Out-of-home advertising was once solely the domain of traditional advertising, but thanks to the rise of programmatic Digital Out-of-Home, that’s no longer the case. With the right partner (like GroundTruth) digital marketers are now able to bring their brands and ads to the real world programmatically with a fully automated buying process. Just upload the creative, pick the area you want to target, and boom: you’ve taken your brand to the great outdoors.
Though a programmatic approach makes launching DOOH every bit as simple as any other digital campaign, it still remains less common than traditional DOOH buying. According to eMarketer, programmatic DOOH represents just 33% of total DOOH spend. But it’s growing fast: in 2023, programmatic DOOH only represented 22% of total DOOH spend. That’s a 50% increase in share over just three years.
There’s clearly a reason that programmatic DOOH is growing as quickly as it is, so let’s look at the biggest differences between programmatic DOOH and traditional DOOH.
Ease of Use
For digital marketing, the simplicity of programmatic DOOH just can’t be beat. All you have to do is choose a target location, select your placement, and launch. It can literally take minutes. Traditional DOOH has much more in common with old-school, physical OOH when it comes to ease of use, as purchasing requires individual, long-term agreements made directly with publishers. That means every time you want to launch a new ad in a key area, you need to work with publishers to select placements, often choosing from a list of addresses rather than on a map. Compared to programmatic DOOH, which allows you to choose placements on a map and simply click launch, the ease-of-use answer is obvious.
Customizeability
On paper, traditional DOOH might seem like it might have an edge over programmatic DOOH. After all, traditional DOOH allows advertisers to purchase highly specific placements according to their exact needs, while programmatic DOOH automates the purchasing to get you what is typically the best deal, sometimes at the expense of exact timing and placements.
While traditional DOOH may allow more tailored deals on ad placements, think about scale. A single placement is easy, but what if you want to target a key area with multiple placements? With traditional DOOH, that might mean multiple deals, and if you’re not seeing the return you expect? Too bad, because you’re locked in for the terms of your agreement. With programmatic DOOH, you can choose your locations, change location targeting as needed, change your creative, and switch the timing of your ads, all from your dashboard. Instead of getting stuck with the specific terms of a traditional DOOH agreement, programmatic allows you to iterate, improve, and scale.
A note: GroundTruth Digital Out-of-Home takes customizability a step further than most programmatic DOOH providers, enabling you to target by location (city, state, county, DMA, zip code, or even a 10ft.-minimum radius around specified points of interest) and venue type (airports, malls, sports arenas, movie theater lobbies, bus shelters, etc.), and allows you to select your preferred creative format (ad size, static image, muted video, video with audio).
Cost
Unlike customizability and ease of use, cost isn’t exactly an apples to apples comparison between traditional and programmatic DOOH. With traditional DOOH, you typically pay an agreed upon amount, and you’re stuck with it for better or worse. Programmatic DOOH is priced similarly to any other programmatic advertising, with bids being placed based on demand and targeting specificity.
That doesn’t mean that programmatic DOOH pricing lacks clear visibility, though. GroundTruth provides CPM estimates based on average costs, which you can view on our Rate Card here.
The answer to which one costs more: unfortunately, it just depends. In some cases traditional may offer a better deal, while in others programmatic will be the superior option. The primary difference between the two is that programmatic DOOH is much faster, easier, and more flexible.
The Case for Programmatic DOOH
Programmatic DOOH may be growing incredibly quickly, but as a percentage of total programmatic spend, it remains a relatively small player. Per eMarketer, programmatic DOOH spend will be just $1.23 billion this year, totaling less than 1% of programmatic display ad spending in the US. Low spend equals massive opportunity for brands to grab their share and considering the outsized impact DOOH ads have on driving brand loyalty and in-store visits, it’s an opportunity marketers shouldn’t ignore.
Ready to launch your own DOOH campaign? Create your GroundTruth Ads Manager account today, and start exploring our platform (no minimum spend required). And, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.
