With traditional billboard ads, you pay a fixed price for however long you want your ad displayed for. Your ad is then stuck on the billboard, and displayed permanently for however long you have hired the billboard for – even during times of the day when your billboard is unlikely to be reaching your target audience. This can sometimes mean that you are paying for time where your billboard is not really achieving any real results.

By comparison, with programmatic billboard advertising, you can really hone in and tailor this so you’re only paying for and displaying your ad when it is most likely to achieve results. Not only will you be choosing the locations where you want your ad displayed, but you can also choose the time of day.

For example, if you are targeting commuters, you would most likely want to display your ad during rush hour, when it is most likely to reach the maximum amount of potential customers. You might set up your programmatic billboard campaign so your ad displays for a couple of hours every morning and evening during rush hour. Because your ad will only be displaying during these peak times, you will not be paying for ad display time where it is unlikely to reach your target audience and capture the attention of potential customers.

Another advantage of programmatic billboard advertising is that it is available on-demand, meaning it does not come with any of the lengthy approval or wait times that can come with other types of advertising (including traditional billboards). Instead, all you need to do is upload your ad artwork to your chosen programmatic billboard provider’s online portal,

“Programmatic billboard advertising is very versatile, in that it can be tailored very closely to target different demographics or audiences, depending on your product’s niche,” he said.

“You can customise everything from the dates and times on which your campaign is displayed to the exact locations and billboards on which your ads are displayed. Obviously, you will want to tailor your campaign to the schedules and locations where it is most likely to reach your target audience and potential customers.

“For example, if you’re wanting to market your product to Gym Goers, gyms are the obvious place to start. Gym Goers want to be fit, to look good, and stay healthy. They also often spend an hour or more at the gym, so if your messaging fits, you have a very captive audience for programmatic billboard ads.

“You can refine this even further too, based on the specific type of gym goer you’re wanting to reach. If you’re wanting to reach entrepreneurs with your ad, a lot of the time, they’re early risers. They start their day at 5 or 6am in the morning, and hit the gym soon after, so to reach them, you’d be wanting to schedule your ads for earlier in the day.

“If you’re wanting to target mothers with young kids, they’d be most likely to see your ad around 10am – 11am when they’re at the gym after doing the school drop off. If it’s tradies you’re wanting to target, aim for when they hit the gym after work at 3 – 5pm, and if it’s office workers, shoot for 5 – 7pm.

“Malls and shopping centres are also a great place for programmatic billboards, because they experience such high levels of foot traffic. As a general rule of thumb, malls are most crowded on Thursdays between 6 – 8pm, when office workers are most likely to go and do their shopping before they become more restricted with family commitments over the weekend. Weekends between 11am – 3pm are also busy, which is when you’ll want to be targeting if you’re wanting to reach families and people with kids.

“Petrol stations are also a great option. Most 7-Elevens have screens out front, which grab people’s attention when they park out front of the store before they go in to grab a quick bite. They’re also very effective for grabbing the attention of people as they walk in to pay after fueling up their cars. You can also tailor this by demographic – whether it’s tradies fuelling up in the early morning before work, families fuelling up on the weekend before they go shopping, or office workers in the evening on their way home from work.

“Finally, roads are always effective locations for billboard advertising. If you’re wanting to target office workers and corporate workers, target inbound city arterial roads between 7 – 9am to catch them when they’re heading into the office. Then, target them again when they’re heading home, by targeting outbound city arterial roads between 5 – 6pm. The same applies for inner suburb roads – target your local audience by displaying your ad on the way to key locations, such as the road leading to the local supermarket.”