Digital out of home or DOOH advertising is one of the fastest-growing forms of advertising available to advertisers today. With the latest digital signage solutions and programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) platforms offering new ways for advertisers to connect with their target audience at the right place and the right time, it’s easy to understand why.
Until the advent of pDOOH, marketing to specific audiences simply wasn’t possible when it came to outdoor advertising.
With traditional, print-based OOH media, out of home advertising simply comes down to putting up an advert – perhaps on a billboard, in a subway station, or on street furniture – crossing your fingers and hoping the right audience sees it.
However, with programmatic digital out of home advertising, you can reach your target audience on digital signage with your creative messaging at the granular level. And this is indeed one of the reasons why pDOOH is so highly valued by advertisers large and small all over the world.
The Rise of Programmatic DOOH Advertising
According to the Programmatic DOOH 2022: State of the Nation report, demand for programmatic digital Out of Home is on the rise, and further growth is expected. The report finds that in the last 18 months, 56% of ad campaigns included pDOOH – and 61% of campaigns are expected to include programmatic DOOH over the next 18 months.
Proportions of campaigns executives planned, bought or placed with programmatic DOOH
(Image source: viooh.com)
When asked what was driving the increased spend on programmatic Digital Out of Home advertising over the following 18 months, precision targeting was the joint top answer.
As one survey respondent puts it, “The big advantage of DOOH is the reach you can achieve, without adblockers or ad fraud. With DOOH we can reach advertising-averse target groups in public spaces. We can also reach drivers, who cannot be reached online or via mobile when they are driving. Its large format makes it an impactful form of advertising media, generating ‘big moments’ which is an important component in the customer journey.”
(Image source: viooh.com)
The Importance of Reaching Your Target Audience Segments with Digital Out of Home
Advertising isn’t free – no matter where you do it. It’s crucial, therefore, for brands to spend their advertising budgets wisely – that is, on campaigns that will generate a meaningful return on investment (ROI).
A recent report from Marketing Revolution entitled The Waste in Advertising: Stats and Solutions of Misattribution reveals that a huge 60% of online marketing spend is wasted, while 56% of ad impressions are never seen by consumers.
(Image source: marketingevolution.com)
According to the report, $37 billion is wasted in ad spend every year from ads that fail to engage the target audience.
As the report puts it: “Who is your customer, really? Where are they shopping and what exactly do they want? Incorrect assumptions about targeting, relevance and media can translate into ad dollars down the drain. Casting a wide net – one message to a broad audience – is never a good idea. If the message is going to the wrong target audience and/or the wrong location or medium, the ad will be ignored or worse yet, blocked.”
Taking the last point first – one of the greatest advantages of OOH advertising in general is that it can’t be blocked like some 42.7% of internet users do to online ads today.
(Image source: backlinko.com)
When it comes to reaching your target audience, programmatic DOOH is the most effective of all outdoor advertising methods. While in the past, marketers would buy traditional OOH advertising space based solely on geographic factors – such as within certain zip codes, along certain commuter routes, or around specific store locations – today’s powerful pDOOH technology enables advertisers to target audiences based on their movement, behaviors, and demographics, to name just a few.
How pDOOH Helps You Reach and Engage Your Target Audience
SMBs need to make sure their marketing budgets stretch as far as possible. As such, there’s very little room for speculative or experimental campaigns – which is precisely why having the ability to target audiences based on your market research is so important.
Programmatic digital Out of Home advertising allows you to choose the precise conditions under which your ads are displayed, as well the audience they’re displayed to.
Using a powerful pDOOH platform like The Neuron, you can set detailed parameters for your campaigns. These parameters then act as triggers which, when set off, determine when, where, and to whom your ad is displayed.
pDOOH triggers include, though are not limited to, the following:
- Audience demographic, movement, and behavior
- Location
- Weather and temperature data
- Time of day/day of week
- Traffic data
- Breaking news and sports results
All these data sets come from a variety of different sources and feed directly into the programmatic DOOH platform.
For example, anonymized mobile location data over time creates a clear picture of where various audiences spend their time throughout the day, and which DOOH media they pass. This means that you can quite literally not only pick your screen but your audience as well.
Combined with all other triggers, using powerful pDOOH platforms means you can customize your campaigns at the granular level to target the specific needs of your audience.
What’s more, programmatic DOOH advertising makes it easier than ever to measure the success of your campaigns. pDOOH platforms monitor your spend, the cost of impressions, screen playouts, and more, so you can optimize your campaigns in real-time to maximize ROI.
Start Targeting Your Key Audiences Today with The Neuron
If you want to get started with audience-based DOOH marketing, you need a platform that connects you directly to premium DOOH inventory.
You need The Neuron – a programmatic demand side platform (DSP) built specifically for SMBs that makes the DOOH buying process super simple. With single-click processes, an intuitive interface, powerful analytics, and our brand new and 100% free-to-use DOOH Design Studio, you can start reaching your target audiences across digital signage worldwide in minutes.
