Google is selling billboard ads programmatically through DoubleClick

Dive Brief:

Google is shaking up outdoor advertising by testing programmatic billboard sales via DoubleClick.
The billboard ads will be served using data signals for relevance based on location and time of day.
Some of the data signals taken into account include audience, weather, travel information, sporting events and scores.

Dive Insight:

Google is going beyond digital in testing programmatic ad sales for outdoor advertising. However, this isn't Alphabet's first foray into out of home (OOH) advertising – Sidewalk Labs has an initiative that turns payphones in New York into Wifi hubs run off the ad revenue it makes.

A rep for Google Re/code it has nothing beyond the test in the works: “OOH snap. This is just an experiment with some media agencies in the U.K. No product is currently in development. Keep on driving.”

For the test marketers can use DoubleClick technology to purchase billboard ads programmatically. The test is being run in the U.K., and the ads are served to premium digital screens in transport, roadside locations, and city centers around the U.K.

According to Tim Coller, mobile solutions lead for Google's DoubleClick, the test is a “proof of concept,” telling Business Insider, "There is a common misconception that the merging of these two industries (online and offline advertising) is straightforward. This test has highlighted a number of areas that are fundamentally different and which will require further development and integration before this becomes a market reality. For example: serving dynamic creative, how we look at impressions versus credits, reporting, audience data, buying models, yield management, and latency."

Meanwhile, Google is taking advantage of data to serve more relevant ads on the billboards. And separately, eMarketer says that spending on digital OOH ads is expected to grow 11% in the next few years and will hit $2.96 billion this year.

Eric Franchi, co-founder of digital ad company Undertone, told Re/code, "Large, growing and digital – all the right boxes Google wants to check."