Why Programmatic DOOH is more effective than DOOH for buyers

Below, we explore why buyers are starting to turn away from traditional purchasing processes and towards the automation and data-rich insights pDOOH offers.

Starting with a simple – but important – consideration. Traditional media buying processes are time-consuming and expensive. Non-programmatic ad buying involves a significant amount of negotiation, often via OOH advertising agencies and other third parties.

This has made it inaccessible to smaller organisations with limited budget and fewer employees to shoulder the time burden. 

Programmatic DOOH automates the buying and selling of public digital advertising. In doing so, it opens up the playing field to organisations for whom large outdoor ads were previously out of reach. Buyers search for the inventory and conditions they want to bid on via an automated digital platform. Buyers and sellers can then interact directly and campaigns can be launched at the click of a button. 

For busy media buyers and marketing teams, this means less time spent negotiating via email and more time dedicated to value-added, strategic work on campaigns. 

What if you only paid for ads when you knew they would reach your target audience? 

Programmatic DOOH makes this happen. 

Unlike traditional DOOH buying processes, which centre around buying fixed slots on inventory, pDOOH lets you specify key conditions such as impressions and CPM (Cost Per Thousand) that you want your ad displayed under. Your creative only goes live – and you only pay – when these conditions are met. 

As a result, you’re much more likely to hit your target demographics when they are out in public and open to absorbing your messaging. This raises the potential for return on your ad investment significantly. 

There are a number of conditions you can set that go far beyond immediate considerations such as footfall data, time of day, or proximity to your store. 

For example, the Campbell Soup Company bought outdoor digital signage to be displayed only when the temperature dipped below a certain level. 

Similarly, Flonase nasal spray based their programmatic conditions on pollen count, so that ads only displayed when the demand for hay fever relief was high. 

As a one-to-many medium, traditional DOOH has limited options for tracking the success of a particular campaign. You might be able to get an idea of footfall vs impressions vs return on your investment – but without direct access to ad buying platforms, data is hard to come by and not provided in real time.  

In an increasingly data-obsessed profession, this proves a stumbling block for many. 

Marketers and media buyers want to be able to track and analyse ad performance to optimise their campaign around key goals. Programmatic DOOH platforms are an effective solution here, as they offer users advanced behavioural analysis tools in real time at an increasingly granular level. 

Using a pDOOH platform, buyers can access and react to this information in real time, optimising their campaign immediately. This is pretty much impossible to do if you’re buying traditional ad space.

The advantages of programmatic DOOH over traditional buying revolve are time efficiency, flexibility, targeting potential and real-time analytics – but you need the right technology to realise these. 

At The Neuron, we automate the buying process, facilitate direct connection with media owners and provide ahead-of-the-curve behavioural analytics tools to help you get the most out of your DOOH campaigns. 

Looking for a transparent, easy-to-use pDOOH platform? Get in touch today to explore the possibilities The Neuron offers.  

This ease of purchase also opens up digital out-of-home networks to smaller businesses that would not usually have the resources to purchase digital out-of-home media.