The world of out-of-home (OOH) advertising is seeing a fundamental shift from location-first to audience-first targeting. Photos courtesy Broadsign
The increasing role of targeting and attribution advancements in digital out-of-home advertising
By Ryan Pogy
Digital-out-of-home (DOOH) advertising is rapidly evolving in Canada and abroad. Fueled by the increasing digitization of static out-of-home (OOH) inventory and programmatic advancements, this transformation is driving new advertiser interest in the channel, especially given the uncertain fate of the third-party cookie. All eyes are on OOH, and the industry is justifiably taking note. OOH ad tech developers, agencies, and brands are coming to the table with data innovations to improve DOOH campaign planning and measurement and put it on a level playing field with other digital channels.
The goal is to unlock more data-driven DOOH targeting and retargeting strategies and gain measurable insights into DOOH campaign performance. As the industry embarks on this journey, it is seeing a fundamental shift from location-first to audience-first targeting. Let’s look at what is possible today and where the industry is heading.
Targeting possibilities
In the last few years, DOOH campaigns have become much easier to activate using the same audience segments advertisers have harnessed for years, such as Nielsen data and audience types built on privacy-compliant mobile device data. Data aggregated from apps on mobile phones, for instance, can reveal a lot about consumers’ movement patterns.
Reading between the lines of those movements can reveal a lot about an audience. For example, parents who take their kids to a music studio or dance class likely value the arts, or millennials who frequent stadiums, arenas, and sports bars are probably sports fans. Combining these insights with mobile signals passing in front of screens can increase the odds of reaching the intended audience.
Beyond mobile data, there is a host of other real-time information at our fingertips today that ad tech developers working with third-party data providers are exploring. Real-time live sports and stock market data streams, information detailing concert, festival, and community event dates and times, and local weather conditions are all quickly being woven into DOOH and omnichannel campaign planning, introducing new innovative ways for DOOH demand-side platforms (DSPs) to target and retarget audiences as they move throughout the day.
Brand lift studies provide a tangible understanding of how much a campaign impacted brand perception or boosted consumer preference, purchase consideration, or ad recall.
For example, real-time access to interest rate data might cue a bank into the ideal timing for a mortgage campaign. The bank might then use data from a digital real estate platform to determine the areas where real estate listings are most concentrated and target the ads accordingly. If a snack brand wants to reach a pop star’s fanbase, it could use all the concert location and timing data available to map its ads along public transit paths and near hotels and restaurants close to each concert venue.
Historical data can also be used for DOOH targeting and retargeting. An audience profile, for instance, could be developed based on recent concert-goer data and then used to retarget those concert-goers across channels. Using point-of-interest (POI) data, advertisers can easily target an audience that has visited a concert venue. This kind of data makes it easier to target a campaign to people who have visited a specific location or type of venue before.
All these data applications to target and retarget audiences translate to smarter use of ad spend, which is mutually beneficial to OOH media owners and buyers. However, using data to target audiences on such a granular level still requires manual labour. Continued innovation on that front will be key to progress. This means it is more important than ever for ad brands and agencies to communicate their needs to DSP providers and have an open conversation about the data at their disposal and how they might employ it to take their DOOH campaigns to the next level.
Audience extension
OOH excels at top-of-funnel—a strategy to create awareness and attract leads. However, it is not a one-size-fits-all situation. Advertisers can use OOH to extend a message across other channels and vice versa. What might this look like? It could be as simple as leveraging QR codes with sequential messaging for deeper engagement or passing back exposed device IDs to the DSP and using them to retarget your audience across other channels or in near real-time for mobile retargeting during a DOOH campaign flight.
Using QR codes to engage and retarget audiences at the right time and place is a fairly common practice in DOOH today. You might recall seeing a QR code you can snap a picture of on an arena screen when the home team wins to claim a free burger or fries at a local fast-food chain. Once you have scanned the offer, it takes you to a landing page where you can save the coupon in your wallet. The following week, when you draw near a restaurant location, your phone wallet might natively send you a mobile reminder about the coupon. This is one of many examples of how location data can be used to retarget audiences.
Attributing campaign exposures to foot traffic helps showcase the power of location and campaign messaging to drive urgency.
In recent years, DOOH ad tech providers have been increasingly focused on gaining more mobile device exposure files while adhering to privacy regulations. This development has made it easier for media buyers to use consumer mobile advertising IDs to retarget consumers who have passed by DOOH ads sequentially across online and mobile channels.
In the aforementioned examples, DOOH is largely at the top-of-funnel, mainly because it is a medium that excels at mass awareness, yet the reverse is also true. Advertisers can use third-party data from other channels to target a specific audience with DOOH inventory in the locations they are most likely to frequent. If you are targeting concert-goers, you might start with mobile ads in the music apps they use and then augment those with DOOH ads based on geolocation data to extend the message to concert venues and the surrounding area or other locations music lovers are more likely to frequent.
OOH ad tech developers, agencies, and brands are coming to the table with data innovations to improve DOOH campaign planning and measurement and put it on a level playing field with other digital channels.
Attribution analytics
Previously, DOOH campaign analytics focused on the specific locations a DOOH ad ran, estimated impressions, and the cost per mile (CPM), but with more data available today, this is changing. Technological advancements enable geospatial platforms to measure the impact of a campaign in driving foot traffic into physical retail locations where the advertised product or service is offered. Attributing campaign exposures to foot traffic helps showcase the power of location and campaign messaging to drive urgency.
At the same time, web and app lift also provide insights into how a DOOH ad call to action (CTA) might have inspired in-store visits, online store visits, and/or opening an app or tracking app downloads. Location-based signals enable a wealth of insights, including the DOOH venue types that drive the highest volume of online activity versus the most efficient conversion rates, and the campaign messages that resonate with audiences physically and digitally. Unlocking this kind of quantitative information is helping advertisers spend more confidently as they can make more informed decisions with their budgets.
Collaboration between advertisers and OOH tech vendors on data-driven ads benefits media owners, advertisers, and consumers by making DOOH more relevant and timely.
A cornerstone of understanding the impact of campaign performance is the ability to leverage mobile surveys among audiences with an opportunity to see the campaign to offer visibility into creative performance. Brand lift studies have become common and provide a tangible understanding of how much a campaign impacted brand perception or boosted consumer preference, purchase consideration, or ad recall.
When leveraging data with DOOH, whether to target, retarget, or measure a campaign, new possibilities are emerging regularly. The more advertisers work hand-in-hand with OOH technology vendors to experiment and use available data triggers and integrations, the more opportunity there is for the medium to grow. As it does, it is not only OOH media owners, advertisers, and technology developers who win. Consumers do, too, as the DOOH ads they see will come across as timely and more relevant.
Ryan Pogy is director of data partnerships, Broadsign.
