Programmatic DOOH grows as advertisers move budget from other channels

Nearly one-third (29%) of UK ad campaigns over the past 18 months have utilised programmatic digital OOH (DOOH), tied with the US and France for the highest rate of adoption for programmatic DOOH globally.

That is according to a new study by global DOOH marketplace Viooh, which predicts programmatic DOOH adoption will reach 36% within the next 18 months.

The study found that a quarter (24%) of advertisers surveyed said they would be allocating more budget to programmatic DOOH this year — a nine percentage point increase from a year earlier.

Much of the budget is coming from other digital channels, according to Helen Miall, Viooh’s chief marketing officer. She told The Media Leader that DOOH’s growth of programmatic capability is attractive to advertisers that are now “able to plan, buy, execute and optimise their OOH alongside all their other media channels”.

Miall added that “the ability to use the same dataset across all your media channels”, such as through using a demand-side platform (DSP), offers advertisers “a more holistic view” of consumers interacting with ads across multiple media channels.

Programmatic-only buys surge

Notably, the number of programmatic-only buys has increased substantially in the past year, from 29% of DOOH campaigns to 47%.

DOOH campaigns have historically been more typically bought using a combination of programmatic and direct buys. The increase in programmatic-only campaigns indicates a growing preference for a more automated approach.

According to Miall, the growth in programmatic DOOH interest has been driven by post-pandemic changes to media-booking standards, which have leaned increasingly in to programmatic.

“Advertisers are seeking that increased flexibility,” she told The Media Leader. “They are used to programmatic in other media channels [where they have] the ability to stop, start and pause campaigns or optimise.

“Once they had a taste for programmatic that they had seen in other channels for many years, they really did not want to go back to the more traditional, long-term upfront bookings.”

The study found that programmatic DOOH was most typically bought alongside social media for both brand-led (83%) and performance-led (83%) campaigns.

A common strategy among advertisers, according to Adam Orridge, Viooh’s senior insights and measurement manager, is to use programmatic DOOH to “prime” consumers and retarget them on other channels.

Orridge told The Media Leader that, while people often view OOH as a top-of-the-funnel medium, there is now “a real balance amongst those surveyed in terms of preference for utilising programmatic DOOH, in terms of both brands and performance objectives”.

He added that programmatic DOOH enables the use of dynamic creative optimisation in OOH — something that currently has a low adoption rate but has attracted a lot of interest from marketers.

DSPs poised to benefit

As demand for programmatic DOOH has grown, both OOH specialist agencies and DSPs have been used in greater numbers by marketers.

OOH specialist agencies are now used by 78% of marketers surveyed by Viooh — a 27 percentage point increase from last year.

Meanwhile, 43% of marketers now use DSPs for programmatic OOH buying — a 30 percentage point increase from a year ago.

Measurement challenge

Despite the expected continued growth in programmatic DOOH, challenges remain. Namely, “nailing the measurement piece” is key to the channel’s future success, according to Miall.

She noted that current measurement standards in programmatic advertising rely on things like last-click attribution or other lower-funnel metrics, and this is distinct from how OOH can be measured.

As Miall explained: “Digital advertisers are used to having a click [to measure] — and you don’t have a click on a big screen.”