Why Advertisers Can't Afford to Overlook Digital Out of Home for the Omnichannel Era

Digital OOH (DOOH) is emerging as one of the fastest-growing advertising mediums. With a 24.2% jump in ad revenue between 2021 and 2022, it was a second consecutive year of double-digit growth. Programmatic OOH is also on the rise -- projected to cross the$1 billion mark in ad spend globally by 2023, according to the OAAA.

Consequently, the ad tech industry has taken notice: Major omnichannel Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) are investing in DOOH through direct OOH-SSP integrations. Platforms including Google's DV360, The Trade Desk, Yahoo! and many others now offer their users access to a rich and diverse footprint of DOOH inventory.

This is good news for marketers. It is now easier than ever to cost-effectively reach on-the-go audiences with a medium which delivers impactful brand messaging in unique consumer touchpoints that are inaccessible through other advertising channels.

Tackling Hard to Reach Audiences

Niche audiences can be challenging for advertisers to access in online digital media due to small audience pools or contextual targeting fragmentation. Affluent audiences, for example, can be inaccessible on some websites, apps and streaming platforms due to ad-free subscriptions. However, OOH advertising creates opportunities for marketers to either reach mass audiences at scale or to efficiently message their target audiences in the specific neighborhoods, workplaces, leisure or shopping venues they visit in their everyday lives.

OOH is often looked at as an upper funnel tactic, with large billboards being the first format to come to mind. But OOH is more than just billboards; it includes gas stations, gyms, office buildings, grocery stores, doctor's offices, pharmacies, salons and much more. As such, OOH also supports lower funnel tactics through its ability to reach and influence people in places where they spend money. Whether it's buying drinks at a bar, buying groceries or shopping for clothes, OOH is often the last advertising touchpoint available to brands.

With new access to programmatic DOOH inventory, digital marketers can now capitalize on these opportunities and easily extend their programmatic campaigns to include more than just personal devices. The challenge that marketers face, however, is with navigating the landscape of an emerging programmatic channel and learning how to activate and integrate DOOH effectively alongside their overall marketing mix.

Here is my advice:

• Activate within your preferred DSP: Most advertisers can now use their preferred DSP to include OOH in their cross-channel campaigns. This allows advertisers to aggregate reporting and maximize spend efficiencies with a single technology platform.
• Maintain full control of strategy, targeting and execution: By executing from within an omnichannel DSP, campaign managers can choose exactly how much they are spending across each channel, market, environment and tactic with the flexibility to make changes at any time.
• Leverage data to target specific audience segments: Mobile location data has enabled the OOH space to identify real-world movement patterns of specific audiences and buy inventory which over-indexes in reach against those target audiences. Be sure your omni-channel DSP has the required OOH audience targeting capabilities or work with a specialist OOH partner to filter out off-target and poor-quality inventory on the supply side. While many omni-channel DSPs have created access to OOH inventory, complete targeting features and functionality have yet to fully roll out.
• Know your inventory: Within the OOH space, some screens and environments may not align with your expectations. For example, a tattoo parlor may be classified under 'salons' which may work well for some advertisers but misalign for others. Additionally, while brand safety is simpler to manage in OOH compared to the open web, there are still venues and locations which may not be viewed as brand safe for certain advertisers. Tap into an OOH expert partner to curate the right screens for your messages.
• Negotiate preferred rates: OOH is no different from any other programmatic channel, where volume and market intelligence unlock favorable pricing compared to the open market. Leverage your entire OOH spend (programmatic and direct) and capabilities to get access to preferred pricing.

Given the challenges of audience and media fragmentation, advertisers are actively looking to consolidate their media spend into their omnichannel DSPs. With the technical advancements in OOH, digital buyers can now tap into the array of new screens available to them to unleash the full potential of their omnichannel marketing strategies. Leverage all of your programmatic capabilities and your OOH partners to maximize effectiveness in the omnichannel era.

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The opinions expressed here are the author's views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage.org/MyersBizNet.