The past few years have seen a huge increase in the volume and variation of digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising. In 2010, digital screens accounted for 6% of outdoor advertising; analysts predict this will rise to 10.35% by 2026, achieving a global market size of £27.6 billion. Considering the audience targeting, interactivity, and ad personalisation options offered by the medium, it’s no surprise that media publishers are increasingly looking to boost their portfolios with digital screen advertising technology.
However, for small- and mid-sized companies attempting to reach consumers via these DOOH channels, accessing the DOOH ad industry can seem intimidating (if not impossible). This is where a media purchasing firm like The Bank can help!
As an independent media buying agency, we have years of experience supplying traditional and digital outdoor advertising to businesses of all sizes. Through our comprehensive service, we’ll work with you to understand your specific requirements and objectives, before developing a targeted campaign that is guaranteed to reach your target audience.
Need more info? Take a look at our guide to all-thing DOOH, or give us a call to talk to one of our DOOH experts!
DOOH and Digital Outdoor Advertising: What Is It?
For the uninitiated, out-of-home advertising (OOH) refers to any advertising form that is experienced outside the home. Most conspicuously, this includes billboards, wall scapes, poster displays, and similar large-format ad media; however, the term also covers things like bus and public transport wraps, kiosks, telephone boxes—even litter bins can be used to carry OOH ads.
Digital out-of-home (DOOH) falls under the OOH umbrella and often utilises many of the same display methods. Billboards and poster panels are particularly common, allowing for the same reach as traditional advertising methods, but with the option to include dynamic images, videos, or interactive content.
Although it can’t be denied that digital display advertising offers significant opportunities for deploying more creative formats, perhaps the defining characteristic of DOOH is not what it does, but how it does it. DOOH advertising gives marketers unprecedented ability to refine their targeting methods, allowing them to specifically target customers who are most likely to yield a positive ROI. By employing programmatic marketing and mobile location data, advertisers can draw from the best online advertising techniques, taking them away from the web and bringing them into the OOH campaigns.
Digital Billboard and Digital Signage Options
- Digital Billboards: The digital billboard is an increasingly common sight on high streets and busy transit routes. Like their print-based counterparts, digital billboards provide a large blank canvas on which a business can display its message; unlike their traditional counterparts, a digital billboard can offer dynamic content and generate a significantly greater emotional response.
- Street Furniture: From bus shelters to information kiosks, ground-level digital displays combine heavy foot traffic with high dwell time, resulting in effective engagement and brand promotion.
- Mobile Billboards: The contemporary equivalent of the old-fashioned travelling billboard, mobile DOOH signage can be the perfect method for displaying your DOOH ads at a specific location or event. Furthermore, these mobile ads can often reach areas that contain no other advertising.
- Interior Displays: DOOH advertisers often choose to utilise interior DOOH displays, particularly when they want to target audiences in-store, or generate foot traffic from consumers outside. As a result, interior digital display advertising is most frequently found in shopping malls and retail display windows.
- Transit Advertising: From car-top screens to headrest displays, to petrol pump displays, and more – the digital ad options available for targetting travellers and road users is extensive.
Digital Out-of-Home Media Buying
As mentioned, for startups, small businesses, and those without much media buying experience, accessing the digital OOH industry can prove a difficult proposition.
Generally speaking, there are two methods for DOOH media buying:
Direct
Like most traditional OOH advertising, the majority of digital outdoor media displays are owned by large companies such as Clear Channel, Lamar, and Outdoor Media. These companies have the financial muscle to install and maintain these expensive DOOH screens, and the negotiating power to ensure their digital screens are installed in the best locations.
Direct DOOH media purchasing involves liaising with these companies to negotiate rates and terms. Advertisers are free to do this directly, though in most instances they will need to retain the services of a dedicated media buying agency.
As a client, your media buyer will:
- Work closely with you to establish your needs, expectations, and ad budget.
- Develop a strategy for your DOOH campaigns, encompassing location, audience engagement, ad content, campaign length, and all related details.
- Liaise directly with media publishers, relying on their industry contacts and increased buying power to negotiate a cost-effective deal for your DOOH ad campaign.
- Establish pricing models and terms of display, and follow up with publishers to make sure your ads are shown in line with the terms of the agreement.
Programmatic
Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) is a more automated method of buying digital ad media.
What Is It?
Traditionally used by PPC and web advertisers, programmatic marketing is a form of digital advertising that uses software to buy online ads in real-time. In the online space, programmatic platforms draw upon vast amounts of cookie data and mobile data, which they use to automatically sell and deliver ad space on websites, apps, and other digital platforms.
How Does This Work for Out-of-Home Advertising?
Programmatic DOOH advertising relies on similar platform-based selling and automation, but the metrics used are slightly different.
For instance, let’s say you’re a travel agent, who wants to advertise your latest summer holiday deals. You might choose to deploy a strategy that only shows ads to customers when it’s raining. In this case, you would set up these parameters, and rely on weather data collected by the programmatic platform to automatically bid on media space at the relevant times. When it starts raining, you will bid against other advertisers, and—if successful—your programmatic transactions will be processed, and your ads will be displayed.
Sounds Complicated!
Using programmatic systems to purchase advertising space can seem complicated at first. But with an effective campaign in place, it can be much quicker and more effective than taking the direct route.
Give us a call today for info on how we can help with your programmatic DOOH media campaign.
Digital Out-of-Home Pricing Models
DOOH offers a number of pricing models that are exclusive to the medium. Take a look below for a quick overview of the most popular methods.
Flat-Rate
The flat-rate model is the simplest type of DOOH advertising and the one which is most like traditional OOH advertising. For campaigns priced at a flat rate, an advertiser pays a fixed price against a certain period of time—simple!
While this type of deal offers little flexibility for advertisers, it is often necessary to apportion at least some of your ad spend to this pricing model. DOOH network owners will typically make most of their space available only to flat-rate buyers, with only a small portion reserved for programmatic buyers and alternative pricing models.
CPM (Cost-per-Thousand Impressions)
Similar to online media advertising, CPM in the DOOH space prices ad space based on the number of impressions it is expected to achieve. However, unlike online advertising, DOOH impression data is not easily gathered, and you may find your ad receive significantly more or less than the thousand for which you paid.
Footfall at train stations, for example, often varies wildly due to delays or cancellations. If there is a delay at the time your ad is due to be shown, there may be no passengers around to see it. Conversely, you could pay a low CPM rate for a time that is anticipated to be quiet, but if a delayed train arrives during this period your ad could be seen by significantly more passengers than you expected.
Share of Voice
Most DOOH platforms employ eight ‘slots’, with ads displayed in a loop, and each ad showing for 8–10 seconds. As a result, advertisers who choose to purchase one of these slots receive ⅛ SOV (share of voice) when all the inventory is sold. Advertisers wishing to grab a larger share can purchase multiple slots within the same loop, thereby gaining a larger SOV.
Rates will typically vary based on location or demand, but using this pricing model marketers can generally obtain a discount on what they purchase.
The Advantages of Digital Out-of-Home
Targeting
DOOH ads benefit from significantly greater options for targeting the right audience. Among other factors, a DOOH campaign can target demographics based on location, environment, weather and time-of-day data, all of which can be adjusted on the fly to reflect current conditions.
Additionally, with facial recognition and mobile device interaction, DOOH media can be used to assess interests and physical characteristics to modify displayed ads accordingly. Sound like the stuff of dystopian science fiction? That’s for you to decide…
Measurement
Sellers, buyers and vendors of digital out-of-home media benefit from mobile location data, making performance measurement an easier proposition than that of traditional OOH media.
As the industry progresses, tools for measurement are likely to improve significantly; the aforementioned facial recognition, for instance, could conceivably be used to see whether an individual looked at an ad, how long they looked at it, and even what their reaction was.
Engagement
DOOH advertising has been shown to provide significantly greater audience engagement than similar OOH media. Research carried out on digital advertising has shown a 55% improvement in recall rate when compared to other channels, while digital signs in shopping malls have encouraged a whopping 80% of shoppers to enter a store.
DOOH Advertising with The Bank
When it comes to selecting a media buying agency for your digital out-of-home ads, The Bank is all you need.
Strategy
The first step in any successful media campaign is to develop a strategy that’s based on your specific business goals. Our team of experienced strategists will work with you to understand your needs, target audience, and overall objectives before developing a bespoke plan for your DOOH campaign.
Power in Numbers
As a client of The Bank, you receive from our firm’s enhanced purchasing power, allowing you to purchase advertising spots for a fraction of the price you would if you purchased them directly. Our industry connections will get your ads on more screens, in better locations, for a fraction of the price you’d pay dealing with publishers directly.
Creative
The Bank’s in-house team and nationwide network of experienced creatives will help you develop eye-catching, attention-grabbing ad media that is on-brand and guaranteed to get you noticed.
Reporting and Analytics
As your DOOH campaign progresses, our team will provide you with detailed reports and analyses, allowing you to see how your ads are performing in real-time. At the same time, we will examine this data to optimise the campaign as it runs, ensuring that we delivering the best possible results.
What Are You Waiting For?
Give The Bank a call today. We can’t wait to get to work!
