Why Programmatic DOOH Can Be A Cost-Effective Solution In Times Of Tightening Budgets

Hivestack’s Managing Director, ANZ & SEA, Matt Bushby explains why, contrary to the belief that tech might add cost to your operations, investing in programmatic digital-out-of-home (DOOH) could be a blessing in a time of tightening budgets.

As brands worldwide continue to deliver against their 2023 goals, it is clear that the macroeconomic situation is not yet completely stable. Recent events such as the failure of Silicon Valley Bank coupled with rising inflation, mean marketers are faced with additional challenges as we continue to find our way back to a post-pandemic way of life.

However, marketers have been here before. During the pandemic, the advertising industry had to adapt to survive, and in doing so learnt many vital lessons. Marketers were forced to be more agile, seek out more effective ways to reach audiences, and continue to drive ROI.

As brands and audiences alike continue to grapple with the economy, marketers need to explore new ways to reach audiences. Programmatic DOOH is ideal for helping marketers tread this fine line, combining the attention-grabbing nature of traditional out-of-home (OOH) with a data-driven approach to buying that enables marketers to maximise the potential of their budgets.

Moving with the markets

In order to keep up with rapidly changing global and local economic changes, marketers need flexibility more than ever before. Traditionally, OOH and DOOH advertising was purchased weeks, if not months, in advance, but with significant advancements in advertising technology, we have seen remarkable efficiencies created in this process.

On a deeper level, programmatic DOOH provides unparalleled flexibility for both advertisers and media owners. The real-time auction-based activation combined with granular data and insights allows marketers to be flexible with their budgets and maximise outcomes, while media owners now have the ability to leverage screen-level data, measurement and reporting.

Programmatic DOOH can be purchased via either Private Marketplace (PMPs) or Open Exchange buys. PMP deals pair buyers and publishers with pre-arranged rates, budgets, and campaign parameters.

Open Exchange buys are facilitated in a more open, real-time bidding framework or auction. Marketers communicate their budgets and campaign parameters to their chosen Demand Side Platform (DSP), and inventory from an integrated Supply Side Platform (SSP) that aligns with their campaign objectives is bid on. Many of these data points are unique to programmatic DOOH, including audience demographic, behavioural data and location data, generated by a variety of data partners.

Once the campaign has launched, unique campaign insights through a consolidated dashboard provide marketers with valuable information about how their campaign is performing. This information can dictate the pace of their programmatic DOOH campaign, also allowing them to pivot budget away from underperforming screens or even pause their campaign altogether. Campaign creative can also be changed to reflect wider business goals. For example, sequential messaging or more personalised copy as the audience moves throughout their day.

With much of the heavy lifting in the buying process performed by these platforms, buyers can dedicate more time to further optimising their campaign strategy.

Finding your audience

A key strength of OOH has always been its ability to pair messaging with geographic locations in order to increase contextual relevance to audiences. Programmatic DOOH takes this a step further, harnessing its data-driven capabilities to turn the medium from one-to-many targeting to a one-to-select-many approach.

Using unique audience data marketers can ensure that messaging is activated when a threshold of a target audience is present in a location. Parameters for targeting can be set around audience concentration, geofenced areas, or proximity to a point of interest. These activations happen in-flight, creating maximum impact on audiences and ensuring budget is spent efficiently. Uniquely, activations can also be tied to environmental or event triggers, such as time of day, the weather, pollen counts, traffic density, or other specific real-world events.

Combined with the efficient and agile delivery of campaigns via programmatic DOOH, this targeting opens up numerous creative options for marketers. For example, a taxi service could target inventory in central business districts (CBDs) on days when public transport is either busy or delayed, while a sportswear manufacturer could target inventory near sports stadiums, updating creative to reflect the outcome of the event or even live scores.

Tracking success

With budgets stretched or under close watch, marketers in this current macroeconomic situation are under pressure to prove ROI on every decision they make. Historically, granular measurement of the impact of OOH and DOOH has been lacking. Programmatic DOOH offers marketers the ability to more effectively measure the impact of a campaign. There are myriad solutions that can provide insight to understand the shift in awareness, consideration, intent, and even in-store visitation, as well as conversion in response to their programmatic DOOH campaign.

This level of granular insight becomes of particular importance for marketers looking to bring programmatic DOOH into their omnichannel mix. The placement of DOOH inventory in all manner of public, real-world spaces means it can become a vital pathway connecting offline and online audience behaviour. For example, by examining audience data, marketers can analyse how many of their target audience have been exposed to a certain DOOH creative and therefore allow for better attribution throughout the sales funnel. It also allows for more precise retargeting across other channels within an omnichannel campaign, ensuring spend is not wasted on over or underexposing target audience segments to messaging.

What the future holds for local and global economies is unknown. However, it is likely that instability will continue to reign for the short term, and marketers need to be able to respond. Programmatic DOOH not only allows marketers to harness the high-impact power of OOH advertising but ensures they can be flexible and highly targeted with their spend. Alongside, the ability to maximise campaign impact in-flight, ultimately programmatic DOOH gives marketers the tools to fuel a greater ROI on their campaign.