What Is Programmatic Digital Out of Home (DOOH) and Its Benefits

Advertising that is shown in the public (outside) locations digitally and dynamically is known as digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising.

Here are some instances of DOOH advertising that you may be familiar with from daily life:

• A dynamic display playing hotel commercials in airport arrival halls

• Restaurant chain advertisements that are shown in or next to a mall’s food court

• Dynamic automobile ad flashes along the road (often in locations having a showroom of the brand nearby)

• Kiosks with digital displays and wifi hotspots in big cities

Out-of-home (OOH) media is not new; in fact, it is one of the oldest conventional media in the world. Nevertheless, OOH media is rapidly becoming digital, and the market is responding. Between 2016 and 2023, the global DOOH sector expanded from $3.6 billion to $ 8.4 billion. OOH is witnessing this as it evolves into a smarter, data-driven version termed “DOOH.” When there is digitization, we also see a variety of connectors, apps, and SaaS solutions being offered.

Under post-digitalization standards, where internet advertising platforms like Google and Facebook are dominant, DOOH advertising fills many of the gaps that render traditional outdoor advertising ineffective.

Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) refers to the automated ordering, selling, and delivery of DOOH advertising on digital billboards and other forms of signage. Using a specifically designed online pDOOH platform, buyers define their specific requirements for how they wish to acquire media, including how, when, and where they want their ads to appear. The automatic purchase and delivery of ad space occur when those conditions are satisfied.

Typical conditions include the following:

• Particular dates and times

• Data regarding foot traffic

• Weather circumstances

Online advertising and programmatic DOOH are both bought and sold in very similar ways. Whenever you submit an advance bid on ad space, your message or commercial is immediately displayed when such requirements may be met.

This suggests that, in comparison with conventional media procurement procedures, you might approach publicly visible advertising with greater specificity while simultaneously saving time. You can track and optimize your campaigns and target the audiences most likely to make a purchase with the use of practical insights derived from real-world data.

 

What Are My Options for Purchasing Programmatic DOOH?

You can purchase DOOH advertising in three ways utilizing a programmatic strategy.

1. Real-Time Open Bidding

Several purchasers automatically put bids on an available ad slot in open real-time bidding (RTB). The best bidder is subsequently given the slot by the algorithm, and the advertisement is delivered as planned.

The main benefit is that you can put in a bid without having any prior connections to the media owner. On the other hand, because DOOH networks typically only provide programmatic purchasers access to a part of their ad space, this accessibility boosts competition for ad slots.

2. RTB for Private Deals

Similar to open RTB, however, instead of bidding against the entire buying community, you compete against a virtual “VIP room” of first-look buyers.

Media proprietors occasionally grant special access to subscribers or people with whom they get along well. In other words, before the media owner makes programmatic DOOH inventory available to general buyers, you get first dibs on it via private RTB.

3. Scripted Assurance

Media buyers commit to purchasing any ad spots offered by the seller that satisfy their predetermined criteria in guaranteed programmatic arrangements.

This approach most closely resembles conventional direct advertising sales out of the three. However, doing the procedure programmatically has numerous advantages. The workload of media buyers and marketers is reduced through automation, which also has significant advantages for campaign reporting.

 

Advantages of Programmatic DOOH

• Programmatic DOOH Promotes Quickness and Adaptability for Real-Time Campaign Optimization

One of the previous difficulties with OOH was the laborious, labor-intensive, and time-consuming procedure involved in getting creative to each site, setting it up, and then even taking it down on schedule. Sending creatives to digitally connected media display units only requires a few clicks, but more crucially, advertisers benefit from great flexibility and cost-efficiency when switching display ad creatives based on the circumstance, which enables in-flight campaign optimization for advertisers. Nowadays, DOOH offers the same flexibility to change creatives as digital advertising does. Marketers frequently like to change creatives based on a certain event. For instance, it is simple to switch the creatives at the airport to welcome home and congratulate the winning baseball team. The same is true for mall kiosks: when it is stormy, change the creative to offer a hot cup of coffee, and when the sun returns, offer a wonderfully refreshing drink! In reality, advertisers can now dynamically alter creatives based on the situation, the weather, the time of day, etc.

• Better Audience Targeting

Better audience targeting is made possible by programmatic DOOH’s ability to interface with the larger programmatic ad tech ecosystem. Media buyers can view a more comprehensive plan in a new window to make sure audience targeting is more effective for each medium in the plan. It is simpler to transfer budgets around, modify audience targeting, and alter creatives to meet audience needs when a campaign can be executed across devices, platforms, screens, and media units.

• Brokers, Price Rigging, and Ad Space Dominance Are All Eliminated via RTB

The manual pricing approach adopted by ad space owners is the primary cause of the exorbitant costs of outdoor advertising. Buyers are only permitted to bid at this minimum price or greater. Given the geographic dispersion of OOH media units, there are additional middlemen whose main responsibility is to negotiate pricing in media purchases. Due to their inability to compete, smaller, mid-sized businesses essentially end up dominating DOOH and OOH, even for open slots. Most owners of advertising space would rather leave the area unfilled than cut pricing and damage their market.

Smaller purchasers will be able to fairly bid for free ad spots thanks to RTB, which will do away with all necessary minimums in the bidding process as well as the requirement for brokers and middlemen. Media owners can maximize the profits from a single unit by selling play time to many advertisers since the digital format permits multiple creatives to share the same media unit.

• Campaign Outcomes Measured with a Clear ROI

Marketers used to frequently worry that OOH advertising made end-to-end measurement impossible. Today’s data and technology make measurement unnecessary. To link businesses and marketers with tangible results, Vistar collaborates with a limited set of top third-party measurement suppliers. Brand lift, foot traffic, internet conversion, and sales lift are all included in these thorough analyses. With Vistar’s DOOH technology, you can now determine how a programmatic DOOH campaign will affect a certain DMA or how cross-screen exposure will impact lower or upper-funnel KPIs.

• Include Your Brand’s Narrative Throughout the Customer Journey

Given that customers are exposed to DOOH media at various touch points as they go about their everyday lives, brands may strengthen their message and increase brand awareness. Moreover, brands can reach customers through digital signage at the point of purchase, which can be found at malls, supermarkets, and other retail establishments, as well as when they are on the way to purchase, such as at public transportation hubs or with roadside billboards. It has been demonstrated that utilizing contextual surroundings and repeated exposure increases brand awareness, consideration, buying intent, foot traffic, and revenues. To strengthen their brand message even further, marketers have the option to retarget consumers who have seen DOOH on mobile.

It is necessary to conquer unknown new ground in programmatic DOOH. There are many challenges associated with it, but the focus is on data processing, ad viewability measurement, and low-latency ad creative processing. But, those who find solutions to these problems will be well-positioned for future growth. Beyond private marketplace agreements and programmatic guaranteed ad placements, advertisers want to scale. Many people also want to launch data-rich, dynamic advertising in areas where their ideal targets hang out. Yet, not many players offer that kind of seamless purchasing process. This gap can be filled by your business.