How many people do you know that have moved somewhere new in the last year? The COVID-19 pandemic — and 2020 as a whole — has changed so much about how we move around in the world, and where we live, that digital out of home (DOOH) advertisers have their work cut out for them in 2021.

Considering how entire populations have changed in certain areas, and the great migration from cities to suburbs, how can DOOH advertisers keep up with population shifts and new hotspots? Location intelligence can help.

According to the National Association of Realtors, 8.9 million people moved between the start of the pandemic and October 2020. That’s 8.9 million people whose entire lives have changed along with their tastes and priorities. As a DOOH advertiser, that presents quite the conundrum because everything from site selection to the target audience needs to be adjusted to reflect the new population. 

For example, imagine that you are a marketer from a popular retail brand that primarily advertises in urban areas; that’s where your target audience has been and where you’ve gotten the highest conversions. Spring is in the air so you launch a campaign advertising your new styles, but you go about it the same way that you would have pre-pandemic: choosing locations for your DOOH ads that are in urban areas. 

The response isn’t what you hoped it would be. Using location intelligence, you’re able to determine that, while the ads placed in urban locations worked in the past, your target audience has moved en masse to the suburbs and the outskirts of town. By ignoring those less populated areas, your ad campaign almost flopped. Luckily, you caught the blunder just in time and were able to adjust your strategy accordingly.

Changing where we live isn’t the only 2020 travel trend to note: more and more people are looking to get away from their cold climates and vacation somewhere warm (Miami Beach spring break, anyone?) and where more things are open—especially at this time of year when temperature disparities are more pronounced. What does this mean for DOOH advertisers? It means that tourist traffic is a lot less predictable than it used to be. Before, putting a DOOH ad in Times Square would almost always guarantee big impressions (and conversions), but now that same ad is getting fewer impressions than the one that you placed in Fort Myers Beach.

More people are opting for travel destinations that are less populated but offer more outdoor options. This might seem like a headache in the making for DOOH advertisers, but it doesn’t have to be! With location intelligence, you can gauge where your target audience is going to be, how many impressions your ad received, and you can attribute in-store purchases to the ad and its location.

The world is still in an interesting state right now. With location intelligence, DOOH advertisers can determine where their target audience now spends the most time and place their DOOH ads in those prime locations, even if it seems unlikely. 

Because location intelligence uses privacy-friendly mobile location signals, you can use that data to accurately determine whether or not a location is right for your ad, who will see it, and when is the best time to launch it. The way that people move around is changing, but imagine the possibilities if you could get ahead of consumer behavior and show your audience what they want to see when they want to see it. 

Curious? Contact us to speak with an expert today!