In today’s advertising landscape, Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising continues to be a powerful method for capturing consumer attention. This form of advertising, which includes billboards, transit ads, digital screens in venues, and an increasing presence in retail spaces, engages audiences in their daily environments. As such, it remains a crucial component of comprehensive marketing strategies. Despite not being purely digital, the demand for more targeted and effective OOH campaigns is on the rise, leading to the growth of programmatic OOH (pDOOH).
Location intelligence has emerged as a key factor in enhancing OOH advertising efforts. By leveraging data-driven insights, marketers can now implement precise targeting, near real-time optimization, and ultimately achieve improved return on investment – the primary goal of any campaign. This approach allows brands to transcend traditional methods that relied solely on duration, share of voice, and location. Instead, they can now reach their intended audience at the most opportune time and place.
For publishers and media owners, it’s essential to collect the right data for their clients, utilize it to optimize each and every single campaign, and automate processes for their sales teams. By doing so, they can harness the full potential of location intelligence in modern OOH advertising, ensuring more effective and efficient campaigns.
In the following sections, we’ll delve deeper into the vital role that location intelligence plays in contemporary OOH advertising, providing valuable insights and practical tips for industry professionals.
Understanding location intelligence in OOH
Although the use of location intelligence is not new in Out-of-Home (OOH) as it has been exclusively used for big campaigns and selected projects. We believe that with the right platform, every campaign, regardless of size and budget should be able to leverage movement, audience, and contextual data. This approach provides advertisers with valuable geo-behavioral insights by analyzing consumer profiles in urban areas and enriching them based on their online activities. Such information enables more strategic ad placements, allowing advertisers to target not only high-traffic areas but also locations frequented by specific audience types, enabling retargetting capabilities in an omnichannel strategy.
Benefits of Location Intelligence in OOH
Refined Targeting: Advertisers can place ads in locations frequented by their ideal customers, creating more engaging campaigns.
Customized Messaging: Messages can be tailored to suit the preferences and behaviors of the target audience in specific locations.
Real-time Optimization: Campaigns can be adjusted swiftly to maximize impact, ensuring ongoing effectiveness.
Omnichannel Activation: Mobile Identifiers allow advertisers to retarget their audience after a potential exposure to their outdoor campaigns.
While location data is widely used in digital advertising to target individuals based on their position, its application in OOH advertising, particularly for media owners, differs significantly. Instead of targeting specific individuals, OOH advertising focuses on understanding the collective audience that passes by each location. This approach uses similar technology and data but aims to measure assets rather than track individuals.
To effectively utilize location intelligence in OOH advertising, a platform that organizes data for entire networks is essential. Such a platform ensures that the information is both accurate and actionable, allowing advertisers to make informed decisions and optimize their campaigns effectively. This is where we come in.
Key Data Sources for Location Intelligence in OOH Advertising
Location intelligence in Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising relies on three primary data sources: movement data, audience data, and contextual data. These sources, when combined, provide a comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior, enabling advertisers to create more targeted, effective, and contextually relevant OOH campaigns.
Movement Data
Movement data, derived from mobile location signals, reveals consumer movement patterns and daily journeys. For OOH media owners, this technology allows them to geofence their OOH locations and collect signals when mobile devices pass by. This ensures daily data collection for each location, enriching the audience profile over time and attaching audience data to every campaign.
Audience Data
Audience data offers detailed insights into consumer intent. By combining data with digital identifiers, precise audience segments can be created, allowing advertisers to tailor messaging based on demographics, interests, online behavior, brand affinities, and purchase intent. This precision ensures that ads are relevant and resonate with the intended audience, enabling brands to identify optimal locations for specific target groups, such as young parents interested in fitness.
Contextual Data
Contextual data refers to relevant information not directly related to the OOH network itself. This typically includes Points of Interest (POIs) that add valuable information for campaign planners and location selection. POIs can range from retail chains to tourist spots. By linking geo-spatial data to points of interest, census indicators in specific neighborhoods, and other factors, spatial data helps advertisers understand consumers’ surroundings at the real-time moment of ad impression.
It is crucial to ensure that all data used is 100% privacy-safe, collected with explicit user consent, and upholds consumer trust
Programmatic Integrations (Feeding Impressions into SSPs)
Gathering extensive data from your locations is only part of the equation. As a media owner, leveraging this information effectively is key. With verified CPMs backed by location intelligence, you can confidently assure advertisers that their campaigns are reaching the right audience rather than relying on guesswork.
Through API connectivity and built-in integrations, our platform enables seamless data transfer to SSP partners, allowing for real-time bidding adjustments. Additionally, our dashboard provides direct clients with a programmatic-like experience when planning campaigns within your network.
Overcoming Challenges
Despite its many advantages, incorporating location intelligence into OOH advertising comes with challenges. One of the most significant concerns is ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. Advertisers must work with reliable partners who adhere to strict data protection standards.
Moreover, it’s important to recognize that location data should not be solely used for counting impressions. Since not all mobile devices share location data—and those that do may only provide it at specific times, such as when using an app—relying exclusively on this data can be misleading. Additionally, user IDs can be reset in line with privacy regulations. Instead, location intelligence should be viewed as a high-volume, always-on sampling tool that continuously gathers the most comprehensive insights possible from each advertising site.
Final Thoughts
As we’ve seen, location intelligence has become a vital component of modern OOH advertising. It enhances audience targeting, improves site selection, optimizes creative content, and enables robust performance measurement—especially when integrated with technologies like sensor-based tracking and video analytics. By leveraging these insights, advertisers can significantly improve campaign effectiveness and ensure their messaging reaches the right audience.
Our platform is designed to help you efficiently collect, manage, and utilize this data, turning it into a powerful asset for your sales and programmatic initiatives.
Get in Touch
We support over 100 clients worldwide, providing a standardized measurement framework that functions seamlessly across different markets. By combining real data with AI-powered modeling, our platform helps media owners and retail media networks optimize their OOH advertising strategies. Contact us today to learn more about how we can assist you.