
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.”
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