What Media Buying Strategies Work For Digital Out of Home (DOOH)?
By Kira LeBlanc, Senior VP of global activation, Perion
Programmatic advertising comes in many forms, and one of the hottest emerging opportunities is Digital Out of Home (DOOH). Out of Home (OOH) advertising traditionally required a brand to commit to buying space on a billboard for weeks or even months, without the flexibility to make changes. Many top placements delivered relatively evergreen messaging or were focused on brand awareness and top-of-the-funnel activity. As we enter this new phase of OOH enhanced by digitization, data and programmatic technology, the buying strategies have also adapted to the new landscape.
Over the last several years, OOH has experienced a renaissance. New opportunities to plan, target, optimize and measure have emerged and this new wave of data-powered solutions has reinvigorated the medium. DOOH signage infrastructure is more sophisticated and visible in almost every space and venue outside of the home. Digital screens have emerged all over the world where heavy traffic meets high demand. From urban panels, downtown center elevators and major highways to trains, planes and automobiles, OOH is now a digitized channel that allows for agile, contextual and more personalized messaging to reach audiences with more precision, at scale.
First DOOH, then pDOOH
In 2025, EMARKETER predicts that programmatic DOOH will hit $1b. Today, about one third of OOH inventory in the US is digital, indicating that the market is close to a tipping point, where despite being less than half of the overall OOH ad spend, DOOH growth rates have surpassed traditional.. In some countries, including Australia, the tipping point has already been reached, where we are seeing DOOH represent more than 75% of OOH advertising.
Following rapidly on the heels of the digital evolution is programmatic. EMARKETER notes that about one third of the DOOH inventory in the US is being bought programmatically, and it’s growing fast. Some key drivers of this growth include the application of data, more precise targeting and measurement and further integration of other digital channels via programmatic buying.
As media buyers see more inventory available programmatically, coupled with sophisticated capabilities to reach audiences, they have infinite new ways to plan and deliver strategic campaigns against upper and lower funnel objectives , and now is the right time to dive in.
What’s Old is New Again
As with many traditions, change can be challenging and old habits are hard to break. OOH is the oldest advertising channel with a deep history. Just because OOH advertising has been around for hundreds of years doesn’t mean we need to stick to old media buying approaches – much like the OOH landscape buying methods are also in need of an update. Until more recently, the strategy for buying OOH was exclusively based on location. It was simple: buy screens in high traffic or popular areas of interest that are the most likely to reach a target audience, leveraging data such as traffic patterns, commuter data, attendee, residential or commercial data to reach many people in a specific location.
With programmatic DOOH advertisers now have the ability to take a more precise, data-centric approach. One that shifts the focus from location to the audience itself. And who doesn’t like more options? There’s a choice, buy popular high-impact locations or buy screens that have a high propensity to reach the optimal audience for the brand, or both. For example, many programmatic DOOH platforms offer screen scoring based on target audiences, powered by first and third party data sources. Marketers can get audience concentration data visualized through heatmaps that can help create a more effective media plan. At the same time media owners can offer a lot more granularity, measurement and flexibility to help an advertiser increase the efficiency and accuracy of their strategy.
Here are some of the most important shifts for advertisers to take advantage of:
- Targeting: Shifting from location-based targeting to location + audience-based targeting. Examples include audience concentration, hour-by-hour screen scoring, combining proximity geofencing and custom audiences for better precision.
- Pricing models: Moving from buying screens and/or takeovers to buying based on CPMs, meaning less wastage and delivering ads only when they are impactful or targeted.
- Consolidation of tools: Full-suite, end-to-end platform to support planning, buying, targeting & delivery, in-flight optimization, real-time reporting, omni-channel retargeting + measurement all available in one platform.
- AI, data & intelligence: In addition to enhancements to targeting and delivery from buy-side platforms, modern ad serving has eliminated the need for “the loop” making ad serving more intelligent and agile – this benefits both advertisers and publishers alike.
What was once considered an awareness or brand medium now allows for much deeper performance-based outcomes than ever before
As the saying goes, the rising tide floats all boats. What was once considered an awareness or brand medium now allows for much deeper performance-based outcomes than ever before. This renews interest in OOH for advertisers that want more control and transparency and it brings in new opportunities for a wider selection of advertisers that couldn’t previously afford to buy a static placement – driving up demand for media owners.
This is exciting from both a creative and strategy perspective. Big, bold, spectacular, and experiential campaigns still exist and are beautiful and exciting, but they are no longer the only good options. Today and in the future, digital will bring more targeted, contextual and outcomes-based campaigns – while programmatic opens the door for more buyers and media owners to take advantage of these new opportunities.
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