Beyond Billboards: Technology’s Impact on OOH Businesses

The advertising world comprises an ecosystem filled with various food chains that add value to the entire system. This ecosystem presents a vast array of advertisers, each bringing different advertising budgets and groundbreaking ideas poised to revolutionize the advertising landscape. Advertisers today have a multitude of options for media and platforms to choose from when promoting their products and services, depending on their specific needs, preferences, and financial capabilities.

Out-of-home (OOH) advertising, as the name suggests, stands as one of the oldest advertising mediums. Despite its enduring nature, it continues to evolve to stay relevant and meet the evolving needs of advertisers. Often perceived as the domain of big-budget players due to its larger-than-life presence and perceived sophistication, OOH advertising can be overlooked by smaller advertisers who tend to favour more budget-friendly digital media platforms. In these digital spaces, there’s a perceived sense of control over budget allocation and clearer returns on investment (ROI) to justify spending.

Bringing the advantages of digital media to OOH advertising dispels the illusion of exclusivity and opens up new marketing avenues for smaller advertisers and brands. Moreover, it assists buyers in justifying their ROIs through detailed reporting and data analysis. This transformation is precisely what the OOH industry has undergone. OOH advertising campaigns can now be booked and executed online, akin to digital campaigns. Furthermore, advancements in technology enable the measurement of campaign effectiveness, similar to digital metrics.

Measurement Capabilities in OOH Advertising

The OOH industry serves as an excellent medium for increasing brand awareness and, more recently, for driving conversions. It operates as a one-to-many medium, maximizing the number of eyes on advertising campaigns while leaving a lasting impression on viewers’ minds. According to the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA), OOH advertising boasts superior consumer ad recall compared to other media channels, fostering greater consumer engagement. However, advertisers often grapple with justifying their marketing efforts and expenditures when utilizing OOH media, as many believe there’s no viable method to measure the effectiveness of their outdoor campaigns.

To tackle this challenge, industry experts have devised methods to measure the performance of outdoor advertising campaigns, primarily through impression multipliers. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “impression multipliers,” you’re not alone.

In the realm of OOH advertising, impression multipliers serve as specialized statistics used to calculate the number of impressions generated during a single ad play on a digital out-of-home (DOOH) screen. Unlike online advertising, where each ad appearance typically reaches only one person, DOOH operates as a one-to-many medium, meaning numerous individuals may view a screen simultaneously. Consequently, each ad play must be counted as multiple impressions, necessitating the use of impression multipliers. These multipliers vary based on factors such as time of day, day of the week, and other specific elements unique to the OOH space, aiding marketers in estimating the reach of their ads more accurately.

How OOH Campaigns Are Measured?

To calculate the impression multiplier, data collection methods are employed to estimate the number of individuals near an ad at any given time. This data may be obtained through various means, including mobile phone signals, GPS data, camera sensors, event ticket sales, and other sources, to gauge the size of the audience proximate to the ad.

The impression multiplier isn’t a uniform formula utilized by all publishers. Instead, it’s implemented on a screen-by-screen basis, converting each play into the number of impressions it represents. Consequently, 1000 plays may not always equate to 1000 impressions, as the number of impressions generated by a play can vary depending on factors like time of day, day of the week, and other elements specific to the OOH environment.

In practice, the impression multiplier is crucial for ensuring fair pricing for advertisers and accurately measuring the reach of a particular inventory spot. By adjusting the impressions per play using the impression multiplier, media owners can avoid under- or overpricing inventory, providing a more realistic depiction of audience delivery and pricing.

Utilizing Impression Multipliers

Impression multipliers play a critical role in enabling OOH media owners to furnish precise data on audience reach, establish credibility with advertisers, and refine their advertising strategy. By embracing this technology, media owners can enhance their offerings, cultivate client relationships, and ultimately drive sales growth within the outdoor advertising market.

The mechanics of deploying impression multipliers within an OOH media firm involve leveraging data sources and algorithms to accurately predict the number of impressions generated by a single ad play on a DOOH screen. Here’s a breakdown of the primary steps and considerations:

1. Data Sources: OOH media owners must carefully assess the sources of location data utilized by the impression multiplier, ensuring accuracy and diversity. This entails integrating various data streams such as population data, traffic patterns, mobile location data, and IoT sensor data to provide a comprehensive view of audience reach.
2. Customization Options: Flexibility in incorporating first-party and third-party data is paramount. This allows media owners to tailor their insights to meet the unique requirements of each OOH advertising campaign, ensuring alignment with the campaign’s specific goals and target audience.
3. Forecasting Capabilities: Effective impression multipliers should furnish comprehensive campaign forecasts and performance reports. This empowers media owners to make informed decisions, optimize their advertising strategy, and illustrate the potential impact of their advertising spaces to clients.
4. User-Friendly Reports: Considerations should be given to the ease of sharing and collaborating using insights from the impression multiplier. Online reporting and data export options should be user-friendly, enabling media owners to effectively communicate the value of their advertising spaces to clients and stakeholders.

Partnering with adtech solutions providers can offer advanced tools and technologies to enhance the implementation of impression multipliers. This facilitates access to sophisticated analytics, data integration capabilities, and industry expertise, streamlining the utilization of impression multipliers and enhancing the overall effectiveness of OOH advertising campaigns.

Self-Serve Advertising in the OOH Industry

The OOH industry has embraced self-serve advertising technology, particularly with the surge of digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic-induced acceleration of digital transformation prompted OOH media owners to explore self-serve advertising as a means to simplify sales and campaign execution processes, enabling advertisers to independently plan, book, and execute OOH advertising campaigns without human intervention.

Self-serve advertising in OOH media is revolutionizing the advertising landscape by making it more accessible and affordable for businesses of all sizes. Self-serve platforms have been introduced to allow individuals, advertisers, and agencies to easily book outdoor campaigns online, granting access to a diverse array of OOH media inventory. These platforms streamline the process, enabling users to add media to their cart, input payment details, upload digital assets, and swiftly obtain campaign approvals for a seamless advertising experience.

Looking ahead, the future of self-serve advertising appears promising, with the emergence of more platforms catering to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seeking cost-effective and efficient advertising solutions, and enabling OOH media owners to reach new advertisers. As brands continue to grapple with challenges in effectively proving ROI and understanding audience engagement with their ads, self-serve advertising offers a solution that addresses these obstacles among SMEs. The industry is poised to witness further growth in self-serve advertising across various media channels as technology continues to fuel innovation in the advertising sector.

Adopting Self-Serve Advertising in OOH

OOH media owners are increasingly embracing self-serve advertising platforms to streamline the process of selling ad space and enhance their OOH businesses. By offering self-serve advertising options, media owners empower advertisers to independently plan, book, and execute OOH advertising campaigns without human intervention. This shift towards self-serve advertising enables media owners to reach new customers, automate campaign bookings, and retain full control over pricing and packages.

The adoption of self-serve advertising adds significant value to OOH businesses in several ways:

1. Automated Campaign Bookings: Self-serve platforms enable advertisers to schedule campaigns and submit proposals directly to media owners, reducing manual intervention and streamlining the booking process.
2. Increased Reach: By offering self-serve options, media owners can attract direct brands interested in OOH advertising and clients from multiple markets looking to run cross-border campaigns, opening up new sales channels and revenue opportunities.
3. Full Control Over Pricing: Media owners can set their own prices and packages on self-serve platforms, allowing them to maintain control over their inventory and optimize revenue generation strategies.
4. 24/7 Sales Channel: Self-serve advertising portals serve as fully functional sales channels operating round the clock, providing advertisers with the convenience to engage with OOH inventory at any time.
5. Transparency and Efficiency: Self-serve platforms create transparency for both media owners and advertisers by offering clear pricing, inventory availability, and campaign management tools, enhancing trust and efficiency in the advertising process.

The integration of self-serve advertising technology into OOH businesses not only simplifies the booking process for advertisers but also expands the reach of media owners, increases revenue potential, and improves operational efficiency through automation and transparency.

Location Media Xchange (LMX): Empowering OOH Media Owners

LMX stands at the forefront of empowering Out-of-Home (OOH) media owners with cutting-edge solutions to elevate their advertising operations. With LMX as a partner, OOH media owners gain access to a comprehensive array of tools and technology designed to enhance inventory management, streamline operations, and drive sales growth. From impression-based campaigns to white-labelled self-serve portals embedded directly on their websites, LMX equips media owners with the tools needed to thrive in today’s competitive advertising environment.

With LMX by their side, OOH media owners can confidently navigate the evolving landscape of outdoor advertising and achieve remarkable revenue growth and market visibility.