Shell Forecourt Advertising: A Whole Petrol Station for £30 a Day

Most billboard sites are one screen. Most Shell forecourts are six, eight, ten or twelve.

They stand beside the pumps, in front of a driver who has nothing to do for the next few minutes except watch the numbers go up. And on FameCake, you can have the whole forecourt for a day for £30.

We did not expect that number to be the headline. But we looked at our own data this week, and the forecourts are the best value we sell by a long way. So here are the numbers, the caveats, and how to try it.

What £30 gets you

	Shell forecourts on FameCake
Forecourts	89, in 79 towns
Screens	649
Screens per forecourt	Mostly 6 to 12
Price for a whole forecourt (6+ screens)	£30 a day
Plays a day, average forecourt	About 11,000*
Plays a day, each screen	About 1,500*
Busiest forecourt	About 21,000 plays a day*

*Averages over the 14 days to 13 October 2026, across every screen, including any that were offline. See the small print below.

You buy the forecourt, not the screen. A 12-screen forecourt costs the same £30 as a 6-screen one. At the big sites, that is £2.50 a screen.

The screens also run almost all day and all night. A high street screen goes quiet when the shops shut. A motorway forecourt does not.

Why the pump is a good place for an ad

A roadside billboard is seen from a moving car. A pump screen is seen by a driver who is standing still.

Think about what filling up is like. You hold the nozzle. You watch the numbers. You are not meant to use your phone, and the only other things to read are the price board and the pump.

Drivers who use PetrolPrices told it they spend about five minutes on the forecourt each visit. That is a survey, not a stopwatch, so treat it as a rough guide. But a few minutes is a long time in advertising. A roadside billboard gets a glance.

That is why a busy forecourt suits a simple ad. Big words, your name, one offer, and a phone number or a QR code. The driver has time to read it twice.

The number we keep looking at

We divided what people paid for their Shell ads by the plays those ads got. For every paid ad on Shell that finished after 14 September, the answer was £3.17 per 1,000 plays.

Across all paid FameCake ads in the same period, the average was £18.10 per 1,000 plays. So the forecourts gave about five times as many plays per pound.

Before anyone gets excited on our behalf:

• A play is not a person. A play is one showing of your ad on one screen. Several screens on one forecourt can show your ad to the same driver more than once. That helps people remember a name, but it is not more customers.
• The sample is small. That £3.17 comes from 11 ads. We will update it as more finish.
• The screens are small. These are pump-side screens, not 48-sheet roadside billboards. People see them from a few metres, not from the other side of a dual carriageway. Design for that: big words, one message.

Who already uses them

Since August, 30 ads have run on Shell forecourts through FameCake. 29 were from businesses. A few that we can describe without naming anyone:

• A transport firm ran for two weeks on one 8-screen forecourt in the West Midlands. Its ad played 148,080 times.
• A roofer booked a 12-screen forecourt in the East Midlands for a month.
• An estate agent ran three days on an 8-screen forecourt in Bristol, for 26,911 plays.
• Also on the list: a plumber, a car wash, two garages, a cleaning company, training providers and a restaurant.

Notice the pattern. These are local trades whose customers drive. The person filling up at the Shell down the road is the person who needs a roof, a van or a driving lesson in that town.

The small print, in plain words

The play counts above are what the screens did recently. They are not what we promise. Your ad shares the screens with other ads, so if more businesses book the same forecourt on the same day, each ad gets fewer plays.

What we do promise is our Play Guarantee: at least 90 plays a day for each screen you pay for, counted across the whole forecourt. On an 8-screen forecourt, that is at least 720 plays a day. Plays on any screen at the forecourt count towards that total, so a screen that goes dark does not cost you, as long as the others make up the plays. If we fall short, we extend your ad or move it at no extra cost. The full wording is in our terms.

We would rather you book on the guarantee and be pleasantly surprised than book on the average and feel let down.

How to book a petrol station billboard

1. Go to Shell forecourts on FameCake and pick a forecourt near your customers. Each one shows its price and recent plays.
2. Upload your artwork. No artwork? Paste your website address and we make an ad from it, with your phone number and a QR code.
3. Pick your days and pay. We check your ad, and it goes up on your day.

The old way to put an ad on a petrol station was a media pack, a sales call and a campaign measured in weeks. This way is £30 and a few minutes on your phone. Then go and fill up, and watch the pump.