanta: who sells it, what MARTA refuses, and what is published on price
Atlanta out-of-home is roadside bulletins and digital from Clear Channel Outdoor, OUTFRONT and Lamar, MARTA buses, trains and stations sold by Intersection under a policy that bans all alcohol advertising, Hartsfield-Jackson sold by Clear Channel, and screens on Checker Cabs and wrapped cars. AdQuick lists a static bulletin at $2,000 to $12,000 per four weeks, read September 14, 2026.
Atlanta is the market in this series where the transit policy, not the sign code, decides the most. MARTA's advertising rules prohibit every form of alcohol advertising and all political creative, and its newest buses and trains carry no advertising at all. The city's sign ordinance confines billboards to industrial districts. Between the two, the street-level audience in Midtown, Downtown and Buckhead is reached mostly by what moves: the Checker Cab tops, wrapped cars and one LED truck in the 12 photographs below, drawn from the 44 Atlanta frames in the campaign archive. Every claim on this page carries the publisher and the date it was read. It is written for advertisers and media buyers and is not a rate card.
What has actually run in Atlanta?
The archive holds 44 frames from Atlanta covering 13 brands, photographed between 2023 and 2025. The set is small and unusually legible: the same Checker Cab, number 0073, appears under four different brands across two years, which says something about how a fixed taxi fleet is sold as a rotating surface. The landmarks are the ones a national planner would name, Centennial Olympic Park, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Ponce City Market, the airport curb, and two of the beer placements are on cars for a reason the rules section explains.
Digital screens on Checker Cab and car roofs
Wrapped cars and swarms
LED truck
Seven of the 44 Atlanta frames are a 2024 political campaign and were left out of this commercial hub without being opened. One Michelob Ultra close-up was rejected after opening because the manifest tags a digital top that is not in the frame. The Aflac frame carries no brand in the manifest; the brand is read off the creative, which names the Aflac Kickoff Game.
Who sells outdoor advertising in Atlanta?
Every row was read on the seller's own page or the authority's page on September 14, 2026. Where a number appears it is the seller's own claim, dated as the seller dates it.
| Inventory | Who sells it | What the seller's or authority's page says |
|---|---|---|
| Roadside bulletins, posters and digital | Clear Channel Outdoor | "Nearly 2,000 displays across 21 counties" and "over 190 digital billboards", unit count as of June 30, 2022 by its own source line. Calls itself "the largest and most comprehensive digital OOH provider" in the market. Also sells inside Hartsfield-Jackson. |
| Roadside bulletins, digital, street furniture | OUTFRONT Media | Available media listed as Digital, Billboard, Social, Mobile, with "billboards, street furniture, and more" in the copy; claims 98% weekly reach of the DMA and names its "B475" digital bulletin as a showcase unit. |
| Billboards and digital | Lamar Advertising | Atlanta office in Peachtree Corners; products listed as billboards and digital; page describes "traditional billboards and digital displays". |
| MARTA buses, trains and stations | Intersection | Named on itsmarta.com: exterior bus ("wrap an entire bus or just one side"), interior bus cards, exterior rail ("full-train wraps" and king-size panels), interior rail, and station dominations "plus floor graphics, elevator wraps, ceiling banners". Contact is [email protected]. |
| Bus shelters | Not stated by asset | MARTA's Advertising Policy lists "print advertising displayed on bus shelters in the Authority's service area" among the assets it sells; its advertising page lists bus, rail and station formats only. Ask which contract a given shelter sits under. |
| Hartsfield-Jackson airport | Clear Channel Outdoor | Its Atlanta page offers "a wide variety of advertising opportunities inside ATL and on the roadways around it" and cites 110 million or more annual passengers (Airports Council International, 2019). |
| Moving formats on cars and trucks | Firefly (digital and static tops on taxis and rideshare vehicles, 360, 270 and 180 wraps, LED trucks, coordinated swarms; Atlanta is on its list of 15 markets; the Checker Cab tops, wraps and swarms documented above), Intersection (MARTA bus exteriors), Blue Line Media (mobile billboard trucks and taxi tops; Atlanta appears in both market lists), AdQuick (marketplace listing "vehicle wraps / rideshare OOH" for Atlanta) | None publishes an operator rate card for Atlanta; the marketplace and reseller ranges are listed below. |
Two things in the table are Atlanta-specific. Clear Channel Outdoor counts "over 190 digital billboards" reaching 80% of adults weekly by its own figure, and its Atlanta page is the only one of its four market pages read that day that leads with a digital bulletin in its hero image. And the airport is inside the same company's plant, which means a plan that wants the I-85 corridor and the terminal concourses can be one contract. The general map of who holds each transit concession and why bus and shelter are often two contracts is on bus advertising.
What do Atlanta's rules allow?
| What is decided | The rule as published | Source |
|---|---|---|
| MARTA vehicles, stations and shelters | Advertising is sold "in a proprietary capacity" and "not intended to provide a general public forum". Prohibited outright: "All forms of alcohol including, wine, beer and liquor" (2(e)); tobacco "as required by law" (2(d)); products related to human reproduction or sexuality, including contraceptives (2(a)); massage and tattoo parlors (2(f)); anything that denigrates the Authority (3); all political advertising, including any person prominent for political activity (8). Footnote: the new BRT buses and CQ-400 Stadler trains "will not be available for advertising". | MARTA Advertising Policy and Regulations, undated PDF filed as "Advertising Policy - April Final", linked from itsmarta.com |
| Where a billboard may stand | Billboard signs are permitted in the I-1 light industrial district "subject to all other provisions" of Chapter 28A, not exceeding 50 feet above ground and 672 square feet, within the buildable area of the lot, and not within 300 feet of a freestanding sign of 72 to 200 square feet (16-28A.010(10)(h)). The residential, R-LC and office-institutional district sections we read each state "Billboard signs shall be prohibited". | City of Atlanta Code of Ordinances, Part 16 Zoning, Chapter 28A Sign Ordinance, Sec. 16-28A.010 |
| Advertising on vehicles | We read the district regulations in Sec. 16-28A.010 and found no section specific to advertising vehicles. That is a statement about what we read, not a clearance. | City of Atlanta Code of Ordinances, Sec. 16-28A.010 |
The alcohol line is the one to plan around. MARTA's policy does not cap alcohol the way the CTA does; it bars it, in every form, on every asset it sells. The two beer placements in the archive, Michelob Ultra during the Club World Cup and Miller Lite with the Falcons, are on wrapped cars and screens, and this is why: the surfaces that move are the ones the transit policy does not reach. The policy also excludes MARTA's newest rolling stock outright, so a "full-train wrap" sold by Intersection is on an older train by definition. The national table of which regulator governs each moving format is on transit advertising.
What do third parties publish on Atlanta rates?
The ranges below are market-level figures compiled from publicly published vendor and industry sources. They are not quotes, and they are not the rates of any single network, including the operator whose campaigns the archive on this site documents, which prices per campaign and does not publish a rate card. Always get a written quote before budgeting.
| Publisher | Retrieved | Published figures |
|---|---|---|
| AdQuick, billboard cost page (city table) | Read September 14, 2026 | Atlanta static bulletin $2,000 to $12,000 per four weeks, published as a planning range with no method. |
| AdQuick, Atlanta billboard advertising page | Read September 14, 2026 | Static bulletin $3,000 to $9,000; digital $4,000 to $13,000; poster $1,000 to $2,800; bus shelter or street furniture $900 to $2,400; MARTA full bus wrap $3,000 to $6,500; MARTA rail $2,500 to $8,000; vehicle wraps and rideshare $500 to $3,000; Hartsfield-Jackson $4,000 to $20,000 or more; wallscape $10,000 to $40,000 or more. Self-serve digital "from $12/day". Production $500 to $1,200 for vinyl, $1,500 to $4,000 for transit and vehicle wraps. |
| Blue Line Media, Atlanta billboard page | Read September 14, 2026 | Static poster $2,000 to $3,000; static bulletin $3,500 to $8,000; digital bulletin $6,000 to $9,500; wallscape $8,000 to $25,000, all per four weeks. $5,000 minimum spend per market. Says billboard density is highest on I-85 North (73 faces), I-75 North (69) and I-20 East (56). |
| business.com, "What does a billboard cost" | Published October 15, 2025; read September 14, 2026 | Atlanta named in the "large metro" tier with Dallas, Boston, Seattle and Philadelphia: static $3,000 to $10,000; digital $2,000 to $10,000 per month. |
Atlanta is the one market in this series where a publisher's own two pages move in opposite directions. AdQuick's city table gives a static bulletin a $12,000 ceiling; its Atlanta page gives $9,000, a quarter lower. Blue Line's static ceiling is $8,000, and business.com's tier tops out at $10,000, so three of the four published ceilings sit between $8,000 and $10,000 and one sits at $12,000. The digital figures diverge more: Blue Line's floor for a digital bulletin ($6,000) is above AdQuick's ($4,000) and three times business.com's ($2,000). None states a sample. AdQuick's MARTA rows are marketplace figures, not Intersection's; MARTA's page says to contact Intersection "for rates, products, and availability" and publishes none.
How is delivery counted in Atlanta?
Fixed inventory is rated by Geopath, whose impression is "the total number of times people passing an OOH display are likely to notice the ad". Clear Channel Outdoor cites "Geopath OOH Ratings, 2022" under its Atlanta figures, and OUTFRONT cites "GEOPATH 2019" for its CBSA ranking. A screen on a Checker Cab roof is not a rated unit in that system; it is counted by route, dwell and hour, and a proposal should say which method produced its number. Both methods, and what each can and cannot show, are on how out-of-home impressions are measured.
This is Atlanta's row of the format and market matrix, derived from the archive:
| Ad surface | Digital screen | Vehicle wrap | Static print | Hologram | Spectacular |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta | 33 | 23 | · | · | · |
| Carrier | LED truck | Food truck | In-car screen | Pedicab | Hologram truck | Glass truck | Golf cart screen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta | 3 | · | · | · | · | · | · |
Reflects campaigns documented in this archive; absence is not evidence of unavailability. Counts are photographs, not campaigns or units, and a frame tagged with two surfaces is counted under each. Seven of the digital and wrap frames counted here are the political campaign excluded above.
The whole matrix is on the campaign archive, and the category argument, why a screen that follows an audience behaves differently from one that waits for it, is on the guide to out-of-home advertising. A market is published on this site only when it clears four checks: at least twelve documented frames photographed in it, the transit authority's own advertising standards read live, at least two named third-party rate sources read live, and a real row in the matrix above. Atlanta clears all four, with the smallest archive set of the four markets in this series.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does it cost to advertise on a billboard in Atlanta?
- No Atlanta plant publishes a rate; Clear Channel Outdoor, OUTFRONT and Lamar route to a sales contact. The third-party ranges for a static bulletin are $2,000 to $12,000 per four weeks on AdQuick's city table, $3,000 to $9,000 on AdQuick's Atlanta page, $3,500 to $8,000 on Blue Line Media's Atlanta page, and $3,000 to $10,000 in business.com's large-metro tier, all read September 14, 2026 and none with a stated method. Digital runs $4,000 to $13,000 on AdQuick and $6,000 to $9,500 on Blue Line. Vinyl production adds $500 to $1,200 by AdQuick's figure.
- Where can I find billboard advertising in Atlanta?
- From the three plants directly, or through a marketplace. Clear Channel Outdoor publishes a coverage map on its Atlanta page and counts nearly 2,000 displays across 21 counties; OUTFRONT's Media Finder searches by address or unit number; Lamar's Atlanta page opens a "Browse Inventory" tool from its Peachtree Corners office. AdQuick and Blue Line Media run maps that mix owners. Blue Line says the densest corridors are I-85 North, I-75 North and I-20 East. None of these maps shows the MARTA concession or the screens on cars documented above.
- How do I advertise on MARTA?
- Through Intersection, the concessionaire named on itsmarta.com, which sells exterior and interior bus, exterior and interior rail, and station dominations. Creative must clear MARTA's Advertising Policy, which is stricter than Chicago's or San Francisco's on one point: all alcohol advertising, "wine, beer and liquor", is prohibited, alongside tobacco, political advertising and products related to sexual health. MARTA's policy also notes that its new BRT buses and CQ-400 Stadler trains will not carry advertising.
- Can I put an alcohol brand on a MARTA bus?
- No. MARTA's Advertising Policy prohibits "All forms of alcohol including, wine, beer and liquor" on its facilities, property and rolling stock. That is why the Michelob Ultra and Miller Lite placements documented on this page are on wrapped cars and car-top screens rather than on transit. By contrast, the CTA in Chicago allows alcohol under a cap and San Francisco's SFMTA bans it; the rule is the authority's, not the format's.
- Are there digital billboards in Atlanta?
- Yes, and Atlanta has one of the larger digital plants in this series by the owner's own count: Clear Channel Outdoor claims "over 190 digital billboards" reaching 80% of adults weekly, and OUTFRONT names a digital bulletin, B475, as its showcase unit. AdQuick lists Atlanta digital at $4,000 to $13,000 per four weeks and Blue Line at $6,000 to $9,500. How a shared loop turns a unit's audience into a spot's audience is on the digital billboard advertising page.
- Can I rent a billboard in Atlanta for a day?
- Self-serve digital rotations can be bought in short flights: AdQuick's Atlanta page lists shared digital "from $12/day" and describes single-board, single-neighbourhood buys for small advertisers with no minimum spend. Blue Line Media, by contrast, lists a $5,000 minimum per market. A static bulletin is sold in four-week periods and carries print and installation cost, so a one-day static buy is not a published product from any Atlanta seller we read.
- Where can new billboards be built in Atlanta?
- In industrial districts, and not much else. Sec. 16-28A.010 of the city's Sign Ordinance permits billboard signs in the I-1 light industrial district up to 50 feet high and 672 square feet, and the residential and office-institutional district sections we read each prohibit them. That concentrates the roadside plant on the interstate corridors Blue Line names and keeps it out of Midtown and Buckhead street level, which is where the car-top and wrap placements above were photographed.
Sources
- Advertising on MARTA: Intersection, exterior and interior bus and rail, station dominations, link to Advertising Policy · Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, Accessed September 14, 2026
- Advertising Policy and Regulations: asset classes, prohibited categories including all alcohol, political advertising, BRT and CQ-400 exclusion · Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, Undated PDF; accessed September 14, 2026
- Sec. 16-28A.010 District regulations, Chapter 28A Sign Ordinance: billboard signs in the I-1 district, prohibited in residential and O-I districts · City of Atlanta Code of Ordinances, Accessed September 14, 2026
- Atlanta market page: nearly 2,000 displays across 21 counties, over 190 digital billboards, Hartsfield-Jackson (unit count as of June 30, 2022) · Clear Channel Outdoor, Accessed September 14, 2026
- Atlanta billboards and OOH advertising: available media, 98% weekly reach, B475 digital showcase · OUTFRONT Media, Accessed September 14, 2026
- Outdoor advertising in Atlanta: billboards and digital; Peachtree Corners office · Lamar Advertising, Accessed September 14, 2026
- Billboard advertising costs: city table and format ranges · AdQuick, Accessed September 14, 2026
- Billboard advertising in Atlanta, GA: format table, MARTA rows, rideshare row, self-serve digital · AdQuick, Accessed September 14, 2026
- Billboard advertising in Atlanta, GA: rate table, minimum spend, corridor density · Blue Line Media, Accessed September 14, 2026
- Mobile billboard advertising: market list including Atlanta, GA · Blue Line Media, Accessed September 14, 2026
- What does a billboard cost? Market-tier table (Atlanta in the large-metro tier) · business.com, Published October 15, 2025; accessed September 14, 2026
- Ordinance 026-42, Exhibit A: CTA advertising guidelines (alcohol capped at 75 exterior bus wraps and 9.99% of space) · Chicago Transit Board, Passed April 8, 2026; accessed September 14, 2026
- Advertise on Muni: SFMTA Advertising Policy effective November 22, 2017 (alcohol, tobacco, firearms and cannabis prohibited) · San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Accessed September 14, 2026
- Glossary: impressions, circulation, visibility adjustment index · Geopath, Accessed September 14, 2026
- On-Car Products: digital tops, static tops, car wraps (360°, 270°, 180°) · Firefly, Accessed September 14, 2026
About the author
Ercan Bozkurt writes the methodology pages on this site: how out-of-home inventory is counted, measured and bought, with a particular interest in screens that move. He works from the primary document in each case, the transit authority's own rulebook, the measurement body's own definitions, the company's own filing, and writes the page so that a media planner can check every figure against it.
Ercan Bozkurt on LinkedIn · Reviewed by Melih Koray, who publishes this site · How this site is edited and what it refuses to publish: about this site.