Advertisers to divert spend to programmatic outdoor

UK advertisers are set to boost their spend on programmatic digital outdoor activity by almost a third in the next 18 months as they seek to automate the planning, buying, targeting, selling, delivering and measuring of ads across digital screens.

According to the State of the Nation 2023 Report by supply-side platform VIOOH, on average nearly a third (31%) of advertisers have included programmatic DOOH in their activity in the past year, with the average expected to increase to 39% in the next 18 months.

When it comes to where the budgets will come from, a third of advertisers (33%) are switching spend from other digital channels, 24% are moving it from traditional channels, and more than one in 10 (15%) are creating new budgets.

And, as the number of advertisers in the UK adopting programmatic rises, so does awareness of the advantages, including hyper-targeting (64%), increased brand awareness (64%), high quality viewability (59%), and generating ROI (57%).

Programmatic DOOH has become particularly popular with advertisers in retail, FMCG, and healthcare verticals, who this year cited the ability to use location (68%) and audience targeting (67%), and the ability to use dynamic creative (62%) as reasons to invest.

The majority (81%) of those surveyed feel that, alongside DOOH (83%), programmatic offers the most innovative opportunities compared to any other media channel, delivering highly targeted activations, the ability to buy placements in real-time, optimise campaigns in-flight and deliver dynamic and contextually relevant creative.

Over a third (38%) of UK advertisers usually or always purchase their DOOH campaigns through a mix of both direct buys and programmatic buys, followed by 30% who say they usually or always use programmatic buys only.

And, in terms of deployment, almost three quarters (71%) of UK advertisers consider programmatic important for brand-led campaigns, increasing for performance-based campaigns (81%), with the gap increasing year-on-year.

Meanwhile, seven out of ten (71%) plan to prioritise integrating programmatic more closely into multi-channel campaigns. The majority would buy display (79%) and digital video (72%) alongside programmatic in a performance-led activation, with a slightly fewer claiming to use display (77%) and social (73%) as a complement in a brand-based campaigns.

VIOOH chief executive Jean-Christophe Conti said: “This year’s report shows not only that advertising budgets continue to be reallocated for increased programmatic DOOH spend year-on-year, but the opportunities from highly targeted activations to trigger-based buying are giving advertisers a raft of flexible high-value tools which complement both brand and performance ad campaigns.

“With programmatic DOOH becoming more mature, media professionals are also increasingly integrating it into multi-channel strategies, often using it alongside social media and display advertising.”