Even with the growing influence of digital advertising, ooh advertising has been a reliable and useful way of reaching and engaging audiences. Around 97% of people will see an OOH ad each week in the UK, making it a powerful tool for advertisers. The latest OOH trends highlight the ways OOH is harnessing technology and the availability of data to evolve, allowing it to become more targeted, measurable, and impactful than ever before. So impactful, in fact, that Global OOH ad spend is estimated to reach 45 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2024.
In this article, we will explore the wide range of ways in which brands and advertisers are leveraging data in OOH advertising. We will delve into how businesses can use data to effectively drive results and discuss the challenges they may encounter along the way.
Utilizing Data in OOH Advertising
The success of any advertising strategy relies on meeting certain criteria. For an out-of-home (OOH) advertising campaign, it’s vital that advertisers have a detailed understanding of their target audience, and suitable advertising channels, in addition to knowledge and insight into the consumer behavior related to the promoted product or service.
The use of data can help provide valuable insights and intelligence that can help inform the above criteria, while also helping advertisers to identify the most suitable advertising channel for their campaigns. Capitalizing on data analysis to inform campaigns will help businesses increase their potential for success from OOH advertising methods, including billboard advertising, digital-out-of-home (DOOH), and other strategies such as wild posting.
Using a combination of detailed analytics and the right tools to harness this data, advertisers can optimize their OOH campaigns to ensure success. Using data-driven insights, businesses can tailor strategies, make better use of resources and achieve unprecedented results from outdoor advertising.
1. Audience Segmentation
Successful out-of-home advertising campaigns can be achieved through an informed understanding of the target audience and how they respond to OOH methods such as billboards or digital display screens.
Audience segmentation is a vital component of data-driven OOH advertising. Using data related to demographics, behaviors, and location, advertisers can tailor their campaigns and reach specific target audiences. This data provides advertisers with a way of segmenting groups to ensure messages reach the most relevant audiences, increasing opportunities for engagement and conversion and remedying some of the challenges of OOH advertising. Using data to segment audiences can help advertisers execute more effective campaigns, abandoning mass advertising to help deliver messaging and content that reaches relevant consumers.
Using analytics allows advertisers to gain insights that can help increase campaign effectiveness. From establishing the customers that generate the highest revenue to those who develop lasting relationships with your brand, it’s possible to create detailed audience profiles that can eliminate some of the guesswork from planning advertising campaigns.
2. Location Data
Location data has become an extremely valuable tool for advertisers, who can use data to establish information such as foot traffic, dwell times, commuting routes, and more to provide valuable mobility data insights and allow advertisers to plan their campaigns accordingly. This ensures target locations are selected strategically, based on audience interest and behaviors, allowing businesses to save money and ensure maximum engagement from their advertising campaigns.
Through insight-driven location data, businesses can make more responsible decisions around OOH advertising, allowing for maximum ROI, in addition to sustainability and other benefits.
3. Contextual targeting
The concept of contextual advertising generally refers to placing advertisements in media that are relevant to a user’s activities and location. Fashion magazines are an excellent example of this, advertising brands and products in the pages between articles. OOH and DOOH takes this a step further, allowing advertisements to be placed in environments that are relevant to the consumer’s interactions.
Using contextual targeting, advertisers can consider different scenarios that can alter their advertising. Changeable elements such as the weather, time of day, traffic, location, and others can create contextually relevant campaigns for consumers, helping to boost interest and awareness of your brand and ensure more positive outcomes for your campaigns.
4. Cross-Channel Integration
Data analysis can help facilitate cross-channel integration, allowing marketers to synchronize campaigns across different outlets, ensuring customers enjoy a unified experience regardless of whether they are exposed to OOH advertising, social media, or digital advertising.
Cross-channel integration can help customers develop familiarity and brand loyalty, helping them experience consistent messaging and imaging, and enhancing their experience. Advertisers are able to use data to effectively retarget consumers in the hope of securing conversions and increasing sales.
For marketers using ad management software to manage OOH campaigns, these insights can enhance centralized campaign management, allowing streamlined placements that will make marketers more efficient, while also enabling further insights to be gathered to help adjust existing campaigns or inform future activities.
5. Campaign Optimization & Improved ROI
Innovations in OOH and DOOH help provide significant opportunities for campaign optimization and ROI. Data makes it possible to get real-time impressions for digital billboards and more, allowing more detailed information around demographics that can help inform future campaign creatives and allow targeting based on location and behaviors.
With these insights, marketers can measure the effectiveness of OOH in similar ways to digital and social media campaigns. Understanding the most effective concepts and methods can help improve overall marketing performance, while also enhancing the customer experience and developing audience profiles that can change the shape of your campaigns.
Challenges and Considerations: Data Privacy and Compliance
One of the most significant challenges for advertisers is ensuring data privacy. While there are arguably a number of benefits to using data to improve OOH campaigns, advertisers must use this data respectfully and responsibly, in line with legislation. Strict data practices can help maintain trust with customers and maintain a level of transparency that will allow you to carry out data-informed OOH advertising campaigns while keeping your customers’ information secure.
The use of data to inform and shape OOH advertising campaigns helps advertisers work smarter, not harder. These insights can help advertisers create superior campaigns that not only provide better ROI, but provide a more valuable customer experience too. As technology continues to develop, we can expect even further innovations that will improve the way we use OOH to better connect with our audiences.
