Digital out-of-home (DOOH) and programmatic advertising should go hand in hand.
After all, DOOH campaigns are essentially digital banner ads placed in real-world environments rather than online. And DOOH media owners could benefit from the same access to programmatic demand as other digital publishers.
But programmatic has been slow to grow within the DOOH market or power the category’s growth.
That’s because traditional out-of-home (OOH) media – static physical billboards and signage – is unsuitable for programmatic buying. And since entrenched buying habits are so hard to kick, DOOH inventory is still mostly sold directly.
In 2023, the US OOH market saw a total of $9 billion in ad spend, with $2.9 billion going to DOOH, according to eMarketer. But only about half a billion dollars’ worth of DOOH was transacted programmatically.
DOOH monetization startup Screenverse launched in 2020 to make programmatic demand accessible to midtier DOOH networks. To make that happen, Screenverse announced on Tuesday that it has raised a $10.5 million Series A round.
Tapping programmatic demand
The new funding represents the entirety of what Screenverse has raised since it launched four years ago. Growth equity firm Volition Capital was the sole investor in the round.
The startup was co-founded by CEO David Weinfeld and President Adam Malone.
Weinfeld was the former sales director for publisher solutions at Vistar Media, where he helmed development of its OOH SSP and ad server. Malone was VP of innovation and partnerships at OOH media software company DOmedia, where he got to know “hundreds if not thousands” of DOOH media owners, he told AdExchanger.
And because DOmedia operated an end-to-end ad network between OOH buyers and sellers, Malone gained insight into “which of these networks had real media value and potential to be successful,” he said.
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When a company services both sides of the ad-buying ecosystem, he said, it gravitates toward serving the buy side because catering to buyers ultimately helps sellers (and the business) make more money.
“The founding question is: How much better could some of these networks be doing if they had a dedicated team that woke up every day, [working to] maximize sales within this emerging programmatic channel?” Malone said.
For example, Screenverse encourages advertisers to include programmatic DOOH budgets within social media and mobile campaigns, Malone said.
To make that easier, Screenverse prioritizes DOOH media owners whose displays conform to 1920×1080 screen resolutions, so advertisers can adapt social media and mobile creative for DOOH screens.
“If you standardize the ad unit and have a universal currency, then you can effectively sell through The Trade Desk and DV360,” Malone said.
Publisher network
Screenverse’s DOOH publisher network includes 90,000 screens.
Key partners include:
- TouchTunes, a digital jukebox company with 50,000 screens installed in bars and restaurants.
- Pursuant Health, a health and wellness screening company with kiosks in 4,600 Walmart locations.
- FuelMedia TV, which has signage at 8,000 gas pumps.
Screenverse also has partnerships with Trailhead Media and Smartify Media, which place so-called “urban panel” displays in high-traffic areas in US cities, and theBulletin, a DOOH network for luxury residential buildings.
To provide a standardized buying currency, media owners in Screenverse’s network use third-party audience measurement provided by either Geopath or PerView by Place Exchange.
Growth plans
Screenverse has 24 employees, with plans to add about 20 employees over the next 12 months with the help of its new cash reserve. The company also earmarked a portion of its funding for R&D, which will focus on enhancing its three-pronged publisher suite. The sell-side offering includes an inventory management system, a measurement and reporting suite and a pricing optimization tool.
These tools already rely on machine learning, Malone said, but the plan is to see if they can “incorporate AI in a meaningful way.” (How else do you raise money nowadays?)
Screenverse is most active in the US, with some partnerships in Canada. But international expansion is not a priority since many emerging markets lack mature DOOH infrastructure, Malone said.
“We don’t have the ambition to go global for the sake of it,” he said.
However, the company will consider expansion where it makes sense. “It really depends on how mature those programmatic ecosystems are,” he said, “and if they need our services.”
