Product News | October 11, 2021

How digital restaurant signage can serve up better content and experiences for diners

In 1955, restaurants represented approximately 25% of US spending on food. By 2019, that number had risen to 51%.

Why? Explanations vary, but it seems to be partly convenience, partly the fun of dining out. There’s also the greater access afforded by food delivery services from foodora, Uber, DoorDash, and many others. It also helps that the range of options today hits a huge variety of price points and dietary options.

Appealing to such a diversity of preferences means the “restaurant industry” represents enormous variety, many unique approaches taken to meet customer demand. What unites all players in the space is a need to communicate effectively with diners and establish the atmosphere they are looking for.

Here’s how digital signage makes that easier.

Sell more (and smarter) with dynamic digital menus

The old way of using static menus has quickly been overtaken, at least by most major players in the QSR and fast casual spaces, by digital menu boards. Brighter, with more vivid color, and capable of displaying moving imagery, digital menus are more attractive on a visceral level. The research bears that out, with a study by Ocean Outdoor finding that moving content on signage is 2.5 times as effective at driving an emotional reaction as static content.

A man standing at a counter. Digital menu boards hang overhead — The enhanced visuals of digital menu boards are more effective at selling to diners

This improvement is just the baseline, though. With intelligent software powering menu displays, it’s possible to add dynamism and automation for better sales and a more fluid customer experience.

Sell upgrades and combos with flashier advertising

It’s easier to sell more to an existing customer than to sell to a new customer, so doing a good job of upselling is a key task restaurants should take on. With digital menu boards, it’s easy to create animated videos that showcase different combos or upsell options and demonstrate the value that they offer.

Highlight the day’s deals for a little extra enticement

Special time-limited products are a big draw (#szechuansauce, anyone?) and there’s no better way to draw attention to special menu items than to give them prominent placement on a bright, beautiful display.

Automatically stop promoting items that have sold out

It’s bad enough when regular menu items sell out, but when time-limited specials with cult followings and fever-pitch excitement sell out, you can have something of a PR crisis on your hands (#szechuansauce, anyone?)

Modern digital menu solutions can integrate the digital menu system with point-of-sale software to track the status of items being sold and remove sold-out foods from being displayed on menus. It’s a way to help manage guest expectations and prevent disappointment from spiralling into a newsworthy story.

Put your guests in control with touchscreens

Digital screens aren’t just a passive medium through which to deliver menus and other content, or at least they don’t have to be. Interactive displays have made major inroads in the restaurant industry in the past several years, and in multiple different forms.

The McDonald’s touchscreen kiosks are a prominent example, and have boosted sales from 3-9 % in many of the regions in which they have been deployed, but they aren’t the only example. Many sushi restaurants, for instance, handle ordering with screens installed or otherwise attached to tables. Information screens in all manner of restaurants, meanwhile, can be used to provide a more self-directed and informative avenue toward discovering more detailed ingredient lists or allergen warnings.

A man at a McDonald's self-serve touchscreen — Interactive displays have helped McDonald’s boost sales in many regions

Best of all, when touch screens are not in use, they can also be used to deliver informational or promotional content to people who are in the vicinity, just like regular screens do.

Deliver informative or attractive content to your customers

Digital displays can be used for purposes other than just menus and advertising. Audiences in many restaurants appreciate having ambient content to accompany their coffee, lunch, or after work meal.

For QSRs, coffee shops, and other casual locales, things like news headlines, weather, and general diversions are likely to grab guests’ attention and entertain them for the duration of their stay. For sports pubs, screens could be used to run interesting stats or trivia about teams playing in that day’s game. But even more upscale environments can make use of digital signage. Digital signage can be used to display modern artwork that creates a unique ambiance and provokes conversation among patrons.

Example: While this media wall is not from a restaurant, it provides a striking demonstration of the artistic potential offered by digital signage.

It’s worth noting that this content and the screens it appears on can all be run through the same digital signage platform as any other menu boards, advertising displays, or interactive screens on your network.

Use screens to flaunt your cred and get social

Restaurant-goers are highly self-directed nowadays, with many spending a fair amount of time researching their options before ever setting foot in the door. According to Trip Advisor’s “Influences on Diner Decision-making” report, about 94% of US diners claim to be influenced by reviews when going to a restaurant, with ratings websites like Trip Advisor, Yelp, Google Maps. and others taking the top spot for most influential.

Achieving a great rating takes hard work, a good product, dedication to customer service, and a bit of luck. If you’re proud of your score on one or more of these services, why not put them up for all to see inside of your restaurant? It’s a little extra proof that your establishment has become a destination to return to for continued enjoyment.

As a bonus, the reviews can be accompanied by appeals to diners inside of the restaurant to take the time to leave their own reviews – a good way to keep growing your online influence.

It bears mentioning, too, that social media posts about your brand can do a lot of good inside of your establishment, not just inside of an app. It’s like unleashing an endless team of great amateur photographers to bring your menu to life. Showcase selected posts tagged at your restaurant, or that display a particular hashtag, and you can create a sense of community while simultaneously marketing your offerings more creatively and compellingly than you likely could otherwise.

A woman photographing her food with a smartphone. She's going to make a social media post about her experience in the restaurant she's eating in — Digital signage can be a great prompt to get people to write reviews or create social media posts about your restaurant

Show off your loyalty program to bring more customers in

Loyalty programs are good for business. According to research by Bond Brand, 70% of loyalty program members say that the program makes them more likely to recommend the brand to others. About 77% say that the program makes it more likely for them to do business with the brand, and 63% say that they plan their spending around loyalty program benefits.

With digital displays inside of a restaurant, the brand can easily promote the steps necessary to achieve membership, or advertise special promotions uniquely available to members. Taking this a step further, with displays that can be interacted with through touch, NFC, or QR codes, is another good way to boost engagement with your guests and create more tailored, memorable experiences.

Do you want to drove more profits and create better restaurant experiences?

Get your free Broadsign demo to see how digital signage can help!

Product News | October 11, 2021

First-party data in digital OOH: What it is and how to leverage it

Digital out-of-home is growing fast, with global spend expected to surpass $20 billion by the end of the year, according to the World Out of Home Organization. As the medium scales, it’s also evolving from broad-reach awareness to more data-driven, audience-first strategies. This shift is making first-party data more important than ever, especially as third-party cookies dwindle and privacy regulations tighten.

Put simply, today’s advertisers are looking for more than just reach—they want precision, personalization, and contextual relevance, even in a traditionally one-to-many channel like OOH. First-party data delivers on that need, offering a privacy-safe and cost-effective way to engage real customers based on actual behaviour and intent. And with modern DOOH platforms making it easier than ever to activate data, brands can now drive better targeting, stronger performance, and a more connected omnichannel experience.

To understand how to make first-party data work in digital out-of-home and outdoor advertising, it’s important to start with the basics, unpack the common barriers, and explore the tools and tactics that make activation possible today.

What is first-party data, and why is it so valuable?

First-party data is information a brand collects directly through its channels, based on real customer interactions or touchpoints. Examples can include actions like pages viewed, time spent on a website, items added to cart, app usage patterns, purchase history, loyalty programs, and more. Because it’s based on actual behaviour within your own ecosystem, and not inferred or purchased, first-party data gives brands a reliable, privacy-safe foundation for targeted, high-impact campaigns.

Tailoring messaging to real audiences and high-value prospects leads to more relevant and effective campaigns. This kind of personalization drives stronger performance, from increased engagement to higher conversion rates. It’s also more cost-efficient, since the data is already owned by the brand and doesn’t require additional spend to access—just the opportunity to activate it more strategically.

Barriers to smarter DOOH campaigns

Despite the growing potential of first-party data, many advertisers still face structural and technical challenges when it comes to putting it into action, especially in outdoor advertising and DOOH environments. Here are a few of the most common barriers:

Data silos between CRM and media teams: In many organizations, the teams responsible for customer data, like CRM, loyalty, or analytics, operate separately from the teams planning and executing media. Without shared systems or workflows, valuable first-party data often stays locked away in internal platforms, disconnected from the tools used to build and target DOOH campaigns.
Technical limitations have made first-party data harder to activate: Bringing first-party data into DOOH hasn’t always been straightforward. Many demand-side platforms (DSPs) lacked the flexibility to support custom data uploads, limiting brands to pre-packaged third-party segments. When activation was possible, it often required custom integrations, manual workarounds, or higher campaign spend—barriers that slowed adoption and limited the ability to fully tap into valuable audience insights.
Perceptions around cost and complexity still linger: Brands may assume data onboarding is expensive, time-consuming, or reserved for large-scale campaigns. But many platforms now offer flexible, self-serve tools or managed support to help teams onboard everything from simple geo lists to advanced CRM segments.

Key considerations and best practices for activating first-party data in DOOH

With the right foundation, audience data can be a powerful driver of performance in DOOH. From preparing your data to choosing the right platforms, here are key considerations and best practices to help you activate it effectively.

Start with a DSP built for data-driven campaigns

Activating your own audience data in DOOH campaigns used to be a heavy lift, requiring custom integrations, technical support, or large-scale media budgets. Today’s DSPs, however, are built to be more flexible and data-friendly. Modern DSP platforms like OutMoove, for example, make it easier to activate customer data with minimal friction, giving advertisers full control over how data is used, where it comes from, and how it impacts campaigns.

Advertisers can use data they already have, like postal codes tied to customer addresses, loyalty program lists, or CRM segments based on purchase history. Many also incorporate behavioural signals like recent website activity to build high-intent audience segments—all without needing to reinvent their targeting strategy.

The benefits? Smarter targeting, stronger performance, and more efficient spending. By using audience insights to go beyond broad awareness, advertisers can connect with people who are more likely to take action. This reduces waste, helping teams focus their budget on audiences that have already shown interest or intent.

Expand reach with multi-layered targeting

Platforms like OutMoove support layered targeting, allowing you to start with your own audience, like loyalty members or recent store visitors, and expand reach by adding third-party segments based on foot traffic patterns, purchase intent, or lifestyle traits. For example, a brand could target its existing in-store shoppers and layer on third-party data to find others who frequently visit similar retail environments. This kind of multi-layered approach unlocks more precise, personalized campaigns without relying solely on broad demographic filters.

Deliver ads at the right time with real-world triggers

Moment targeting allows brands to activate ads based on real-world conditions like weather changes, traffic flow, sports scores, or time of day. These dynamic triggers help ensure your message appears when it’s most relevant, making your media spend more efficient and impactful.

Beyond standard conditions, many platforms now support custom triggers powered by business-specific data. Whether tied to a regional promotion, local event, or time-sensitive inventory, these inputs can be used to control when and where ads appear. This flexibility allows campaigns to align with meaningful moments that drive both relevance and results.

Align with data standards and industry guidelines

While fragmentation across buying methods and data standards has historically made it harder to apply audience data in DOOH as seamlessly as in digital, the industry is making important strides toward alignment, especially around measurement, data integrity, and audience definitions.

Initiatives like the IAB’s Digital Out-of-Home Measurement Guide are helping set a foundation for scalable, data-led campaigns. Introducing standardized metrics gives advertisers more confidence in campaign performance and supports better data collection, impression validation, and privacy compliance under frameworks like GDPR and CCPA. This growing alignment strengthens trust, improves transparency, and simplifies automated buying, making it easier for brands to activate audience data and run more effective, measurable DOOH campaigns.

As digital out-of-home advances, audience data is becoming a key driver of smarter, more impactful campaigns. With the right strategy and tools in place, advertisers can move beyond broad awareness to reach the right people at the right time.

Month: November 2019