Read our guide to learn about how location intelligence can improve your out-of-home advertising campaigns, solve common challenges in OOH advertising, and what factors to consider when choosing a location intelligence partner.

Location intelligence is a type of business intelligence based on human movement. Built on location data collected from consumer mobile devices, location intelligence is used to gain privacy-friendly insights into consumer behavior – across the country, or at a specific location. For example, it’s possible to understand recent foot traffic trends in a downtown area, including the stores, restaurants, and sports events that people are likely to visit, as well as the time of day or day of the week they are most likely to be there.

Location intelligence is often used to help businesses understand their current customers. Businesses can then use this information to provide a better experience throughout the customer life cycle, such as developing new services, adjusting inventory, or creating personalized offers that reflect their customers’ interests. Advertising audiences can even be created with this information, allowing businesses to reach more prospective buyers and improve campaign ROI. By understanding the places and events their ideal customer is most likely to have visited, businesses can target prospective buyers that look a lot like their existing, loyal customers.

Since location intelligence reflects consumer behavior in near real-time, it can also be used to identify emerging market trends and sudden changes in consumer demand. It can also be used to understand the attributes of an area, helping companies to find the ideal location for a store, event, or promotion. There are plenty of other ways we’ve seen organizations use location intelligence to date. For example, could your business make better decisions with better visibility into the supply chain? Or, perhaps you’re looking for a competitive advantage and want to understand your competition’s customers and their interests. The applications for location intelligence are limitless.

Just as it sounds, out-of-home advertising is advertising that takes place outside of the home, reaching consumers on the go. Unlike advertising on a personal device, such as a mobile phone or television screen, out-of-home advertising happens in public spaces in the physical world. 

Perhaps the first form of outdoor advertising, cave paintings still capture our attention even today. Indeed, while other advertising formats have come and gone, out-of-home advertising remains popular among advertisers, especially as consumers return to real world activities following COVID-19. A recent OAAA survey found that when consumers noticed directions in an OOH ad, 43% visited the store or restaurant advertised within 30 minutes, and 78% of consumers made a purchase. Moreover, outdoor advertising has undergone something of a renaissance with the advent of digital formats, making outdoor advertising more innovative and visually impactful than ever before.

Digital out-of-home, or DOOH, adds a digital screen element. Examples of DOOH inventory include digital billboards, such as those affixed to buildings in tourist areas like Times Square in New York City, or along major thoroughfares like the Strip in Las Vegas. Major sports arenas and theaters are also apt to display digital signage featuring the latest ads and offers from their corporate sponsors. But DOOH isn’t just limited to large-format placements. Many smaller digital out-of-home networks have emerged, adding digital screens to everything from bus stop shelters to gas pumps, as well as signage placed in public spaces, like malls or stores, and professional settings, like doctors’ offices.

Billboards

Posters, wallscapes, and digital billboards

Street Furniture

Bus shelters, benches, newsstands, kiosks, panels, and digital street furniture

Transit

Airports, buses, trains, subways, mobile billboards, taxis, trucks, and digital transit

Places

Cinemas, arenas, stadiums, murals, shopping malls, window posters, and interior and exterior signage

While out of home advertising continues to prove to be an effective form of advertising for brands, using it is not without its challenges for advertisers. Chief among those challenges is the scale of out-of-home inventory and the sheer number of placements available. True Impact Media estimates that there are more than 350,000 large-format outdoor displays in the US alone. Moreover, there is an incredible variety of out-of-home placements, ranging from large-scale static billboards to small-scale signage in a grocery aisle, or benches in a public park.

Another challenge of the out-of-home space is that inventory can be found in virtually every market in the United States. As everyone knows, some markets are highly-populated urban centers, while others are suburban and on the outskirts of major cities. Many other markets are rural and sparsely populated, meaning that many more consumers are exposed to OOH placements in some locations than in others. Across each of these, some markets will have a high cost of living and be home to a disproportionate number of high-income individuals, while others will be located in economically disadvantaged areas. So, not only will reach vary by placement, but the attributes of the audience reached in each area will vary as well.

While we usually think of out-of-home advertising placements as being fixed, like a roadside billboard, some are continually on the move. These include wrapped buses and vehicles with car top signs, whose inventory moves in conjunction with the vehicle they are mounted on, making it even more challenging to understand who is exposed to the ads as well as the attributes of the exposed audience.

The dynamic nature of digital out-of-home advertising adds yet another layer of complexity to out-of-home advertising: time. Because digital placements can be dynamically refreshed at any time, DOOH platforms exponentially increase the amount of advertising inventory available. However, the number of impressions will vary with the number and type of people in the area at the time, impacting the performance of the ad campaign. You can well imagine that digital ads served on the same digital billboards in Times Square will reach a very different audience on weekdays than on weekends or a holiday, and still a different audience between the hours of 9 a.m. and noon as compared to 9 p.m. to midnight.

Finally, unlike online ads, which are targeted to specific audiences and where impressions and clicks can be precisely measured and attributed to specific respondents, out-of-home advertising performance can be a stumbling block for advertisers. The reach of an out-of-home advertising campaign, for example, is generally estimated based on the size and demographics of the local population. Moreover, unless a direct response mechanism is built into the advertising creative, such as a dedicated phone number or QR code, consumer response to out-of-home advertising will be estimated as well.

Location intelligence is the perfect complement to out-of-home advertising since its data inherently reflects consumer activity in the physical world. Here’s how analytics derived from mobile location data can be used to improve out-of-home advertising performance while also improving the ad-buying experience for advertisers.

Location intelligence makes it possible to capture data for and calculate a range of metrics for out-of-home placements in virtually any location. Geofences, or virtual boundaries around a location of interest, can be programmed to capture data for any out-of-home placement, large or small. These geofences can be sized to collect data for the area within the line of sight of the advertisement. Customers will only see a relatively small bus stop poster, for instance, when they are close to the bus stop itself. In contrast, a large mural painted on the side of a building along a busy highway might be seen from several hundred feet away by both pedestrians and drivers passing through. To capture information about only the exposed group, the first geofence would be quite small, while the second geofence would be much larger.

As any advertiser knows, the location of an out-of-home placement and geofence will greatly affect the overall performance of a campaign. Location intelligence provides information about foot traffic patterns at and around OOH placements that can be used to adjust campaign strategy. For instance, consider a series of digital billboards located at movie theaters around the U.S. All of the theaters may be running the same first-run movies at a particular time, but the theaters are located in very different places. Some are in downtown locations adjacent to bars and restaurants, while others are in shopping centers next to retail stores. Advertisers can even enrich foot traffic data with additional attributes of a particular location, such as age or gender demographics, average household income, or average housing value. Combined, this information can help agencies and brands determine where and when to run their out-of-home ads.

Location intelligence makes it possible to capture not only the number of devices exposed to a particular OOH advertisement but also behavioral information about the audience exposed to an out-of-home placement. Do they frequently shop or dine at specific stores or restaurants? Are they apt to enjoy fishing or cycling or yoga? Consider the digital out-of-home placements at a major arena, like Madison Square Garden. The stadium hosts many different types of events, including major sporting events, pop music events, and family entertainment. It also draws visitors from a wide area, with many traveling into the city, especially for an event. Because of this, the attendees at one event will look very different from the attendees at another. With location intelligence, it’s possible to distinguish between the audiences at a New York Knicks game, an Andrea Bocelli concert, or a John Mayer show and tailor the advertising shown to each audience accordingly.

By adding location intelligence to your out-of-home advertising toolkit, it’s possible to solve many of the challenges of OOH/DOOH advertising today and improve campaign performance for advertisers over time. Whether incorporated as a part of your platform or analyzed separately, here are just a few of the ways that location data and insights can be used to enhance out-of-home campaigns.

Location intelligence makes it easy to determine who is visiting a certain location and whether or not they are the right audience for an advertiser. Where an urban retail brand whose customers are Gen Z might have once placed its advertisements at mall kiosks without a second thought, now that same brand knows that its target audience is more apt to be seen in a local arts district. By using location intelligence to inform site selection, you can take your OOH campaigns to the next level by pinpointing the places and times that the brand’s target audience(s) are most likely to be in the area, improving visibility and conversions. Plus, as consumer behavior changes, location intelligence will continue to help you to scout the perfect billboard location in the future.

Now that you’ve found the right spots to place your advertisements, it’s time to measure ad performance. Location intelligence can help you estimate actual exposure at a billboard, kiosk, or other out-of-home advertising location, as well as confirm the different audiences that were exposed to your ads. If you’re using a QR code or other direct response mechanism, you can even get insight into the audiences who responded to your ads. This, in turn, provides insight into the real-world behavior of interested prospects, helping you to refine your future advertising plans, as well as inform cross-sell, upsell, and other marketing strategies.

Speaking of audiences, when you understand the type of audience that is likely to be viewing your out-of-home ads at a particular time of day or day of the week, you can better segment your OOH advertising inventory so that you can pair the right advertiser with the right audience at the right time. This also opens the door to new pricing strategies, which maximize revenues for your advertising business and help to fill all available inventory.

Making your out-of-home campaign successful is one thing, but to reach your target audience even more effectively, advertisers may also want to take the same campaign online. Using location intelligence, you can provide advertisers with audiences of mobile devices that are not only likely to have seen your billboards or signage but have also exhibited real-world behaviors that make them ideal candidates for what your advertisers have to offer. For example, a local restaurant chain might advertise its weekday specials using a series of billboards along local roads. With location intelligence, a custom audience of mobile devices belonging to residents in the area who are likely to pass those billboards on a regular basis can be built, complementing its OOH campaign. The same audience can also be expanded to include other residents who often dine out on weekdays and might therefore be especially interested in the restaurant’s special offer.

Clearly, location intelligence can add a lot of value to out-of-home advertising, for both traditional and digital formats. Enriching your OOH advertising platform with location intelligence provides several important benefits for media companies and advertisers alike. 

First and foremost, advertisers can reach their target audiences more effectively with location intelligence. Imagine that a luxury car manufacturer wants to promote the launch of its newest vehicle, an all-electric sedan. With location intelligence, the advertising agency working on the campaign is able to understand the behavioral attributes of consumers across its out-of-home advertising network, and recommend those billboards and digital displays that are known to reach more affluent consumers with an interest in green living. Similarly, a sporting goods store that wants to position itself as the purveyor of choice for school athletes can place its ads in markets known to reach parents of school-age children who also frequently visit sports facilities. 

Location intelligence adds a critical data layer to outdoor advertising that not only improves targeting, but enables performance measurement. Beyond ensuring that advertisements are shown to the right audiences in the right places, the data enables attribution and campaign optimization. With even more advertising taking place online, through search, social media, or digital display, advertisers increasingly expect to be able to measure ad performance with precision. It’s also increasingly necessary for marketers to be able to measure results in order to justify additional investment in advertising. This gives OOH/DOOH media a pronounced advantage over less-measurable formats like linear television, newspaper, or radio. 

The ability to measure performance can increase ad spending among existing advertisers and drive demand among prospective advertisers who may currently be relying on other media to fuel their campaigns. By using location intelligence, you can not only introduce outdoor advertising to a whole new generation of marketers, but future-proof your advertising platform. This will help you keep your organization a step ahead of its biggest competitors, and can make your advertising platform the first choice among prospective advertisers.

If you’re considering a location intelligence partner to collaborate with on out-of-home advertising, and especially if you are planning to integrate their data into your advertising platform, there are several factors that you should consider during the buying process. Here are a few that we have found to be critical to our customers’ long-term success.

Start by ensuring that the location intelligence provider you’re working with has robust data coverage in the areas where your advertising inventory is located. A provider that has good coverage in the United States may not have the same coverage in another country, like Japan. The key to using location intelligence successfully is having enough data to work with in the locations that are core to your business.

Next, inquire whether the provider is familiar with the out-of-home advertising space. Does the provider you are considering have experience working with other programmatic advertising platforms? Do they understand your goals and the differences between traditional and digital out-of-home? By choosing a provider with experience in the space, you can benefit from their know-how and maximize your chances of success.

Depending on the data source, raw location data can be rife with misleading and even fraudulent signals. Be sure to inquire about how the provider ensures the quality of the underlying data used to produce its location intelligence. How is the data verified for quality and accuracy? What methods does the provider use to clean up and prepare the data for analysis? Remember that questionable data will always result in questionable, if not entirely misleading, results.

While location intelligence can provide incredible insight into consumer behavior en masse, it is always important to ensure that the underlying location data has been collected in accordance with all applicable local laws and regulations. Take a moment to confirm with your location intelligence provider that all data has been collected with consumer consent, and that consumers can opt out of data collection and use at any time.

How long has the provider been in business, and do they have a track record of success? Location data ebbs and flows, and the provider you choose should be able to weather changes in the data supply so that you do not have to. Ask how the provider has handled supply changes in the past and is prepared to manage changes in the location data ecosystem in the future.