Make the Most of Limited Holiday Budgets With Out-of-Home Advertising

It may be fall but advertisers are already in a mad dash to reach consumers for the upcoming holiday season. Unfortunately, inflation and supply chain issues have thrown shopper behavior and budgets into unpredictable territory. Furthermore, advertisers face high costs and big shifts in the effectiveness of broadcast and digital advertising mediums.

Out-of-home (OOH) advertising is revealing itself as the hottest advertising medium this holiday season. Why? OOH performs on par with digital and broadcast formats, but with lower cost per thousand impressions (CPMs). Another bonus? OOH actually boosts the performance of digital and broadcast campaigns, delivering a halo effect without putting a big dent in advertising budgets. Here’s why advertisers with limited budgets can capture holiday sales with OOH:

No. 1: Out-of-Home Advertising is Extremely Budget Friendly

Research shows OOH is one of the ad world’s most cost-effective mediums. In fact, to reach 1,000 people with primetime broadcast, it will cost advertisers an average CPM of $36, data from Solomon Partners shows. In bulletin, poster and transit shelter form, the average CPM for OOH lands between $2.18 and $3.65. Even digital out-of-home (DOOH) averaged about $7.50 per thousand impressions — still a far cry from non-primetime broadcast television ads with an estimated CPM of $20. Only online banner ads and radio come anywhere close.

With a vast catalog of media formats (e.g., billboards, rideshare and taxi toppers, transit wraps, street furniture, and more), OOH reaches consumers at an exceptional value. A recent survey from the Out of Home Advertising Association of America proves OOH delivers a similar or greater share of digital action than other mediums despite amassing just 4.1 percent of 2021’s total ad spend. Over 40 percent of consumers had their curiosities piqued after seeing an OOH and reported using a search engine — that’s 5.3 times the activity expected given OOH’s relative ad spend.

This level of affordable impact means brands and retailers can stretch their advertising dollars further and reach a greater audience across multiple high-value markets.

No. 2: Modern Technology Streamlines the Entire OOH Process

The process of researching, planning, buying and executing OOH was once convoluted and time consuming with little to no transparency. Technology has solved these challenges.

Today, brands and retailers are partnering with OOH online buying platforms that serve as one-stop shops for all their OOH advertising needs. From easy-to-use platforms, advertisers can source every type of OOH advertising format from hundreds of vendors across the globe. Some platforms even provide pricing index tools, powered by proprietary historical pricing data, that help ensure fair pricing, transparency across vendors, and price competition to provide the best deals with every campaign.

Technology also enables teams to make up for smaller headcounts by executing campaigns 10x faster. Here’s how: in pre-tech-backed platform days, a campaign with 10 vendors and 150 units could take up to 10 days to plan, buy and execute. By consolidating inventory and streamlining the request for proposal (RFP), contracting and execution processes, campaigns can now be launched in just hours.

And with online programmatic buying tools, advertisers gain the ability to purchase billboards in near real time with maximum flexibility. No more planning weeks in advance or committing advertising budgets with zero flexibility. OOH planning is now incredibly agile, meaning advertisers are able to influence the right audiences, in the right place with the right messaging, on budget.

No. 3: OOH Performance is on Par With Digital and Broadcast Counterparts

With modern technology, this high level of efficiency is carried throughout the entire lifespan of campaigns — from initial research through campaign measurement and optimization. And it’s all thanks to data. Data-backed OOH buying tools have elevated the OOH space, making buying and measuring campaigns as easy — and just as quantifiable — as digital and broadcast channels.

Advertisers can run high-level lift analysis to measure performance and identify a campaign’s impact on business outcomes compared to other channels in their media mix. Gleaning more insights, OOH advertisers can run an attribution analysis that tracks and isolates performance on the individual unit level, directly attributing online and offline conversions unit by unit. Metrics such as impressions, reach and frequency, and gross rating points tracking exposure in a specific geographic market give advertisers deep insights into campaign performance.

Today’s OOH measurement capabilities go beyond direct impacts as well. Advertisers can now measure the indirect outcomes of their campaigns (aka the halo effect) that boost the impact of other media campaigns when run in tandem.

Final Thoughts

There’s a lot riding on Holiday 2022, which is why many advertisers are already gearing up their campaigns. These lead-up-to-the-holiday-season campaigns aim to spike consumer interest and drive shoppers to websites, mobile apps and storefronts for holiday shopping reconnaissance and purchases ahead of the seasonal rush.

With the consumers starting their shopping earlier, brands and retailers can work OOH into the marketing mix to unwrap a low-cost, high-value format that will excite shoppers all season long.

Matthew O'Connor is the CEO and co-founder of AdQuick.com, the first platform to allow brands, agencies and individuals to complete the entire process of planning, buying, executing and measuring out-of-home (OOH) advertising campaigns anywhere in the U.S. and around the globe.