US respondents (200 digital and OOH specialists) to a recent survey said that nearly a third (31%) of the campaigns they worked on in the past 12 to 18 months included a programmatic digital OOH (prDOOH) component. That’s expected to increase to 39% in the next 18 months, according to a new report released today by JCDecaux’s London-based automated planning and trading platform VIOOH.   

VIOOH worked with London research and strategy agency, MTM, to survey 1,200 OOH and digital specialists at advertisers and agencies across the US, UK, Australia, Germany, France, and Spain. About 200 people from each country were surveyed in May and June of this year. The resulting report is titled “State Of The Nation: Programmatic DOOH 2023.”   

Survey respondents in the US indicate that they plan to increase programmatic DOOH spend by a third (33%) over the next 18 months. A third are reallocating budgets from other digital channels, and 15% are creating new budgets to grow prDOOH.    

80% of respondents from the US market feel that prDOOH offers one of the most innovative opportunities compared to any other media channel, delivering highly targeted activations, the ability to buy placements in real-time, optimize campaigns in-flight and deliver dynamic and contextually relevant creative. Over two-thirds (67%) believe that prDOOH targets the right people at the right time, while 64% said the medium increases sales and performance (64%), and 61% said they felt brand safety was a key attribute.    

That said, measuring effectiveness remains a hurdle for some U.S. advertisers. 39% of the US respondents said they want to see more data to drive direct response and cross-channel measurement before investing more in programmatic DOOH. 

Currently, 32% of US advertisers use a mix of direct and programmatic buys, and 28% usually or always purchase their DOOH programmatically only. US advertisers leverage prDOOH both in performance and brand. Over three quarters (76%) consider prDOOH important for performance-led campaigns, a figure increases marginally for brand-based campaigns (78%).   

Display is used to complement prDOOH both in performance and brand campaigns (80%), while search (74%) is leveraged alongside prDOOH for performance-led activation, and social (79%) for brand-led activation.  

In the US, prDOOH advertising is also now being integrated more closely in multi-channel campaigns (64%), especially alongside other digital channels (41%).