Huge visibility, dynamic content, targeting a large audience…
No, we’re not talking about Meta or Google Ads. To see this, you need to look outside.
Digital out-of-home (DOOH), and especially billboards, are experiencing a surge in ad sales as digital transformation turns static billboards into interchangeable, dynamic ads.
And as tracking gets tougher and digital OOH inventory gets more accessible, we’ve partnered with a leading DOOH platform, Blindspot, to bring this young channel closer to you—advertisers.
But we’ll also debunk some myths you might hear about DOOH which you should know when to spot—especially when it comes to tracking. Ready?
🖱️📈 Clicking on each individual chart will take you to its interactive board.
Digital OOH ad revenue is rising—and will keep rising
DOOH is a young market.
But since it’s a natural evolution of traditional OOH, the channel is already standing strong.
In the US only, DOOH ad revenue rose from $3.2B in 2017 to $5.6B in 2023—a 70% increase in 6 years. And is expected to at least double by the end of this decade.
The picture is similar across the globe:
The US market currently amounts to a quarter of all DOOH spend, judging by the latest reports.
And might even take one third of the global market share by 2029.
What does this mean: DOOH’s healthy growth indicates that the channel is gaining traction and is probably working for most brands. But it is also showing that it’s a good time to test it yourself.
The projections show that DOOH placements—which can be quite limited compared to other digital placements—will be more expensive and harder to get in the future.
📈 The global ad spend will break the $1T threshold this year, with 75% of all spending coming from digital ads—including DOOH.
Digital OOH is replacing traditional OOH methods
The rise of DOOH is supported by the fact that OOH ad spend is slowly going digital.
As it stands, DOOH will gradually eat away a percentage of traditional OOH market share with each passing year—as the tech becomes widely available and accessible.
And advertisers and publishers all tend to agree:
Less than 9% of media owners are content with their traditional OOH inventory.
On the other hand, most media owners will digitize up to a quarter of their OOH share, which supports the fact that the transition will be gradual.
Likewise, a supporting report says that most of this digital transition will occur in the next 2 to 5 years:
Only 20% of planned digitization will happen in the next two years.
So despite the rise of DOOH in recent years—it is still early.
And there might be your opportunity to jump in. Especially before the going rates for DOOH get higher as more and more advertisers get familiar with the new channel.
OOH companies lock you in long-term and wont change the creative that often but most OOH ads get forgotten and ignored by locals after 2 weeks. Having dynamic creatives that can change per hour, or weather, or other factors can drastically improve performance.
Bogdan Patynski, Blindspot
Shoppers are highly likely to engage with digital OOH ads
One of the major benefits of digital billboards is their ability to engage shoppers.
Why? First off, you can place your ads in strategic locations, next to shops, or even schedule them to appear during major events or promotions.
Add to the fact that people are more engaged and attentive when outdoors and on the move then while aimlessly scrolling through their feeds—and you have your answer.
The stats back it up:
According to eMarketer, DOOH viewers are motivated to take action after seeing an ad— most of them (38%) would watch a video, or visit a restaurant (36%).
If you make your DOOH ads interactive, you can also reap more rewards. Check it out:
The figures above show that DOOH ads are more than just for the eyes. When done right, you can make these ads a powerful tool for driving both offline and online interactions.
Furthermore, hashtags and QR codes could demonstrate that DOOH is effectively bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds—acting as a gateway to the online buyer journey.
However, according to Blindspot’s Bogdan Patynski, most visits from digital OOH actually come from organic or direct search more so than QR code scans.
Overall, the sentiment towards digital OOH ads is generally positive:
The context of DOOH requires them to be entertaining and innovative—also making them memorable.
Likewise, digital billboards are relevant, as you can place them next to strategic locations and also swap them in real time depending on context.
Which takes us to the next section.
Digital billboards can be even more engaging. Here’s how…
Some DOOH providers like Blindpsot allow you to be more flexible when it comes to certain hours of the day, weather conditions, or anything else.
You can do this dynamically while setting up the campaign. Meaning that you can literally clone the campaign and swap creatives after a few days or a week. We have options to have dynamic creatives depending on time of day or weather. Or any other context.
Bogdan Patynski, Blindspot
We mentioned above that 38% would watch a DOOH video, or visit a brand website.
Well, it’s no coincidence that Fujifilm’s video ads placed in corporate and high-end residential buildings during specific times of day boosted Fufjifilm’s clicks, branded searches, and more.
Or remember us saying 36% of users would visit a restaurant after seeing a DOOH ad?
Now imagine you being able to target stomach-growling pedestrians at key lunchtime hours during workdays and lunch breaks only—both saving money and serving relevant ads?
That’s exactly what Blindspot did, for instance with Wokyo Noodle Bar billboards, growing the brand’s sales 54% at the midst of the pandemic.
The data aligns. Which is also a promising sign for this underused channel.
In the midst of GameStop/Robinhood short squeeze, Blindspot sold an hour-long programmatic campaign that just said “$GME goes brrrr.”
The billboard ended up on Reddit (almost half a million upvotes today), went viral on multiple platforms, and broke Blindspot’s website.
The campaign cost? $18.71 for ten plays between 12pm and 1pm.
Goes to show the power and engagingness of DOOH programmatic campaigns.
How do advertisers buy DOOH ads?
The entry margin for DOOH is low.
Advertisers can usually opt to either buy DOOH using agencies who are cooperating with digital OOH inventory—or from the owners themselves.
Going the agency route can provide both strategic guidance and logistical support. The downside is this support often comes at a significant price which can turn a positive campaign into an unprofitable one so you won’t know for sure what your ROI is on the channel when you test it.
Now when it comes to the type of advertising, there are two types:
Currently, direct buys are still outperforming programmatic buys.
Direct buy will lock your slot and guarantee you a placement which is beneficial if you’re a big brand or need a long-term campaign. So, similar to your regular static billboards.
On the other hand, programmatic relies on automatic scheduling depending on your parameters of choice—which gives you flexibility and allows you to swap creatives depending on the context.
While the digital transition is still in its early stages, it makes sense for advertisers to trust the good old, guaranteed direct buy. Despite possibly being more wasteful in the long run.
But as IAB points out, programmatic DOOH will grow from 5% in 2013 to 17% of total OOH spend—both digital and static—by 2027. And as advertisers get more familiar with the option.
🗑️Let’s talk about ad waste. Thousands of dollars disappear in thin air due to inefficient, overblown and expensive OOH campaigns. One of the reasons to be careful is that you might sign a long contract where a lot of time just goes to waste.
“Most OOH vendors rely on agencies to sell inventory and they will wildly inflate quotes to lock clients in for months. Nasdaq billboard through an agency will cost $50k+.
A DOOH dynamic, hyper-efficient campaign will cost around $6k. We had a client spend 300K with an agency when his needs came down to 2K on our platform,” says Bogdan Patynski from Blindspot.
How to measure and track billboard ads?
Here’s the truth…
You can’t. At least not the way you think or the way most agencies say.
There is no way to measure traffic data accurately, so selling billboards by cost-per-mille (CPM) might not be the metric you want.
Online, you can track impressions. Outdoors, not really.
Instead, what you want to do—when it comes to programmatic at least—is to think first about how to contextually serve your ad to the:t
- Best possible audience.
- At the best possible time.
- In the best possible place.
With programmatic ads, you can set your campaign to run multiple creatives and use triggers to change creatives more easily for a dynamic contextual ad with superior performance.
Then, using analytics to track changes to performance—as well as the impacts it has on your multi-channel marketing strategy is the best way to leverage DOOH metrics.
For instance, if Carrefour gets 51% more website visitors in the month of an active DOOH campaign compared to the previous month—it can’t be a coincidence.
There are a few ways to measure DOOH. But the simplest way is to correlate traffic with location and ideally with direct search or organic traffic, especially mobile—for the period the ads have aired.
Bogdan Patynski, Blindspot
Digital OOH is still underutilized
Finally, here’s why it’s your time to shine with DOOH.
As mentioned, advertisers are still unsure of the perks of the channel—especially programmatic. And even eMarketer puts the channel in the top 3 underutilized, driven by data.
Here’s why:
As you see the programmatic ad spend is growing —but will reach just $660M this year.
Which says that this is the slice of OOH pie that might be much cheaper today than it will be just a few years from now.
So if you want to conduct some tests—both A/B and regular—it might be the right time.
Combine this with the fact that the OOH industry had its piece of share removed when the pandemic started—falling from a peak 6.2% in 2018 to just 3.8% during 2022:
However, the industry bounced back quickly and is projected to hold steady in the ad market in the coming years.
🪧 Why might you want to consider DOOH this Q4? One of the major advertising challenges during Q4 these past few years are expensive ads and lack of accurate tracking.
In our recent Data Story, we recommended testing contextual advertising such as programmatic OOH as a cheaper, effective support.
Conquer the great outdoors
Finally, what do we now know about digital OOH?
It’s a rapidly growing, dynamic ad channel that can offer you real-time creative swaps, contextual targeting—and maximize your ads’ effectiveness.
Data shows that now could be a good time to test programmatic digital OOH ads as the tool is still gaining traction, allowing you to pay less now for yet underutilized, but impactful channel.
If you want to test thousands of digital billboards with contextual, programmatic OOH ads— reach out to Blindspot’s team and craft an effective strategy together.
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