Broadsign Adds New DOOH Campaign Optimization Toolset That Might Keep Media Planner Heads From Exploding

February 28, 2022 by Dave Haynes

The Montreal CMS software firm Broadsign has announced new functionality in its Digital OOH-focused platform that’s intended to maximize campaign revenues for media owners while at the same time optimizing campaign executions for brands and their media planners.
The simpleton explanation is new code that just might keep a harried media planner’s head from exploding as she or he tries to execute a complicated campaign plan on high-demand screen networks.
The “yield optimization engine” for the Broadsign Direct sales and campaign management tool is, says Broadsign, designed to help DOOH media owners “maximize their revenue potential by allowing them to take on more campaigns and operate at optimal efficiency.”
A couple of the company’s whale clients – Intersection and Clear Channel International – have already starting using the engine in beta implementations.
 
Broadsign suggests the engine addresses a common problem in OOH and DOOH – handling the complexities and specificities of advertising campaign goals. I will let a blog post from Broadsign kinda sorta bring it down to terms people who don’t live and breathe media planning might grasp :
This is where the optimization engine shines. Sometimes, multiple campaigns are vying for the same slot in your inventory. But they can’t all fit, and as a result, you might be forced to say “no” to a customer even though your inventory hasn’t entirely sold out. This leads to gaps in scheduling, which amounts to missed revenue opportunities for you.
 
The optimization engine resolves issues like this by reallocating ads to different slots, while respecting targeting parameters, so that you can maximize network yield. Best of all, it does it all for you – no need to lift a finger. Even if your juggling skills are second to none, rebalancing network availability can be a complex and daunting task, but it’s something that you’ll find our intelligent algorithm can accomplish with ease.
 
How the optimization engine delivers on what it promises
 
The optimization engine intelligently analyzes your network’s inventory to check for availability. All priority settings and parameters are considered in this process. Designed to make inventory management smoother and more efficient, the tool is continuously running in the background, even overnight, to optimally organize the following day’s schedule.
 
Let’s say, for example, you have four screens in your network and are looking to book some campaigns. The first campaign (campaign A) is currently booked to play on all four screens from the 5th and 10th of the month, with a goal of 288,000 impressions. This booking totals a 50% fill rate on all four screens. Then, at the same time, the sales team is busy negotiating a new deal (Campaign B) and to see if there’s space for a second campaign, they run an availability check on the network.
 
Campaign B is also expected to run the same month as campaign A but between the dates of the 1st to the 7th on your first and third screens. The buyer is looking to obtain a 70% fixed Share of Voice on those screens. The dilemma? Together, campaigns A and B exceed the max fill rate on their shared screens on the days they overlap. Without the optimization engine running, the availability check would generate a result of being partially or completely unavailable. But when the algorithm kicks in, it redistributes campaigns wherever possible to make enough space for both.
 
In this scenario, campaign A’s 288,000 impressions will be redistributed in a way that also allows campaign B to run on the days with overlap. This is something that couldn’t have been achievable without the optimization engine.
 
So I get what this is for, but I was fully into rapid eye-blink, bubbles-on-lips mode just reading the here’s-how-it-works explanation. Imagine the poor souls trying to make that complexity in scheduling and targeting happen, using manual tools like spreadsheets.
Automation is good and Broadsign has been doing dynamic, data-driven scheduling for at least 15 years.

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