Focused on OOH? Here’s What to Look for in a DSP

August 21, 2018 in Blog

According to AdExchanger, out-of-home (OOH) advertising spend is projected to grow almost 12% by 2020 – but to many, buying OOH programmatically remains a novel concept.

As with any new technology, programmatic OOH comes with its own unique set of challenges and benefits. So, if OOH is a priority, what, exactly, should you be looking for in a DSP?

To answer that question, we spoke to Wade Rifkin, SVP of Programmatic at Clear Channel Outdoor, one of the world’s largest outdoor advertising companies that has more than 675,000 displays in more than 40 countries.

Q: OOH is rather new to the programmatic sphere, how important is it for brands to understand the differences between traditional OOH buying and programmatic OOH buying?

It’s critically important, much in the same way that brands needed to recognize that programmatic in display/mobile wasn’t just about cheap, biddable CPMs – it’s about affording more buying control and flexibility, with greater optimization potential relative to a direct buy. For a channel to truly go programmatic, the paradigm must change, and that has happened here in DOOH.

So, the key questions to ask are: 1. How can these new capabilities let me buy the same DOOH formats I’m used to, but in a complementary way to the contracted, guaranteed buys I’m doing? 2. What can I do with this medium that was previously very difficult or not even possible?

That’s what’s exciting, unlocking new possibilities from one of the oldest media channels in existence.  We’re working with buy-side partners to come up with new use cases on a consistent basis.

Q: What are some of the biggest challenges in choosing a DSP when you’re prioritizing OOH?

The reality of adjusting a DSP’s 1:1 set up for targeting, reporting and even counting impressions is that there’s real technical work that’s required to accommodate a one-to-many channel like OOH. While some DSPs, like Adelphic, have invested the time and effort to champion that development, not all DSPs have. So, when you’re interested in adding DOOH into your cross-channel programmatic media mix, it’s important to vet the quality of the integration work the DSP has done to ensure they’re offering the end user features that’ll let them effectively transact DOOH.

Q: What, specifically, should you look for in a DSP when focusing on OOH?

When we advise buyers on which DSP to choose, some of the points we advise them to consider are:

1. One-to-many impression counts and reporting: Can the DSP process some of the data points that SSPs pass that are specific to impressions in the OOH space? Can they use them for dynamic bidding, as well as for reporting in their UI?

2. Targeting: Can your DSP decision the media and creative against things like daypart, day of week and geo data points that come through in the bid request?

3. Connectivity to mobile: Can the DSP geofence OOH boards and retarget devices with mobile display or other channels?  Can the DSP layer on mobile data-driven attribution for store visitation or other metrics?

Q: How key are targeting and measurement capabilities?

Targeting and measurement are both critical. Programmatic buyers expect a variety of targeting mechanisms, as well as accountability and ROI. We’ve taken this to heart, through the development of our CCO RADAR suite of solutions, which offers up proprietary targeting, retargeting and attribution against multiple KPIs (foot traffic, tune-in lift, brand surveys and more), powered by high fidelity, privacy-compliant mobile data. This is available today, and supplemental to any of the capabilities our DSP partners offer for targeting and attribution. The latter piece, DSP productization around the use of data for DOOH, is one of the most exciting things to come on the horizon for our channel.

Q: What has made your integration with Adelphic work so well for you?

Adelphic’s done the necessary integration work to accommodate a one-to-many medium in a sophisticated way. Adelphic can ingest and decision off of the unique data fields and open RTB extensions for DOOH, along with offering geo-targeting and geo-reporting that’s necessary based on the location-centric nature of the medium. The development work has paid off, as we’re seeing seamless and effective transaction happening on campaigns that buyers activate with us through Adelphic. I’m excited about what’s to come as we continue to evolve to better serve advertisers in this traditional-gone-emerging programmatic channel on the world’s largest screens.

Clear Channel Outdoor on How Location Data Helps Brands with OOH and the Future of OOH Measurement

March 12, 2018 in Blog

Adelphic’s Q&A series shines a spotlight on the biggest challenges, questions, and trends in the programmatic marketplace with commentary from industry experts, clients, and partners.

Today’s Q&A is with Wade Rifkin, SVP of Programmatic at Clear Channel Outdoor. Founded in 1901, Clear Channel Outdoor (CCO) is one of the world’s largest outdoor advertising companies, with more than 675,000 displays in more than 40 countries.

As SVP of Programmatic, Rifkin is responsible for leading the strategy and execution of Clear Channel’s programmatic OOH strategy.

Q: How does location data help brands with their OOH advertising – both targeting and measurement?

Our media locations have been used historically and successfully to target key markets, neighborhoods or zip codes of interest to advertisers.  However, one of the most compelling things to happen to OOH in the recent past was the advent & proliferation of mobile data. Through, Clear Channel Outdoor RADAR, our attribution solution, we’ve been able to leverage anonymized mobile data to understand how consumers move throughout the world, including past our displays. With that, we understand the types of consumers we reach for more sophisticated behavioral targeting, and we can also measure what consumers do after exposure to our boards through post-exposure attribution. This is all powered by persistent location data & device IDs, and deployed in an anonymous, consumer-friendly and privacy-compliant fashion.

CCO RADAR is something we’ve been offering through our direct channel for two years, and as of last year, we began offering it through our programmatic private marketplace offering as well.  That allows our clients to tap into our powerful targeting and attribution toolkit, holistically, across both direct and programmatic transaction with us.

Q: What are the biggest measurement challenges for marketers and how is Clear Channel Outdoor helping to solve them?

One of the main challenges we’re given by brands is proving ROI for OOH. That was a key driver for the development of the attribution component of CCO RADAR, and it’s gotten a lot of positive feedback from brands, reinforcing what we’ve intuitively known for some time – that OOH works.  From a metrics standpoint, we’ve evolved and diversified what can be measured, and we’re now able to showcase lifts in store visits, brand metrics, and tune-in, with more capabilities to follow this year.

 Q: Are there different advertisers or verticals for traditional OOH buying versus programmatic OOH?

Much like our direct sales channel, we’re seeing a broad range of verticals that are finding value in programmatic buying.  Some of the first brands that dipped their toes in the water programmatically are those with physical locations: dining, retail and auto.  This is due to the ability to target against those locations (both behaviorally and through physical proximity), but also because CCO RADAR allows us to measure the lift in visitation to their stores to demonstrate ROI.

However, now that we’re over a year in, we’ve seen plenty of other verticals enter the mix. To name a couple: entertainment has become an important category, with the flexibility of our programmatic solution allowing advertisers to heavy-up around show premieres to drive tune-in. Enterprise services are also picking up for us, tapping into our airport footprint to reach the affluent business and frequent leisure traveler audiences.

Q: What new and emerging types of formats and screens are going to be part of programmatic DOOH inventory?

We started off with just our roadside inventory, offering a sub-set of our digital billboard units. Shortly after we started piloting, we got feedback from buyers on new inventory to include, and we’ve since scaled up to include the lion’s share of our roadside units (both digital billboards and bus shelters). Ninety percent of our roadside digital units are now programmatically-enabled.

We’ve also rolled in our airport screen footprint, and have ramped that significantly – we now offer 40 airports with video-capable screens across a variety of concourse and baggage claim in some of the largest airports in the US.  Last month, we also lit up a network of private aviation lounges, which reach c-suite, high net worth & highly influential fliers, which is an exciting touchpoint for a very hard to reach audience.

Q: Where do you see OOH measurement three years from now?

I think we’ll see more integration into cross-channel measurement than ever before. OOH has existed in somewhat of a silo because it was historically very different to buy than other channels, and measurement presented a very real challenge. Now that digitization has settled in to OOH, connecting it to the broader ad tech ecosystem, and mobile has unlocked measurement for the channel, we’re in a much different place. Over the next few years, I expect that marketers will endeavor to evaluate OOH to gain a better understanding of the effects it has on both driving upper funnel metrics and playing an ‘assist’ role in feeding the rest of the funnel.

Q: Anything exciting on the horizon for Clear Channel Outdoor and Adelphic?

With critical technical integration work & testing behind us, Clear Channel Outdoor and Adelphic are poised to ramp up meaningfully in 2018. We’re activating with and fielding strong interest from blue chip clients who recognize that they can now buy digital OOH like display: in a real-time, biddable, data-driven fashion, via enterprise-level cross-channel platforms like Adelphic. Suffice it say, we’re excited about continuing to grow our partnership this year!