There’s Joy In Repetition: (Re)Introducing OOH Retargeting from AdQuick

In marketing (and even in love), repetition is key.  Study after study has shown that consumers need to be exposed to advertising messaging multiple times before they are inspired to take action.

But this well-known maxim is just the beginning of the story, and it’s important to consider the details.  For example: What exactly is the right frequency? Should you consider cross-channel frequency or evaluate channels in isolation? And how can you boost the cross-channel frequency of your campaigns using out-of-home media?

Read on for answers to these questions and more…

Find the Magic Number

Experts agree that multiple ad exposures are a necessity to drive conversion.  What experts don’t agree on, however, is the magic number: what is the exact number of advertising impressions required to elicit a purchase (also known as the effective frequency)?  

This has been a point of contention for decades.  Back in 1890, Thomas Smith wrote in Successful Advertising that it took five exposures before consumers even read your ad, twelve before they perceive your product in a positive light, and twenty exposures before a purchase.  In the 1930s, the mythical “Rule of 7” proclaimed that number to be – you guessed it – seven.  And in 1965, acclaimed marketing researcher Herbert Krugman published that just three ad exposures was sufficient.

Turning to science helps shed a bit more light on the topic –  since, advertising is essentially just applied psychology.  In 2001, psychologist Robert Zajonc identified the psychology at work behind our preference for repetition. He coined the term the mere-repeated-exposure effect to describe our global preference for items to which we’ve been repeatedly exposed. The effect has been demonstrated across cultures and even across species. As it relates to marketing, Zajonc’s model explains that repeating a message leads to familiarity, and familiarity leads to preference. Studies on the mere-exposure effect have found that preference requires at least 10 exposures.

So ten is a good starting benchmark, if you need one.  But, in truth, there is no magic number.  Since every brand is different, the best approach is test-and-learn. Marketers should carefully monitor their campaign frequency and associated conversion rates, and then identify the number of impressions that yields the highest conversion rate for their brand(s).

Consider Cross-Channel, Campaign-Level Frequency

Modern marketers understand that cross-channel (or omnichannel) campaigns boost performance.  Research has found that companies that use multichannel marketing experience 3x higher effectiveness rates than those that use non-integrated campaigns, and multi-channel customers spend two to five times more than single-channel customers. Multi-channel marketing helps expand your reach, increase the likelihood of consumer response or engagement, and increase your potential impact.

Notably, the combination of digital and out-of-home advertising has been found to be especially potent.  Facebook’s marketing team revealed that the combination of Facebook and OOH ads has a much greater likelihood of reaching younger audiences versus when Facebook ads were combined with TV ads or print ads. This is especially true for younger, digitally-minded consumers who spend a lot more time on their phones and other mobile devices than older generations.

Thus, when planning high-frequency campaigns, it’s important to consider all of your media channels and evaluate your cross-channel, campaign-level frequency.  And the easiest way to ensure cross-channel frequency is to leverage cross-channel retargeting….

Boost Your Frequency With OOH Retargeting

Retargeting is anything but new to digital marketers, but it has only recently become accessible to mass mediums like out-of-home advertising.  

Advanced OOH buying platforms, like AdQuick DSP, now make it easier than ever to inform your online retargeting efforts with offline exposure data from your out-of-home advertising campaigns. The process is simple. First, you’ll run your OOH campaign through AdQuick. Using high-quality mobile location data, we’ll identify consumers who were exposed to your OOH campaign and capture their anonymized mobile ad IDs (MAIDs).  We’ll then execute a programmatic buy retargeting these exposed users online (in combination with any other targeting parameters you prefer). AdQuick’s analytics platform and measurement team will evaluate your overall campaign performance, and quantify the difference between the response metrics of your OOH-exposed audience vs. the response metrics of your non-OHH-exposed audiences.  Easy peasy!

“Most consumers need to be nudged quite a few times throughout the buying cycle before they’ll decide to commit to a purchase,” explains Arsalan Nasir, retargeting product manager at AdQuick. “That’s why OOH retargeting is so beneficial for overall campaign performance. It also allows us to drive conversion rates as well as calculate the precise, incremental impact of incorporating OOH media into your overall media mix. That’s a game changer.”

Measure Your Impact

An often-overlooked added benefit of OOH retargeting is that it opens up new possibilities for measuring the impact of your cross-channel campaigns.  Specifically, it allows you to understand the indirect impact of your OOH campaigns – or what is often referred to as the “halo effect”.  At AdQuick, we’ve pioneered an approach to precisely measure the “halo effect” through geo-located lift in clickthrough rate and conversion rate.  This allows us to quantity the extent to which your OOH ads improved the performance of your digital ads. We’ve even established integrations with Google, Facebook, and Segment to make this as easy as possible.

Get Started

If you’d like to learn more about how to boost your digital campaign conversion rates with OOH-primed audiences and cross-channel retargeting, contact our team today!  Our OOH experts are happy to help craft the perfect retargeting strategy for your campaign goals.