What is Inventory Quality in the Digital Out-of-Home Advertising Industry?
Just as digital out-of-home is redefining the advertising landscape, inventory quality is shaping up the standards of DOOH advertising itself. Learn how to assess the potential of DOOH spaces and maximize the engagement, reach and impact of your campaigns through quality assurance.
What truly defines the effectiveness and allure of a digital out-of-home advertising campaign? The answer lies in the concept of "Inventory Quality”, which has recently been established as a compass to assess the value and suitability of advertising spaces or digital screens available for advertisers to display their content.
The need for measurable and cohesive quality standards is a natural consequence of the snowballing success programmatic technologies have brought to OOH advertising, which enables both vendors and marketers to increase their business opportunities, but also blurs the boundaries around quality.
The increasing popularity of DOOH advertising has propelled companies to act as media owners or DOOH publishers, however many of them are new to the industry and are just learning the media landscape, so it only makes sense that their quality standards are not so robust as of yet. As for marketers and media buyers, it becomes harder to identify the best vendors to partner with, as more and more buying spaces become available.
Moreover, quality standards may fluctuate across the board – vendors and advertisers would probably have different notions around quality, as they prioritize diverse aspects when it comes to assessing the quality of their owned or purchased inventory.
In this article, we will explore the key variables that affect quality standards in DOOH advertising. Understanding how the quality of digital out-of-home spaces can be measured will empower you to make good decisions.
Smart Criteria: Breaking Down Inventory Quality
When buying digital out-of-home spaces directly, advertisers reviewed and approved the inventory themselves – this allowed them to verify inventory against their quality standards, but those standards were vague and subjective, and the overall process was quite time consuming.
Programmatic technologies do the work for you. Indeed, the main purpose of Demand Side Platforms like Beeyond is to look for the best buying opportunities for advertisers among the many Supply Side Platforms (SSPs) and media buyers they are connected to.
With the proper setup and management, DSPs are able to verify the quality of OOH displays and locations based on the objectives of each specific campaign, offering advertisers the ones that best adapt to their needs and can therefore guarantee major success.
But, how is that verification conducted? Let’s go over the main parameters that are taken into account in digital out-of-home inventory quality:
Environment
The physical location and surroundings of a digital out-of-home screen, as well as the audience demographics subjected to each location, are key factors to assess the environment of DOOH displays.
To ensure the right visibility, displays should be located in relevant areas that promote the brand’s values and image, and preferably in hot spots where the target audience is likely to be present. For example, a fitness brand could make good use of DOOH screens near gyms or running circuits.
Technical performance
The quality of the screen and its technical performance, such as brightness, resolution, and maintenance, impact how well the ad is displayed and perceived. As advertisers, you want to ensure your ad is displayed correctly at all times, which is why metrics like viewability, rotation and clutter are important.
Data and Analytics
The ability to collect data on ad performance, audience engagement, and other relevant metrics is crucial for advertisers to evaluate the success of their campaigns; to assess inventory quality, digital out-of-home spaces are monitored 24/7 to measure impressions.
Operating hours of each OOH display can also be evaluated and set according to campaigns’ preferences and objectives towards reaching the target audience.
In order to assess all of this information, media owners and publishers are required to provide information around the type of venues they own, their precise location and surrounding characteristics, the usability of each display (whether they are dedicated to advertising or non-ad content), and its technical aspects.
Inventory Quality Builds Number-One Brands
Above all, OOH campaigns help to establish brand authority, and the quality of the inventory they will be displayed on plays a crucial role in shaping that authority. Relying on a target audience is good, but it’s not enough - a smart approach to digital out-of-home advertising would also prioritize the environment quality of each display, and the feasibility of each location.
DOOH spending is experiencing an uptick, so it is essential that all efforts towards this promising advertising form are carried out wisely. At Beeyond we make sure your investments are worthwhile – contact us now and secure the high quality of your inventory.
