Programmatic digital out-of-home: What do media planners and marketers need to know about it?

Digital out-of-home combines reach with regional booking opportunities, while offering maximum flexibility in terms of targeting, response time, and lead times. In recent years, the media genre has become a true reach medium with the potential to address a broad audience on a national and regional level. According to the latest study results from IDOOH, 81% of the population (target group 14+) is reached within one week with digital outdoor advertising (source: IDOOH). In younger target groups, the values are even more impressive.

From a media planner's point of view, if you want to exploit the full potential of the genre, there is no getting around a programmatic campaign set-up.

In this guest article by Claudia Zayer, Managing Director DOOH at Goldbach Germany, you can find out which five key points are important here and why every media planner should master the basics.

1. Ad blockers? - Not with us!

DOOH is "immune" to ad blockers. The spots are always visible and can neither be zapped away nor - clicked. Nevertheless, the advertising is mostly perceived as sympathetic and not disturbing.

2. What you see is what you get!

Analogous to online advertising, DOOH can also be booked via open auction. Some of the providers now even meet 100% Open RTB standards. However, the buyer does not need to be afraid of bidding on bad placements. DOOH screens are always located at highly frequented positions and it makes absolute sense to buy a part of the planned campaign reach based on auctions. It is very possible that advertising spaces at premium locations were not sold in the best time slots and thus one still gets the contract at the last second (keyword: in real time).

3. Watering can principle vs. intelligent targeting

Advertising must be effective, because in the end it is always about campaign success, regardless of whether the goal is maximum reach, increased sales or brand awareness. The greatest impact is always achieved when the message is relevant to the person it is shown to. The target group must feel addressed and picked up.

Advertisers do not achieve relevance by randomly putting spots on air, freely following the motto: "A lot helps a lot and someone of my potential customers will already see it". This can certainly work, but hardly any advertiser can or wants to afford to "communicate past" their target group. So it's a matter of finding the balance between national reach and target group-specific targeting. If it is known how and where the desired target group moves during the day, the budget can be used most efficiently. Using movement data and contextual targeting, advertisers can act very nicely here with a programmatic planning approach and actively optimize their campaign over the entire runtime.

4. Digital Street Art for All

DOOH - like any media genre - requires a certain amount of creativity to attract attention. By using DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimization), a wide variety of motif components can be linked to numerous data triggers in a wonderful way. This makes it possible to playfully embellish public spaces with one's own brand and even make the odd passer-by smile. So there is no longer any reason to implement a campaign over its entire duration and across all locations with just one motif.

5. It could hardly be more efficient

The above-mentioned tools allow the media planner to determine where and when the spots should run and what CPM the customer is willing to pay to address his individual target group. This works best if the movement patterns and interests of the target group are known as precisely as possible: The technically smallest unit that can be booked is an insertion on a screen. This means that advertisers can also dynamically optimize national campaigns on a regional level and increase or reduce the advertising pressure at any time. A wide variety of products can be advertised in a campaign, depending on the external conditions, time of day and individual KPIs.

If all technical possibilities are exhausted in media planning, then in the future we will no longer be talking about a location-based planning approach (mall / train station / gas station), but will have arrived in the world of audience planning: The spot follows the target group and is always on air exactly where they are.