Top 3 ways to target summer travellers with programmatic DOOH

There is no denying that audiences are eager to get away this summer. As travel restrictions continue to loosen, travel is forecasted to be the fastest growing product category - up 27% in 2022. When it comes to a marketing strategy during these months, traditionally, advertisers would utilise local out of home (OOH) environments to reach potential travellers and tourists before they depart. Perhaps they would opt to activate suncare ads, or summer wardrobe staples, but now with DOOH innovation and programmatic technology, buyers can unlock unique opportunities to reach and engage with audiences in a more contextually relevant way throughout their journey and even at their destination.

By truly understanding audience movement patterns, buyers can optimise their strategies to target with relevant messaging in real-time, or at key moments such as flight or train delays, all through a single platform.

According to Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA):

• 85% of consumers plan to travel this summer
• 79% of consumers plan to drive to their vacation destination
• 63% of consumers plan to stay at a hotel

Here are the key environments advertisers can leverage in order to connect with audiences while they travel.
 

Airports

Airports are unique environments, with audiences spending longer periods of time in front of DOOH screens than on roadside or in shopping malls, for example. This extensive audience dwell time provides an unmissable opportunity to capture attention and drive ROI.

Airports also offer diversified screen options and locations that allow buyers to activate campaigns throughout the passenger journey. For example, activating a campaign for a food product or restaurant at the check-in desk, or gifts or merchandise after the audience passes through security.

Delivering impactful campaigns with an audience-centric approach has never been easier. Advertisers can seamlessly activate campaigns across multiple screens or territories and utilise easy to use, data driven features within a single DSP platform to achieve maximum efficiency across multiple airports.

There is also the opportunity to activate custom creative or deliver on key moments in real-time based on unique pre-set environmental or event triggers (e.g. travel information including destination, flight and booking information as well as weather or sporting events).
 

Roadside/domestic travel routes

For those not looking to fly, road trips remain a popular method of travel during the summer months. Digital boards located on popular highways (think Route 20 in the US, which stretches across 12 states), are a unique opportunity for advertisers to leverage contextual messaging to speak to travellers on the go.

Digital screens located in other travel environments, such as train stations, subways, and ferries provide other opportunities to capture the attention of target audiences with contextually relevant messaging. Take, for example, a popular hotel chain - it can use mobile device IDs to target travellers in real-time while they drive across the country to drive demand for their business.

Because programmatic is heavily data-driven, this gives any brand, no matter their size, an opportunity to be flexible and competitive. Big budgets are no longer required to make an impact, you just need to have a clear target audience and select strategic locations in order to produce real-world outcomes.
 

Points of interest

Being able to target custom audiences, buyers can activate any screens or media types based on audiences who have been tracked in or near specific points of interest (POI). For example, you could geofence an airport and target audiences deemed as travel intenders elsewhere in the city via bus stop screens, or geofence specific competitor brand stores and then target the audiences that have visited those in shopping malls, as part of a conquest campaign for your brand. This also allows the platform to do all the work for you, and drive more efficiency for your budgets. Programmatic DOOH allows you to identify opportunities and seamlessly automate the planning and buying process without wasting any time.

Programmatic technology also enables campaigns to be borderless and offers a self-service approach to activating creative anywhere in the world. These “outside-in” opportunities allow advertisers to bring scale to their campaigns without the hassle. A UK-based brand could easily connect with British travellers in other markets by leveraging a DSP platform and activating custom creative while a high propensity of them would be near a DOOH environment. The opportunities to be precise are truly endless.

To conclude, there has never been a more important time for brands and agencies to select the right ad tech partner in order to stand out from the crowd. The best part is that programmatic DOOH can gather highly analytical data and insights and can measure the impact of campaigns in real-time, optimise and/or scale on the fly and receive custom reporting and measurement dashboards. There are no excuses for brands to stay behind this summer - it’s time to pack your bags.