Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) Campaigns in Ads Manager

Creating a Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) campaign in Ads Manager is a streamlined process that allows you to structure, target, and optimize your ad groups for the best performance.

Campaign Setup Essentials

When you begin creating a DOOH campaign, follow these steps:

1. Select Setup: You must use the Manual Setup option (the Create campaign with AI option does not allow for DOOH campaigns).
2. Name and Category: Give your campaign a name and select the appropriate IAB Category for your ad content.
3. Budget Setting: Select Ad group budgets. Note that campaign-level budgets and daily budget options are not available for DOOH.
4. Political Inventory: If your campaign is political, check the Political Inventory box.
5. Objective: Choose either Reach, Brand Awareness, Video Views, or In-Store Visits as your campaign objective and select DOOH as the media type.

Building Your Media Plan: Venue Search

To find the screens where your ads will run, search for venues using the following criteria:

• Geo: Search by city, state, county, DMA (Designated Market Area), or zip code.
• Location Group: Define a minimum 10ft radius around specific points of interest (POIs).
• Venue Type: Select from various environments like billboards, transit screens, entertainment venues, or salons.
• Creative Format: Filter by the type of creative you want to display (Image, Video, or Audio) or filter by specific Ad Size to ensure compatibility with your existing assets.
• (Optional) Publisher: You can select individual publishers, but it is not recommended by default. Pro Tip: Focus on geo and venue type before considering the publisher setting. Publishers with a green checkmark next to their name are Verified Partners with whom there are preferred rates.
  • Once you click "Search," a map will show the location and number of available screens.

Budget, Schedule, and Ad Group Review

1. Budget & Schedule: Below the map, enter your campaign start and end dates and the total campaign budget. The system will display:
   • The number of available screens
   • Daily available impressions (Important Note: DOOH is a programmatic buy, meaning delivery across all creative sizes and screens is not guaranteed. Impression delivery is subject to available inventory and screen formats at the time of serving and numbers seen during planning page are estimates.)
   • Calculated daily budgeted impressions
2. Ad Group Review: Each ad group combines a publisher with a venue type.
   • Adjusting Budgets: You can adjust the budget for each ad group, but the budget must be equal to or greater than its CPM bid rate. If you don't want to use an ad group, set its budget to $0.
   • CPM (Cost Per Mille/Thousand Impressions): CPMs for each ad group are set at a minimum and cannot be lowered. You can increase individual CPMs or reallocate your budget to adjust the overall CPM.
   • Additional Details: During the review stage, you can find Ad Specs (size, duration, extension, image/video/audio compatibility) and view Selected Venues.

Ad Group Management and Creative Best Practices

For each ad group, you must add creatives and configure additional settings:

1. Managing Creatives: Click Manage Creatives from the campaign dashboard to upload and assign assets to each ad group. Click Add creative under the required format size to upload new assets or choose from your repository.
2. Creative Approval: Creatives undergo an approval process that can take up to 3 days, so set up campaigns and upload assets well in advance of the flight start date. You can monitor the review progress directly under the creative details.
3. Retargeting: Click the eye icon next to an ad group to open its settings. Under Retargeting Ad Group, toggle on Enable Retargeting and enter an Audience name. Ads Manager will automatically create a separate retargeting ad group capped at 20% of your primary spend that begins 14 days after launch.
4. Dayparting: Under Budget & Schedule, expand Advanced Options and toggle on Dayparting to select specific hours and days of the week for your ads to run.
5. In-Store Visit Measurement: Navigate to the Measurement step to measure foot traffic to physical locations. Search and select a GroundTruth brand or custom location group, then click Save & Continue.

Rate Card

The rate card lists weighted average CPMs across all our different publishers for a specific venue type. For instance, the rate card shows a CPM of $15 for bus shelters. However, this is an average, as each publisher sets its own rate (e.g., Outfront is $10 CPM, Clear Channel Outdoor is $17 CPM, Intersection is $18 CPM).

When setting your media plan, please use the suggested CPM that automatically populates in the platform. You should only consider raising the CPM if the ad group is not pacing as expected.

Troubleshooting & FAQs

Need Help?

For additional support and to ensure your campaign is set up for success, please reach out to your dedicated GroundTruth representative, or our Self-Serve team (selfservehelp@groundtruth.com) to be connected to a representative.