by Kate Tovey, Director of Customer Engagement, JCDecaux UK
Dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) has been used to increase the relevancy, and therefore, performance, of programmatic online advertising for years. However, its application in programmatic digital out-of-home (prDOOH) has lagged. Today, a critical convergence of data integration and real-time programmatic optimisation capabilities in demand-side platforms (DSPs) is moving the needle on DCO adoption with recent research by JCDecaux UK and MTM showing the adoption of DCO in prDOOH is set to rise from 48% in 2022 to 73% in 2023.
Why DCO packs a punch
It’s important to note that standard DOOH ads are not ineffective; they are highly effective in delivering against a multitude of goals. The added value that DCO brings is the ability to get as close to personalised messaging as possible in a one-to-many channel. This increases relevancy and can help minimise the cost of media.
DCO in prDOOH uses first- and third-party data, content, and context to automatically optimise performance within your technology stack faster, and at a more granular level than it’s possible to do using traditional means. Injecting live data analytics, near real-time testingand optimisation into DOOH via programmatic means results in hyper-relevant creative and location targeting.
A DCO-produced creative will not only show information based on geolocation or be triggered by environmental conditions – other factors will feed into the decisioning process. For example, the ad may also include the best offers and most suitable imagery and creative elements for the most prevalent target audience(s) in a specific location. Additionally, because the campaign is running in a DSP, using pre-defined rules to determine which impressions to bid for the campaign delivery is even more precise.
Where are the efficiency gains?
As soon as your programmatic DCO campaign is live, you will start to benefit from insights into which elements of the creative and targeting are delivering the best results. For example, you can integrate footfall data into your DSP, and if you’re running other channels alongside prDOOH, you can see which creatives are driving the highest peaks in performance across social, display, video, connected TV (CTV), mobile, audio, etc.
Furthermore, just like online campaigns, rules can be programmed via your DSP that will pause certain combinations of messaging and/or targeting if your performance goals aren’t met. This enables you to run continuous campaigns using the most up-to-date data and maximise the attention that your ads generate.
Another strategic benefit of programmatic and DCO is the ability to run multiple campaigns concurrently thus gathering more valuable feedback in a shorter timeframe. By more easily and precisely assessing and understanding what works, for whom, where, and when marketers gain a strategic advantage and are better able to capitalise on the powerful combination of reach, scale, and personalisation that prDOOH offers.
If you’re working towards an omnichannel strategy you can use connected data sets to match the message to the audience and optimise creative and targeting across all the channels in your media mix. This, in turn, can save brands money by improving conversions and driving increased ROI for every advertising pound spent.
Practical considerations and how to get started
The best way to implement DCO is to take each element of your creative and data and identify the parameters for optimisation that are available to you and the value that this will add to your investment.
For example, do you have access to existing data that tells you which type(s) of products or messaging that your different customer profiles prefer? And how can you harness this data in partnership with your technology partners?
You will also need to understand how the data that media owners and supply-side platforms (SSPs) feed into your DSP can be applied to your creative builds and optimisation. This will include the immediate context of individual screens and data used to measure audience composition (e.g., mobile device IDs).
Final thoughts
As mentioned previously, there is nothing wrong with running standard ads in DOOH or prDOOH, however, there are benefits to be had by implementing DCO if you have the data to do so. With the right data and technology in place, DCO is that it can be rolled out quickly, learnings come quickly, and efficiency gains span multiple areas. It’s never been easier to up your personalisation game and reap the rewards.
