Australian agencies are increasingly using programmatic digital out of home advertising, moving from experimentation to regular consideration in campaign planning according to the IAB Attitudes to Programmatic Digital-Out-of-Home report released today. A similar trend is occurring in Europe, with agencies there identifying pDOOH as the top programmatic growth area for 2025.
While agency understanding of pDOOH was found to have increased since last year, 36 per cent of agencies believe that both a general lack of understanding and specific lack of understanding of the cost versus benefit are preventing pDOOH from gaining a larger share of ad volume and investment. To address this issue and support the developing market, the IAB Australia DOOH Council has also released an updated Programmatic DOOH Buyers Guide to provide practical tools for buyers, sellers and tech partners.
“It’s encouraging to see continued growth in programmatic DOOH investment, combining the strengths of digital advertising with the impact of out-of-home,” commented Gai Le Roy, CEO of IAB Australia.
“However, as investment builds, agencies and brands are increasingly seeking more guidance on performance and effectiveness, as well as the role of technology and data. The updated IAB Australia Programmatic DOOH Buyers’ Guide has been developed to support this need.”
Agency use of pDOOH for top and mid funnel campaign objectives increased slightly from 2024 with 83 per cent of respondents seeking to increase brand awareness in 2025, while 57 per cent used it to build brand impact and 40 per cent to inform or educate. By contrast, the number of agencies using pDOOH for sales or conversions dropped from 37 per cent in 2024 to 28 per cent in 2025, and its use to drive purchase action or intent decreased from 55 per cent to 50 per cent.
The Report found that 81 per cent of agencies now plan OOH, DOOH and pDOOH advertising within the same team, and 68 per cent frequently or sometimes align pDOOH buys with digital video activity. Geo-location targeting, flexible buying options and the data and targeting capabilities were identified as the major drivers of pDOOH.
Additional findings:
- While campaign audience and volume remain the top tools for assessing the effectiveness of pDOOH campaigns, the use of Market Mix Modelling jumped from 32 per cent in 2024 to 51 per cent in 2025 as marketers seek to put their pDOOH investment performance in context with the rest of their media investments.
- Just over two out of five (42 per cent) agencies are exploring DOOH AI use cases for identifying and segmenting audiences. This rate of AI use case exploration is lower when compared to broader media campaign lifecycle AI use case testing. (according to the recently released IAB Data State of Nation).
- Nearly 64 per cent of agencies think DOOH advertising opportunities will be impacted by future Australian privacy legislation reforms.
- Sustainability is not seen as a barrier to investment in pDOOH with 45 per cent of Australian agencies having at least some strategic focus on reducing carbon emissions in programmatic investment. This is however much lower than European agencies at 83 per cent.
The IAB Attitudes to Programmatic Digital Out of Home Advertising Industry Report surveyed 116 advertising agencies in Australia with the aim of understanding the state of play for programmatic and all digital out of home media trading in Australia.
Conducted in July and August 2025, the study explores the needs of buyers as well as the opportunities for growth. The report will be used by the IAB DOOH Council to prioritise the development of industry standards, resources and education.
Similar surveys were conducted in 2021, 2022 and 2024.
