In recent years, outdoor digital advertising has seen an upward growth. Digital Out-of-Home talks about outdoor environments, digital screens and impacts to the audience outside their homes. 

Find out what exactly DOOH is, its main advertising formats and why you should include this type of campaign in your digital marketing strategy. We tell you all about it!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. What is Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising?
2. What is Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising?
3. Digital Out-of-Home advertising formats
4. Reasons why you should include DOOH in your marketing strategies
5. Final conclusions about Digital Out-of-Home
   

1. What is Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising?

Out-of-Home advertising, OOH or outdoor advertising are all those advertising media that are outside the home, traditional advertising. Basically, these are messages for consumers in public places, transportation points, routes, commercial spaces, etc.

Within Out-of-Home advertising we include billboards, signs, advertisements on street furniture or other specific locations such as stadiums or movie theaters.

However, as the world has gone digital, so has the outdoor advertising industry. This process gave rise to the digitization of outdoor advertising known as DOOH or Digital Out-Of-Home advertising.

2. What is Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising?

Digital Out-of-Home advertising is one of the fastest growing forms of advertising today. DOOH is basically traditional outdoor advertising powered with AdTech (geolocation, tracking, retargeting, personalization, attribution and measurement). 

This advertising format uses digital displays to get branded content to people through elevator screens, digital billboards or even TV screens.

There are different methods for media buying in DOOH advertising, in this article we will delve into programmatic buying.

This type of advertising is often related to programmatic advertising, combining both advertising models we manage to eliminate the obstacles faced by advertisers when planning and contracting Out-of-Home spaces with multiple suppliers individually.

Today, technology allows programmatic campaigns to be scheduled in near real time, as is the case with all other digital channels. Allowing advertisers to reach the right people in the right places at the right time through automation and data-driven decision making.

In programmatic DOOH advertising, it does not require human intervention during the buying process. Brands can auction their ads on a DSP (Demand Side Platform) and upon response from the SSP (Sell Side Platform) guarantee themselves ad space.

To better understand this process, we need to understand the technology that underpins programmatic advertising. Real Time Bidding (RTB) is based on bids and auctions in which advertisers compete with each other to show their ads to specific users. It refers to the online buying and selling of available advertising space through a real-time auction. It is called real time, since at the moment the exchange is made, it is reflected on the web page, showing the ad.

3. Digital Out-of-Home Advertising Formats

As we have told you, Digital Out-of-Home advertising is based on digital screens and depending on the location we choose, we can significantly enhance the presence of the brand. Within a city there are multiple locations to display a digital ad, but do you know what are the main formats?

Large format 

In this case we refer to all those screens seen by pedestrians and street traffic, from highway billboards to bus shelters.

Localized Marketing

We include in this format those screens that are located in relevant environments such as office buildings, shopping malls, gyms, universities and others. For campaigns with specific target audiences, advertisers can benefit from the attention and relevance of this type of screens.

Points of sale

There is not much difference with respect to the previous format. But we differentiate here those screens that are located at the specific point of sale within the stores where a brand's products are sold. For example, in shopping malls, department stores, pharmacies, among others.

4. Reasons why you should include DOOH in your marketing strategies

Innovation in the outdoor advertising industry has led to advances such as the combination of proprietary and third-party data, as well as innovative formats, which drive campaign success. DOOH advertising has become a very effective and powerful resource that should not be overlooked in your marketing strategies.

Programmatic advertising

Opting for programmatic DOOH advertising has several advantages that you can't afford to miss. 

First, the programmatic advertising platform will allow you to access all of Digital Out-of-Home's inventory from a single point of access. In fact, you can carry out the entire media buying and selling process from the platform. This factor simplifies the different tasks of launching a digital OOH campaign and will allow even small teams to carry out large actions. 

On the other hand, instead of measuring each medium of your campaign individually, by opting for programmatic DOOH advertising you will be able to evaluate the effect of your campaign holistically.

Segmentation options

Although the task of targeting an ad specifically to a precise audience, programmatic DOOH advertising offers the possibility of displaying campaign ads at the time when the target audience is most likely to see it, and this factor greatly increases advertising effectiveness.

In fact, with OOH campaigns, sellers and buyers relied solely on geographic factors (zip codes, streets, stores, etc.) to choose their locations. Today, with data-driven technology, brands can use consumer movement patterns to make more informed decisions when choosing their digital displays for DOOH. Today, to impact target audiences in the right place at the right time, there are several types of targeting: audience, geographic, proximity, day-of-day and mobile extensions.

Use of First-Party data

Part of the digital marketer's job is to find strategies that successfully use first-party data to reach the same audience across mobile, video, display and social media. These connections become more complicated when it comes to reaching OOH media. 

Technological advances in OOH technology and data management allow brands today to target audiences in the real world. Thus achieving the consumer journey throughout the entire buying process. In this way, and thanks to programmatic DOOH advertising, brands can also reach their audiences, on a large scale, in their natural environment while they are away from home and their devices.

Creative content generation

Being able to create engaging content is critical to attracting both customers and target audiences. Quality content results in personalized experiences while creating an impact on those who see it.

DOOH advertising allows brands to generate creative and innovative content. It also allows the use of high-impact creative that could not be replicated in other channels.

More accurate metrics and measurements

Technological advances in recent years have also allowed DOOH advertising to become one of the most advanced and measurable media. Just as in a Paid Media strategy, Digital Out-Of-Home campaigns can be measured with full-funnel metrics. 

DOOH advertising has the power to improve a brand's position in key funnel metrics. Using exposure-based methodologies, we can assess impact through brand studies, foot traffic studies, in-store and post-store visit studies, and upsell studies.

5. Final conclusions on Digital Out-of-Home

IAB Spain recently made public the DOOH 2023 Study where it unveiled the general perception of DOOH advertising in Spain. We review below, five conclusions we drew from the presentation.

1. DOOH advertising is more impactful and creative than other media (TV, radio, press and internet).
2. The environments associated with transportation, mobility and commercials are the ones that have the greatest notoriety and recall.
3. Creativity, promotions and discounts are the main drivers to interact with DOOH digital screens.
4. Mainly, DOOH advertising brings brands increased consideration of the product or service, and digital activation in the form of online searches.