If you’re considering programmatic DOOH for your next campaign, here are three key questions to answer before you begin:
Who do you want to reach?
Of all the things you need to ask before starting a programmatic DOOH campaign, this is by far the most important. For some campaigns, this will start with first-party data, leveraging a similar strategy to REI. Other campaigns may want to target people exhibiting certain behaviors, such as people who visit coffee shops more than three times per week or individuals who frequent competitors’ retail locations. Where people go says a lot about who they are and what they care about, so you can get creative with how you use location signals to define audiences.
Do you have the right creative?
This may sound obvious, but compelling creative is especially important when designing a digital out-of-home message. Unlike display ads that remain on the side of a browser as someone scrolls, or a pop-up that appears on a web page, individuals are moving through an environment when they are viewing a DOOH ad. The creative needs to be just as dynamic. Bold, splashy images and minimal text have proven to be the most effective.
How will you measure the impact of your campaign?
Historically, the out-of-home industry has struggled to concretely show the impact of campaigns using the KPIs brands care about the most. The rise of mobile location data has opened up new measurement opportunities, and brands today should expect their DOOH partners to report on ROI. Whether you care about upper- or lower-funnel metrics, you should be able to get a clear view of your campaign’s impact through brand lift, foot traffic, or sales lift studies. Understanding how DOOH affects things like awareness, consideration, store visitation, and sales should help inform future media planning and provide deeper insights about your audience.
Answering the above will help the programmatic DOOH space grow as a measurable destination of the customer journey.
The out-of-home industry has clearly come a long way. Whether utilizing first-party data or data from other sources, location-driven DOOH provides marketers with the opportunity to connect with consumers at key points in their day, while programmatic technology streamlines the process from start to finish.
