Maximize In-Store Digital Signage Yield: Play Offense

Published, September 18, 2024

Retail stores haven’t seen this much innovation since the introduction of self-checkout. In-store digital signage has emerged as a powerful tool for Retail Media Networks to expand digital channels and monetize and leverage retail’s largest capital investment: the brick-and-mortar store.

However, the challenges Retail Media tech leaders face in building these new capabilities are substantial. It’s expensive to install hundreds of new screens in your stores, and where in the store should you put them anyway? How will you recoup this investment?

If your current strategy focuses on measuring in-store audiences first, you’re only playing defense. To truly maximize the yield of your in-store media network, it’s essential to play offense. Take the driver’s seat and create competition for your in-store audiences by selling those impressions in real-time.

The Defensive Play: Measuring Audience

Most in-store media networks rely on DOOH infrastructure for in-store screens, and it’s easy to implement the same measurement strategies that digital billboards use. Measurement is a critical step, providing valuable insights into who engages with the content. However, relying solely on this defensive strategy has its limitations.

Simply measuring who was in front of the screen when an ad plays can justify your media investment, but selling the opportunity to customize that message to the audience in front of that screen while they are shopping is a much larger brand marketing opportunity.

Playing Offense: Activating and Targeting Audiences in Real-Time

Shifting to an offensive strategy involves using technology not just for measurement but for activation and real-time audience targeting. This approach transforms your in-store media network from a passive data collector to an active driver of digital media demand.

By dynamically serving ads based on real-time audience data, you can create upward pricing pressure and increase the value of your ad space. This is how every other digital media strategy operates. Audiences are planned, real-time bidding enables targeted ad placements, and competing bids drive higher CPMs and higher revenues.

Optimizing Yield: Selling Impressions Over Playouts

The key to maximizing the yield of your in-store digital signage network is understanding that even if you are selling 100% of your airtime, you are still leaving money on the table.

Traditional DOOH media sales focus on playouts that eventually factor into audience impressions based on foot traffic or impression multipliers. However, by shifting to a model that sells audience-based impressions directly, you can optimize your network’s yield potential. Your in-store digital signage network has substantially more inventory from an impression perspective than pure airtime.

The demand for audience impressions is higher too. Digital media buyers crave brand- safe, contextually relevant, and targeted impressions. Actively predicting and addressing audience segments into in-store impressions creates pricing power and increased revenue opportunities.

Imagine this very simplified example (of course, the real world is more complex): a campaign needs to reach a female millennial shopper segment. Of the 1000 shoppers that walk through the store during the day, 100 are female millennials. With a fixed 10-second spot in a 2-minute loop (traditional DOOH w/o real-time audience targeting), the probability of hitting the target is 1/12 (8.3%). Pretty low. At the same time, the campaign uses 1/12 of the airtime on the screen, which is 720 playouts (2 hours) of 8640 playouts (24 hours) store operations day. Now, imagine you have sensor-based real-time audience targeting in place. The probability of hitting the target is close to 100% (vs. 8.3%), while the inventory used on the screen is 100 playouts, which is 1000 seconds of airtime during the entire day. This is less than 17 minutes during a 24-hour store operations day vs. 2 hours in the former example with traditional DOOH sales.

Align In-Store With The Rest of Your Digital Media Channels

Real-time audience data is the cornerstone of all digital media transactions, and in-store media should be no different. Media buyers prefer to transact across all digital channels using the same platforms and currencies. Isolating your in-store digital signage from other digital channels creates friction in the buying process and barriers to accessing digital media budgets.

The opportunity to unify retail media audience segments across channels is exciting and lucrative for marketers. Marketers are asking for standardization. A lot of innovative work is being done extending these same audiences to CTV channels. The power of having the same unified digital segment to reach and measure across media channels brings retail media to parity for digital media strategists.

Integrate your in-store media network with the same retail media platforms. Use the same metrics and currencies (audiences) as other digital channels. This seamless integration makes it easier for media buyers to include your in-store media network in their broader digital campaigns and opens up incremental revenue for the network.

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