3 Best Ways to Use programmatic DOOH to Engage Customers | The Neuron

Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) is fast-becoming one of the most reliable and effective digital marketing tactics for SMBs to engage target audiences outside the home with compelling and memorable advertising campaigns. In this post, we break down the key benefits of pDOOH, and reveal how you can use programmatic DOOH advertising to engage and close more customers.

Digital out-of-home has become one of the fastest-growing channels in advertising. The global DOOH market has reached $18.8 billion and is projected to grow to $58.7 billion by 2030 – an 11.6% compound annual growth rate – with programmatic buying the key accelerant: out-of-home spend keeps setting record highs, and the digital share grows more than 20% year over year as budgets move from static panels to screens.

DOOH ads are a fantastic medium for engaging customers while out and about. For one thing, the public trusts outdoor advertising – much more than they do online advertisements. In fact, according to figures cited in The Drum, 58% of consumers see display ads on OOH formats as more trustworthy and relevant than on any other platform. What’s more, according to The Drum’s own survey of over 35,000 respondents, consumers exposed to a brand’s out-of-home advertising are on average 10% more likely to state that they trust the brand the ad is associated with.

With trust levels already high, let’s consider three ways you can use programmatic DOOH to engage your target audience and drive action.

Audience engagement is ultimately the defining factor of a successful advertising campaign. Your goal is to encourage and inspire recipients of your advertising message to do something – be it visit a website, post on social media, take advantage of a promo code, or visit a physical store and make a purchase.

The beauty of programmatic DOOH is that you can increase your chances of inspiring engagement by adjusting your campaigns in response to real-world contexts, such as the weather and/or time of day.

Burger King provides a great example of how to use digital signage to drive action at mealtimes – tapping into pedestrians’ real-time needs and desires throughout the day.

In the morning, for example, digital screens would display an item from the restaurant’s breakfast menu beneath the message “Behold the Breakfast of Kings.”

(Image source: ibbonline.com)

In mid-afternoon, cold drinks, snacks and milkshakes were advertised, while at lunchtime, the message “Don’t Be Hangry” displayed beneath the precise time of day – reminding people it’s time to grab some lunch to power them through the afternoon. Brilliantly, the adverts also give a post code for the nearest restaurant, or simply tell consumers that an outlet is just a few meters away.

(Image source: thecloudandcompass.com)

The creative also changed depending on the weather – telling people they can “dry off” in-store when it’s raining, or “cool off” with a cold shake when it’s muggy. In all, the displays were optimized based on data inputs for weather, time of day, location, and distance to store – ensuring they were all contextually relevant to consumers.

Today, nearly everyone carries a smartphone with them wherever they go – presenting a fantastic opportunity for advertisers to use DOOH to encourage mobile interaction.

QR codes, promo codes, Snapchat codes, social media #hashtags, app downloads – there are endless opportunities to inspire people to take out their phones and start engaging with your brand online.

And it works – according to figures from MRI-Simmons and the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), advertisers that use DOOH ads alongside other marketing channels can boost audience reach between 92% and 100%, depending on the medium .

With programmatic DOOH, you can go one step further – using data to contextualize and optimize your messages in real-time to your audience’s real-world circumstances and surroundings. For example, the Australian and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) launched a campaign that encouraged commuters with time to kill to use it wisely. One ad, for instance, utilized bus timetable data to feature the dynamic headline: “The next bus is due in [X] minutes. Use that time to get on top of your money with the new ANZ app.”

(Image source: oma.org.au)

As PHD’s Jordan Smith, Group Business Director on ANZ, puts it: “This campaign aims to leverage a key time during the week where people are more receptive to financial information, helping them to ‘get on top of their money’ by downloading ANZ’s new app. We expect to see great results from this campaign.”

QR codes remain hugely popular amongst consumers and brands alike – and they’re a great way of driving engagement with your outdoor ad campaigns.

A consumer survey found that 45% of US shoppers had used a marketing-related QR code in the three months leading up to the survey . 18-29-year-olds (54%) were the most likely cohort to have used a code – though they were shown to be popular amongst all age groups, including a third (31%) of over-65s.

You can create QR codes for all sorts of purposes – to access a special discount customers can use online or at your store, to direct consumers to your website or social media channels, or to activate video ads on users’ mobile devices – all of which drive engagement from your DOOH campaigns.

QR codes are simple to embed into your creatives – and when using a pDOOH platform, you can make use of powerful real-time data to make sure those creatives are displaying to the right audience in the right place at the right time, to generate the most engagement possible.

(Image source: google.com)