These last couple of years have proven to be a hurdle for the OOH (Out-of-Home) media industry. Due to the pandemic and global lockdowns, OOH was among the hardest hit advertising channels as advertisers paused or canceled campaigns. 

Now that the crisis is being managed and lockdowns have been eased, the OOH industry has seen progressive growth with the global market expected to reach almost a quarter of a billion USD by 2024.

OOH inventory is known for its diversity of formats and venues. These billboards and screens can come in different forms and sizes, from big iconic sites in the heart of a city to the smaller tablet screens found in rideshares. These screens can be sold individually or bundled up as a package. 

The Role of a Revenue Management System (RMS)

Owning many screens using platforms that connect to multiple Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) and marketplaces can make it difficult for you to identify which sales channel brings you the most revenue. 

Here’s where a Revenue Management System, or in short RMS, comes into play. It is a software solution that enables you to effectively and efficiently carry out tedious tasks revolving around managing revenue. Not all OOH media owners have the luxury of time to manually run through each revenue stream their business is tied to, to analyze and determine which areas in their business require attention.

A perfect RMS for OOH business owners should be able to connect across various sales channels like direct buying with brands, automated and programmatic media buys, online screen bookings and more.

As a media owner, an RMS should assist you with inventory availability optimization, bookings and sales workflow management, inventory and package management, invoice generation and so on. Allowing your business to run smoothly, like the well-oiled machine you want it to be.

Key Aspects of a RMS

Subscribing to an RMS should help you manage your OOH business effectively while enabling you to maximize revenue and profitability. Giving you a clear picture of which investments of yours are working and which ones require changes. 

Find out more about LMX’s Revenue Management Suite to help you manage your revenue today!

The evolution of OOH media buying methods means that the inventory is now consumed in a variety of ways – especially for digital screens. This includes loop-based, event-based, audience-based, impression-based and other types of campaigns. 

In our recent conversation with the weekender, some of our media partners shared thoughts on how they were able to manage inventories from a single platform and how it has helped them manage multiple revenue streams. Hear from the likes of Ledtronics, Eyetalk Media Ventures, Laguna, and FC Media.

Uncover the full article on Marketing Magazines WEEKENDER issue 334 >>Read More

Location Media Xchange (LMX) is the supply-side technology arm of the Moving Walls Group. This Revenue Management Platform enables  media owners to optimise media availability across multiple sales channels including traditional sales teams, programmatic, open direct, and online self serve channels.

Friday, 27th May 2022, Singapore – Location Media Xchange (LMX), the supply-side technology arm of the Moving Walls Group, has announced the launch of a complete Revenue Management suite for Out of Home (OOH) media owners. 

The product announcement happened as the industry’s leading stakeholders converged at The World Out of Home Congress Toronto 2022. The company is offering a no-obligation 90-day trial for media owners to experience the platform.

OOH’s global renaissance has continued into 2022 after sharp drops during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Several factors including increased travel activity, growth of digital signage, and the growing interest in Programmatic Digital OOH advertising is contributing to this.

Efficiently Managing Multiple Demand Channels

OOH media owners now handle multiple sales channels – direct brand relationships, agency-managed spends, programmatic or automated media buys, and even online campaign bookings. Allocating inventory in an efficient manner is critical because unlike digital publishers who own virtual space, OOH media owners own physical assets that consume fixed costs like electricity, internet fees, maintenance, and more.

The expansion of OOH buying methods also means that the inventory is now consumed in a variety of ways – loop based, event based, audience based, impression based, and so on. Maintaining up to minute availability information, understanding utilisation, and prioritising sales channels is just not scalable if done manually.

The LMX Revenue management suite solves this by providing an online platform that connects traditional, programmatic, and other forms of campaign booking information in one place. The platform seamlessly connects to native and third party applications like the content management system or the accounting system by the media owner.

According to Mandakini Negi, Co-Founder Moving walls & Global Head of LMX, “It is difficult to improve what you cannot measure. OOH media today is bought and sold in several ways and media owners who have a handle on inventory utilisation and demand trends across all their media sites in real time will be able to make decisions that improve their revenues.” 

LMX already works with more than 200 media owners across the globe including Southeast Asian markets (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam), India, The Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria, South Africa), and Latin America. The platform supports all kinds of media owners who use it to manage different parts of their business.

According to Gautam Bhirani, Managing Director, Eyetalk Media Ventures (India), “Our network of screens spans across multiple locations. Just as the content on these screens is managed centrally, we require a system to understand live availability, build proposals, and accept campaign requests in an automated manner. The LMX suite does all of this from one application.” 

Similarly, FC Media (Morocco) uses LMX to provide measurement for their residential screen network “Accountable media channels build trust and therefore attract more spends. As the media owner, no one should know more about our sites’ performance than us. LMX Measure enables us to provide campaign forecast and delivery metrics beyond just the ad plays,” says Saad Bencharef, Directeur du Patrimoine at FC Communication.

Meanwhile, Eddie Song, Managing Director, Laguna De Bay (Malaysia) says that Integrating DOOH screens to the programmatic ecosystem is just the first step. “Just like digital, we need to make sure our inventory is visible and accessible to multiple demand partners. LMX Connect provides our network with the ability to transact with omnichannel and specialist Demand Side Platforms locally and globally.” 

Finally, for digital signage, the content management system (CMS) is the heart that keeps it functioning, says Victor Wong, Founder and Managing Director, Ledtronics (Malaysia). Today’s DOOH ad serving requirements go way beyond just scheduling creatives. There are creative rules, verification, and programmatic integrations involved too. The LMX CMS fits the bill as it is already natively connected to the deal acceptance, creative approval, and inventory management features of the platform.” 

For press related inquiries, please contact quinn@movingwalls.com 

About LMX

Location Media Xchange (LMX), a newly formed company under the Moving Walls group, is the world’s first independent advertising technology company that is powered by a multi-sensor location media viewership measurement approach. LMX has been designed for brands and marketers to be able to reach moving audiences where they spend most of their time. LMX provides a platform for marketers to profile locations based on the types of audiences around there and activate mobile and physical place-based media like digital billboards to reach them during this offline journey.

The world today is screen-bound. Most brands and businesses rely heavily on digital marketing (online) to insert themselves into the lives of their customers. However, out-of-home advertising (OOH) is still widely used by these same brands to reach potential customers on the go, increase brand awareness and drive revenue. 

Brands are taking advantage of this unique opportunity to engage with their target audiences when they are not staring at their computer or mobile screens. Without the ability to skip ads, OOH proves that it is still a reliable advertising medium for marketers. More than reliability, OOH gives marketers the impact they need for a campaign.

With that in mind, OOH is thriving now more than ever. According to the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA), the first and second quarters of 2022 were very successful for the industry. In the first quarter of the year, advertising revenues increased by 40.5%, and in the second quarter by 28.9% compared to the same periods of the previous year. 

OAAA President and CEO, Anna Bager believes OOH will surpass the same period in 2019, which means the industry is on track to match or perhaps exceed pre-pandemic spend. 

How does This Affect OOH Media Owners like You?

This great news is a great opportunity for OOH leaders. The increase in spending on OOH can only lead to one thing - more requests for ad space! 

With the increase in demand, market-leading media owners with a huge inventory supply are receiving an overwhelming number of inbound requests. This is a good problem for media owners as the demand for your services increases. But this is where it gets complicated. The volume of incoming requests can exceed the capacity of the resources you have on the ground. 

It's difficult for media owners like you to allocate your resources appropriately to handle these incoming requests, resulting in a potential loss of customers and revenue. Alarm bells are ringing in the ears of business owners at OOH.

How do You Address This Challenge?

A temporary solution may be to increase current sales staff. This would mean additional costs for entrepreneurs to train a new team, and this cycle could repeat itself as demand increases. 

There is another solution for OOH media owners today. AdTech companies in the outdoor advertising industry continue to find new ways to simplify the sales and campaign execution processes. One of their more recent developments is self-serve advertising platforms for the industry. The term self-serve advertising means that advertisers or media buyers can now plan an advertising campaign and buy sites that meet their needs without interacting with a physical sales representative or a media owner themselves.

In other words, a self-serve advertising platform allows advertisers to choose the specifications they need for their campaigns - campaign duration, site location, audience segmentation, type of inventory, and so on. These platforms may also come with a programmatic function that allows campaigns to run automatically based on the specific details selected.

How Would This Help Your OOH Business?

Media owners can now own your own "e-commerce" platform that sells your inventory at the prices you want. This self-service ad platform can be integrated into an existing website, and media buyers who look you up online or happen to come across your website can now schedule and run their campaigns independently on this platform.

Buyers can schedule a campaign and submit a proposal to you. As a media owner, you have the option to accept or reject this offer. Media buyers can then make payments online using a payment method of your choice - Paypal, Internet banking, etc. This creates transparency for both media owners and media buyers. 

With LMX Online, you can now have your own white-labelled self-service ad platform that can help you close deals online. It can also serve as a lead generator. Your self-service platform will be customised according to your needs - adding parameters, location data, inventory packages and more.

You can book a demo today to understand how a self-serve ad platform works and experience it for yourself.