Product News | October 11, 2021

Retail Media In-Store Report: 4 key insights shaping RMN strategies in 2025

For retailers seeking fresh revenue streams, the next big play isn’t online: it’s in-store. As digital inventory becomes saturated and competition intensifies, forward-thinking players are expanding their retail media networks (RMNs) into the physical environment — where most purchases still happen — connecting digital and in-store touchpoints to influence shoppers at the exact moment of decision.

To better understand this shift, the Retail Media: In-Store Report 2025, authored by leading retail media expert Colin Lewis and produced in collaboration with Broadsign, examines how in-store channels are evolving, the commercial models shaping their growth, and the measurement advances helping to prove ROI.

The four takeaways below highlight some of the biggest insights from the report — from market momentum and technology adoption to omnichannel integration and the maturation of measurement. Together, they illustrate why in-store is poised to become the next frontier of retail media.

Key takeaways for retailers:

Takeaway #1: In-store is the next growth frontier

While onsite and offsite channels still dominate retail media spend, in-store is fast emerging as the next growth driver. Globally, retail media is projected to reach $169.6 billion this year, surpassing TV ad revenue for the first time. Yet despite its relatively small share today, in-store retail media is on track to hit $1 billion by 2028 as retailers scale their digital capabilities and advertisers embrace the channel’s unique advantages.

Grocery chains may have pioneered the space, but they’re no longer alone. Today, other industries are developing their own retail media networks and using their physical presence to capitalize on this shift. With the right media capabilities and commercial strategy, the in-store opportunity stretches far beyond grocery to include sectors like petrol and convenience, shopping centres, hotels, and hospitality.

The appeal is clear: in-store combines mass reach in a high-attention environment with the ability to influence purchase decisions and drive real-time conversions at the shelf.

“In-store will begin to emerge as the new TV — a mass-reach advertising vehicle ideal for brands. Digital surfaces deliver what brands want and what linear TV has lost: fast reach, high attentiveness, younger audiences, and cultural relevance.”
— Andrew Lipsman, Media Ads and Commerce, Retail Media: In-Store Report 2025

For retailers, that makes in-store an invaluable extension of their RMN. By monetizing previously untapped foot traffic, they can unlock new revenue streams while strengthening omnichannel shopper engagement.

Takeaway #2: Screens and tech are redefining the store

At the heart of in-store retail media are digital screens — from large-format video walls to shelf-edge screens and point-of-purchase (POP) displays — delivering dynamic, data-driven campaigns right at the point of decision. These screens can adapt content based on time of day, weather, or even local shopping behaviours, helping brands capture attention and influence basket size in real time.

But screens are just the start. Retailers are experimenting with other technologies that add depth and interactivity to the shopper journey, including:

Smart carts equipped with built-in displays
QR codes that connect signage, demos, or packaging to digital content, loyalty apps, or online campaigns
Interactive kiosks for product lookups, recipe ideas, or coupon printing
AI-powered shelves that trigger promotions when stock runs low
AR-enabled mirrors for virtual try-ons
Bluetooth beacons that send personalized offers to shoppers’ phones

Traditional formats will also continue to play a role. Print signage, product sampling, and in-store audio remain effective ways to reach shoppers, but they’re being reimagined with digital elements layered in. For example, dynamic QR codes on posters, demo carts, or packaging can link to apps, loyalty perks, or campaign landing pages — turning otherwise static interactions into measurable, omnichannel experiences.

Leading retailers are already proving what’s possible. Tesco’s “Scan as You Shop” handheld devices double as ad platforms powered by loyalty data. Meanwhile, Walmart is ramping up in-store advertising through its 170,000 digital screens, store-wide radio network, and new weekend sampling stations. Advertisers can pair demo tables with QR codes that drive shoppers to online options, recipes, or seasonal content, while bundling campaigns across screens, audio, and physical activations to maximize the impact at the point of sale.

Walmart is expanding digital in-store advertising, offering brands placements on self-checkout screens to reach shoppers at the point of purchase. Photo: Walmart/CNBC

Together, these innovations are transforming physical stores into full-fledged digital media environments — and giving retailers a scalable foundation to grow their retail media networks beyond the confines of ecommerce.

Takeaway #3: Omnichannel integration is key

In-store media doesn’t exist in a vacuum — its real power comes when it’s connected with onsite and offsite channels as part of a seamlessly integrated RMN. When campaigns carry through from a retailer’s website or app into the physical store, brands can maintain consistent messaging and attribution across the full shopper journey, from brand awareness to purchase conversion.

In-store plays a role at every stage of the funnel:

Awareness: Strategically placed signage, displays, and demos act as discovery tools, especially for impulse or unplanned purchases.
Consideration: Interactive kiosks and QR codes surface reviews, ratings, and tutorials to help customers evaluate products.
Conversion: Digital displays, shelf talkers, and personalized mobile app push notifications can close the deal by offering time-sensitive promotions, bundling offers, or reminders of loyalty benefits.

Strategic integration makes these moments even more powerful. As consumers move fluidly between online browsing, mobile researching, and physical shopping, in-store media becomes a central node for narrative and experiential cohesion:

On-site integration: Link in-store media to shopper data from ecommerce sites, apps, and loyalty programs to bridge physical and digital experiences. Integration can also flow the other way, extending in-store inventory visibility into online ads — surfacing an “Available now in your local store!” message when browsing online — or using digital receipts to deliver post-purchase content, cross-sells, and offers.
Offsite integration: Connect in-store campaigns with offsite media like social, search, and CTV to drive store visits and purchases. Geotargeted programmatic ads can be timed with in-store launches, while influencer content and localized social ads guide shoppers into physical stores.

Real-world examples show how this works in practice. Tesco has piloted dynamic shelf-edge screens that adjust pricing and promotions in real time based on stock levels, time of day, or shopper profile. And Sephora has reimagined the beauty aisle with digital touchpoints that bring product reviews and tutorials into the store, most notably through its “Store of the Future” pilots in Asia, which blend interactive displays with personalized consultations to create a seamless digital-physical shopping experience.

Sephora’s in-store kiosks extend its “Virtual Artist” app, letting shoppers try on products digitally for a personalized, interactive experience. Photo: Karsten Moran/The New York Times

Takeaway #4: Campaign measurement and commercial models are maturing

As retail media matures, advertisers expect the same accountability they’re used to from digital channels. It’s no longer enough to simply sell screen space — brands want evidence that in-store activations drive measurable results. For retailers, delivering credible, transparent measurement is essential to building trust and attracting repeat ad spend.

Industry-wide standards are starting to take shape. To bring more consistency and instill brands with greater confidence in directing marketing spend toward in-store campaigns, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has introduced a set of standards that aim to provide unified definitions, measurement guidelines, and best practices for in-store retail media. While full standardization is still a work in progress, retailers don’t have to wait to start building credibility with advertisers.

While in-store retail media measurement is still developing, many best practices build on established digital out-of-home (DOOH) approaches. For a deeper dive into methodologies, see our guides on DOOH metrics, ROI measurement, and attribution.

At the same time, commercial models are evolving to meet different advertiser and campaign needs. In-store retail media is borrowing from digital and out-of-home playbooks but adapting them for the physical retail environment, where placements span digital screens, audio systems, shelf displays, and experiential zones.

The choice of model shapes not only ROI for brands but also how retailers monetize their networks and structure long-term growth, with several common approaches taking shape:

CPM (cost per thousand impressions): Mirrors digital buying habits and works well for digital screens and audio, but relies on accurate impression tracking.
Tenancy or fixed placement: Predictable pricing for high-traffic placements or seasonal pushes, though less performance-driven.
Hybrid approaches: Blend fixed fees with added value like co-marketing, shopper insights, or data access.
Performance-based models: Tie costs directly to outcomes such as sales lift, with risk and reward shared between retailer and brand.
Sponsorships and experiential packages: High-impact brand-building plays, often tied to events or seasonal themes.

Each model suits different situations: new entrants may lean on performance-based or fixed-fee options to minimize risk, established CPGs often prefer tenancy or CPM for reliable visibility at scale, and premium or lifestyle brands may invest in sponsorships to build emotional resonance. However, the broader trend across the industry is toward hybrid models that pair fixed costs with measurable outcomes, supported by richer data and more sophisticated retail media networks.

Start building your in-store retail media strategy

In-store retail media may have trailed online in the past, but it’s catching up fast. With shoppers’ attention at its peak inside stores and new technologies making campaigns more measurable and scalable, the channel has quickly shifted from underutilized to essential. Put simply, if you haven’t invested in in-store solutions yet, you’re already falling behind.

For retailers, it’s a chance to unlock stronger RMN revenue growth while deepening omnichannel engagement. For brands, it’s an opportunity to reach consumers at the exact moment of purchase. And for the industry at large, it’s a sign that the future of retail media won’t just be online — it will be in-store.

Want to dive deeper? Explore the full Retail Media In-Store Report 2025 or check out Broadsign’s resources on building a scalable in-store retail media network that can support long-term growth.

Product News | October 11, 2021

Broadsign and Mirakl Ads Announce Strategic Partnership to Unify Online and In-Store Retail Media

Cannes, France – June 24, 2026 — At the 73rd Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Mirakl, the Operating System for Intelligent Commerce, and Broadsign, the leading global platform for managing and monetising out-of-home (OOH) media, today announced a strategic partnership that bridges the gap between digital retail media channels and in-store advertising. The collaboration will enable more retailers and brands to activate, manage, and measure campaigns across the entire shopper journey through a single platform.

As retail media continues to mature, advertisers are increasingly demanding omnichannel solutions that better reflect how consumers shop: researching online, then purchasing in-store. However, executing retail media campaigns across online, offline, and in-store channels today typically involves separate vendor management, fragmented planning processes, and siloed reporting. This partnership sets out to change that by integrating Mirakl Ads’ retail media solution for eCommerce and digital marketplaces with Broadsign’s in-store media platform.

For Mirakl’s Retail customers, leveraging the integration will ensure a unified buying experience for their advertisers: one campaign brief and one point of contact, covering both e-commerce placements and in-store digital screens. The partnership opens a new path to monetizing physical in-store assets alongside existing online inventory. It unlocks incremental revenue while giving advertisers omnichannel reach.

As the two companies build the integration, retailer control will be central: Mirakl Ads will power the retail media network, while the Broadsign Platform manages the technical delivery of in-store content. Retailers retain full ownership of their data, shopper experience, inventory, and pricing decisions, while maintaining the flexibility to build on existing technology investments. Advertisers benefit from a consolidated view of campaign performance across online and in-store channels, so every dollar spent can be measured, compared, and optimized across the full shopper journey.

“Retail media has evolved rapidly, but online, offline, and in-store are often still treated as separate channels, leading to missed opportunities and revenue,” said Mats Klevjer, Director of Partnerships for Retail Media, Broadsign. “Our work with Mirakl Ads on this integration breaks down those barriers, helping retailers give advertisers the ability to transact on in-store screens with the same ease and performance metrics they expect of digital campaigns.”

“Retailers are asking for solutions that maximize the value of every customer touchpoint, both digital and physical,” said Octavie Gosselin, Vice President of Mirakl Ads. “By partnering with Broadsign, we are setting out to build a truly unified omnichannel retail media platform. Brands will be able to benefit from a single campaign brief covering both their online and in-store presence, and the opportunity ahead, for retailers, advertisers, and the broader ecosystem, is significant.”

Both companies are actively bringing this omnichannel vision to life, with phased capabilities expected to expand. The integration is anticipated to launch in Q3, with beta testing already underway.

About Broadsign

Broadsign develops the leading global platform for managing and monetizing out-of-home (OOH) media. The company, which also operates Place Exchange by Broadsign, the largest independent SSP for Digital OOH, empowers media owners, media buyers, and retailers to harness the power and reach of out-of-home to connect with audiences in ways unlike any other advertising channel. More than 2.8 million static and digital signs along roadways and in airports, shopping malls, grocery and convenience stores, health clinics, transit systems, and more run on Broadsign.

About Mirakl

Founded in 2012, Mirakl has been at the forefront of marketplace innovation, empowering every business to compete in the platform economy.

Today, Mirakl’s operating system combines an enterprise marketplace solution (Mirakl Platform) that enables retailers and B2B organizations to launch, scale, and operate marketplaces and dropship, AI-powered multichannel selling (Mirakl Connect), retail media (Mirakl Ads) and an agentic commerce infrastructure (Mirakl Nexus).

With dual headquarters in Boston and Paris, Mirakl helps a global ecosystem of 450+ marketplaces (B2C and B2B) and a network of over 100k third-party marketplace sellers. Brands like Macy’s, Decathlon, Carrefour, Asos, and Airbus Helicopters use Mirakl to grow their businesses in new and remarkable ways. Contact: press@mirakl.com

Product News | October 11, 2021

From brief to activation: Inside the first fully agentic AI-powered OOH campaign

Out-of-home advertising has long been one of the strongest value propositions in the media mix. While programmatic has completely transformed how digital OOH inventory is bought and sold — bringing it on par with other digital channels — direct sales of OOH inventory still require significant manual effort. From developing media plans and evaluating inventory options to negotiating pricing, trafficking creatives, executing buys, and managing reporting and invoicing, the process can be very time-consuming, especially when campaigns involve multiple venue categories, inventory types, and publishers across the highly fragmented OOH landscape.

But that process just got a lot faster.

Broadsign’s sell-side AI agent and digital marketing agency Draft Digital’s buy-side agent recently enabled the first end-to-end OOH media buy, transforming what would otherwise have been a complex operational effort into a seamless, rapid, and efficient experience. The campaign was for Lot of Happiness and ran on Global Netherlands premium inventory. It marked the first time an OOH media buy has been powered by agentic AI from beginning to end, using the brand’s campaign goals to inform audience and venue targeting, media selection, campaign setup, and execution. Together, the buy-side and sell-side agents coordinated complex tasks across parties, with human oversight and guardrails in place to ensure alignment with campaign objectives and compliance with local regulations and restrictions.

Read on to learn more about how the process unfolded — and what it means for the future of OOH.

Meet the campaign that made history

Lot of Happiness is a purpose-driven lottery based in the Netherlands with a straightforward premise: every ticket purchase benefits a cause chosen by the buyer, with roughly 50% of every sale going directly to charities like Make-A-Wish Nederland and the ALS Foundation Netherlands. As a growing organization without the deep media budgets of commercial lottery players, Lot of Happiness has built its growth strategy around operational creativity and innovation rather than outspending competitors. That orientation made them a natural early mover on this kind of experiment.

The campaign ran with a “Win-Win” message — rooted in the idea that every ticket purchase supports a charitable cause while giving participants the chance to win prizes. — delivering more than 830,000 impressions across screens inside supermarkets, shopping malls, gas stations, and on city streets throughout the Netherlands.

But as compelling as their social mission is, it’s not the creative that made this execution notable. It’s how the buy happened.

What typically required days to weeks of email-based coordination moved from brief to booked plan — with human approval — in less than 15 minutes. To understand how this came about, it’s worth taking a closer look at the agentic solutions involved and what they did.

A media plan built in minutes

On our end, we built a new sell-side AI agent layer on top of the existing infrastructure for Broadsign In-Advance — an automated booking capability that allows advertisers to reserve guaranteed DOOH ad space months in advance. The sell-side agent acted as an automated query and negotiation layer: when Draft Digital submitted the Lot of Happiness campaign brief through their buy-side agent, our agent returned available inventory from our In-Advance-enabled ecosystem of media owners that matched the campaign’s targeting criteria.

On the buy side, Draft Digital used Claude.ai to build the campaign brief and drive the planning process, translating campaign goals into targeting criteria, querying Broadsign’s available inventory, and generating a media plan for the buyer to review and approve.

Once the buyer reviewed and approved the plan, the booking was activated through Broadsign’s Place Exchange SSP and delivered programmatically on Global Netherlands’ screens.

The Ad Context Protocol (AdCP) — an emerging open standard for enabling AI agents to communicate across the advertising supply chain — served as the connective tissue, providing a standardized way for the two agents to communicate across organizational boundaries.

Human review remained part of the process at key stages. On the agency side, that review followed what Jasmijn Kruis, Digital Marketing Consultant at Draft Digital, calls the “four-eye principle”: the buyer checks the plan, and then a second person checks the buyer’s work. “You don’t want an extra zero showing up where it’s not supposed to,” she explains. Creative was submitted through the standard approval workflow, ensuring compliance requirements remained fully intact throughout.

Crucially, agentic AI in media buying isn’t about removing human judgment; it’s about drastically reducing the manual labour surrounding it.

Why OOH is a natural fit for agentic AI

The case for agentic AI in OOH is, in many ways, even stronger than in other channels. As a context-driven medium, OOH is rich in data that goes beyond the audience, the creative, and the screen. Success depends on understanding how a brand’s message connects to a particular audience in a particular place at a particular time. With hundreds of thousands of campaigns to learn from, AI can help surface those patterns and apply them at scale.

“Overlaying AI atop our global static and digital OOH supply, together with advanced data and execution capabilities — such as screen-level audience indexes, dynamic creative, and guaranteed in-advance buying — opens the door to new possibilities for OOH planning and activation,” explains Broadsign CTO Bryan Mongeau. “This innovative collaboration is only the beginning.”

For Global Netherlands, what stood out about the collaboration was the sum of its parts: no single party could have done this alone. “By combining Broadsign’s infrastructure with buy-side intelligence, Draft Digital’s ambition, and our diverse digital out-of-home offering, we’ve shown how AI-driven planning can enhance the speed, precision, and flexibility of direct buys, mirroring the benefits of programmatic OOH,” says Mink Zwolsman, Business Development Director at Global Netherlands. “For us, this is a meaningful step toward making our inventory even more accessible to buyers who want seamless, omnichannel campaigns.”

The Lot of Happiness buy illustrates what that looks like in practice. Because the campaign ran alongside the client’s first television buy, Draft Digital designed the OOH targeting to synchronize with TV viewership patterns and reinforce the messaging — placing ads in areas with high concentrations of TV-viewing audiences, timed to appear before broadcast slots so viewers would see the OOH ads before seeing them on the living room screen. “We tested different types of pacing to see how the system would react,” explains Kruis, “and because we were also running on TV, we wanted the OOH ads to appear in areas with high concentrations of TV-watching audiences — at times before they would watch — so there would be a connection.”

That kind of multi-variable precision — layering viewership patterns, proximity patterns, and time-based targeting across an entire country — is exactly the kind of planning at which agentic AI excels. What would take a human planner days of data aggregation and analysis was built into the brief and surfaced instantaneously.

Getting ahead of the shift

This campaign was a first, but it won’t be the last. Whether you’re on the buy side or the sell side, agentic AI is going to transform OOH — here’s what to expect and how to embrace that shift.

If you’re an agency or media buyer

Follow the audience. OOH is traditionally bought by selecting locations, but locations are really just proxies for the audiences that advertisers want to reach. AI-driven plans can select the inventory that indexes highest against a target audience, choosing from all available options — including niche placements and underutilized formats that humans may miss when trying to limit the buy to a few networks to reduce complexity. AI can handle the complexity and surface the best options to reach any desired audience.
Embrace contextual targeting. Whether it’s a billboard during the morning commute, a screen at the grocery checkout, an office building elevator screen during lunchtime, or a TV behind the bar on gameday, the power of OOH lies in context: delivering a message in a particular place at a particular time. Connecting audiences to locations and times can be a labour-intensive process, but with the right data inputs, AI can make those connections quickly and help ensure the right context for every impression.
Elevate from task execution to strategic orchestration. AI agents can absorb the burden of low-level tasks, freeing up humans to focus on the end-to-end process — ensuring brief quality, defining campaign objectives, directing creative, designing learning agendas, and gleaning campaign insights.

If you’re a media owner or publisher

Expect a broader pool of buyers. AI will expose your inventory to a larger pool of demand, creating opportunities for more revenue — but it also means publishers will need to meet that demand with intelligent inventory allocation and yield optimization, as well as capabilities like competitive separation and timely advertiser and creative approvals. AI tools can help with all of the above.
Improve discoverability. Buy-side agents evaluate inventory against a wide variety of criteria — including location, screen characteristics, supported ad formats, venue type, and screen-level audience indexing. The more comprehensive and accurate your screen-level data, the more likely your inventory is to be surfaced as a potential match when those criteria align.
Maintain human oversight and control. AI will make buying and selling media smarter, faster, and more effective, but publishers remain in control. Identify the key decision points in your sales engine — pricing, approvals, restrictions — and define the processes, guardrails, monitoring, and reporting that ensure everything operates within your business parameters.

Whether you’re on the buy side or the sell side, success will depend on choosing the right partners who understand your goals and can help design and implement solutions that fit your needs.

What comes next

Broadsign powers close to three million static and digital signs globally — including the largest single source of programmatically enabled OOH supply in the world. While this pilot focused on Broadsign In-Advance-enabled inventory, the next phase will extend to all programmatically enabled screens. Our mission is to bring innovative technology to media owners to help them power their business — and agentic AI is the next chapter in that story.

Global OOH ad spend reached $37.18 billion in 2025 and is expected to reach $56.1 billion by 2030, driven in large part by digitization, programmatic maturation, and a growing appetite for real-world presence amid continued screen fatigue. As buying workflows continue to evolve, AI will give OOH media owners the opportunity to ensure their inventory is positioned for the next evolution of media planning and activation.

The question is no longer whether agentic workflows will play a role in media buying, but how quickly the industry will adapt to capitalize on the opportunity. Here at Broadsign, we’re already working with OOH media owners to help them prepare for what comes next.

Media owners interested in making their inventory discoverable to agentic buyers can reach out to Broadsign to explore what’s possible.

Product News | October 11, 2021

DOOH specs guide: What media buyers and planners need to know before launching a campaign

Digital out-of-home (DOOH) specs follow different rules from other digital formats — and buyers who don’t know where those differences lie tend to find out the hard way, through rejected files, stalled approvals, and delayed campaign delivery.

Whether you’re setting up a digital OOH campaign for the first time or a seasoned pro troubleshooting an approval issue, this guide covers the key creative specs you need to know to create a DOOH campaign that gets results: common display and video dimensions, accepted file types and technical requirements, and other digital OOH specs best practices and considerations before trafficking.

Working closely with our global network of media owners and publisher partners, we’ve gained first-hand insight into what they actually require from incoming DOOH creative — and the specs and requirements in this guide reflect those real-world standards. Consider this your cheat sheet for getting your campaign approved for launch the first time.

Jump to:

Why DOOH specs differ from other digital ad formats
Common DOOH creative dimensions and screen formats
Digital OOH media specs: File types and other technical requirements

Why DOOH specs differ from other digital ad formats

Digital OOH operates within a closed-screen ecosystem, where media owners approve every creative before it runs on their screens. As a result, DOOH has technical requirements that don’t exist in web-based environments.

Unlike web or social advertising, DOOH doesn’t rely on open exchanges where compliant creatives run automatically without publisher review. Even when digital OOH campaigns are bought programmatically through oRTB (Open Real-Time Bidding), every creative still requires publisher approval. That process ultimately dictates accepted file types, restricted tags, and how creative rotation is managed.

The practical implication: getting DOOH specs wrong isn’t just a technical inconvenience. It triggers a revision-and-resubmission loop that stalls the approval process and delays campaign delivery. Understanding why each requirement exists makes it easier to build a compliant creative workflow from the start, rather than reverse-engineering the rules after something breaks.

Common DOOH creative dimensions and screen formats

DOOH inventory spans a wide range of placements and screen types — from large-format digital billboards to transit venue displays to in-store retail screens — and each environment comes with its own standard dimensions. Across digital OOH inventory, landscape (1920×1080 px) and portrait (1080×1920 px) are among the most widely supported formats. Building creative for both orientations is recommended wherever possible, since limiting to one orientation limits access to available inventory.

The key creative specs below represent some of the most frequently used creative sizes. While there may be notable exceptions for certain inventory types, these formats provide broad compatibility across venue categories, including Entertainment, Health and Beauty, Movie Theatres, Office Buildings, Point of Care, Residential, Retail, Transit, Urban Panels, Billboards, Taxi Tops, and more.

Use these dimensions as a practical baseline. They cover some of the most common aspect ratios and give your team a clear starting point for placement-specific adjustments.

Static (display) creative: Common formats

Format	Aspect ratio	Dimensions	Common venue categories
Landscape (widescreen)	16:9	1920 × 1080 px	Entertainment, Health & Beauty, Movie Theatres, Office Buildings, Point of Care, Residential, Retail, Transit, Urban Panels, and more
Portrait	9:16	1080 × 1920 px	Entertainment, Health & Beauty, Movie Theatres, Office Buildings, Point of Care, Residential, Retail, Transit, Urban Panels, and more
Horizontal banner	7:2 or 21:10	1400 × 400 px or 840 × 400 px	Billboards, Taxi Tops, Transit

Video creative: Common formats

Format	Aspect ratio	Dimensions	Common venue categories
Landscape (widescreen)	16:9	1920 × 1080 px	Entertainment, Health & Beauty, Movie Theatres, Office Buildings, Point of Care, Residential, Retail, Transit, Urban Panels, and more
Portrait	9:16	1080 × 1920 px	Entertainment, Health & Beauty, Movie Theatres, Office Buildings, Point of Care, Residential, Retail, Transit, Urban Panels, and more
Horizontal frame	4:3	1280 × 960 px	Entertainment, Point of Care, Retail, Transit, and more

Per the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) creative guidelines, common DOOH video lengths include 8, 10, 15, or 30 seconds — making 15 seconds a safe, widely supported default for broad inventory compatibility.

Build with the final screen placement in mind. Creative that isn’t sized to the screen’s native resolution may appear cropped, letterboxed, or distorted — all of which can trigger rejection during the publisher approval process.

Creative and inventory exceptions

If your campaign includes any of the following, confirm whether additional requirements apply before building your creative:

Spectaculars: Specs vary by screen
Airport media: Select airport screens require non-standard creative sizes. Video durations are also typically 10 seconds rather than 15 seconds
Sensitive content categories: Creatives featuring alcohol, cannabis, or political messaging may be subject to additional restrictions that vary by market, venue type, and media owner

For more creative build guidelines and campaign-building tips to simplify the entire DOOH process, check out our Best Practices Guide: How to create DOOH campaigns that get results.

Digital OOH media specs: File types and other technical requirements

DOOH supports three creative types — static display (JPG/PNG), video (MP4), and dynamic/DCO creative (HTML5, where publisher support is available).

Accepted creative file formats

Static Display: Accepted formats include JPG and PNG. Technical requirements include 72 ppi standard resolution and RGB colour mode
Video: Accepted format includes MP4. Technical requirements include an even-numbered pixel resolution, a bit rate below 5,000 kbps, and a standard frame rate of 30 fps
Dynamic/DCO: Accepted format includes HTML5. Technical requirements vary by publisher and should be confirmed before trafficking. Additional pre-approval from the media owner is typically required

Build all files in RGB and keep file sizes within the network’s recommended limits. Oversized files are a common cause of playback issues on bandwidth-limited screens — and unlike web ads, DOOH playback failures are visible to everyone nearby. File size requirements vary by publisher, so confirm specifications with your representative.

HTML5 and dynamic creative (DCO)

HTML5 is the standard format for dynamic DOOH creative — enabling real-time data feeds, weather-triggered messaging, countdown timers, and dynamic creative optimization (DCO). If the goal is creative that updates based on external conditions rather than looping a fixed file, HTML5 is how that’s built and trafficked in DOOH.

Ready to launch a high-impact, creative out-of-home campaign that delivers results? Browse our inventory catalog to see the complete network of high-impact digital screens available.

Product News | October 11, 2021

Digital transformation in out-of-home with Broadsign’s Burr Smith

The out-of-home industry is in the middle of a major transformation. As automation, programmatic buying, audience data, and more reshape how campaigns are planned and transacted, the industry is moving toward a more connected and scalable future.

Few people have had a front-row seat to that evolution quite like Burr Smith, Chairman, President, and CEO of Broadsign. Under his leadership, Broadsign has evolved from a digital signage CMS provider into one of the industry’s leading global OOH advertising platforms, helping unify the buy and sell sides of the market through automation, programmatic technology, and strategic acquisitions.

That impact was recently recognized by the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA), which honoured Burr with its inaugural Digital Transformation Award at the 2026 OAAA Honors Circle Awards. The award celebrates leaders driving the modernization of OOH through innovation, automation, and technological advancement.

We sat down with Burr to discuss how OOH has evolved, why unification matters, and what needs to happen next to keep the industry growing.

You’ve been focused on modernizing out-of-home for years. What did digital transformation in OOH look like when you first started, and how has that vision evolved over time?

When I became CEO, Broadsign was primarily a content management system (CMS) company. At the time, there was an internal discussion about whether we should remain focused solely on CMS technology, but it became clear to me that it wasn’t a sustainable long-term strategy. So we decided to evolve beyond content management and move closer to where the advertising dollars were actually originating: the demand side.

That meant building products across the ecosystem to better connect buyers, sellers, and media owners and, ultimately, reduce friction across the industry. That shift marked the beginning of Broadsign’s broader transformation and shaped the vision we continue to build toward today.

You’ve led Broadsign through multiple waves of transformation. How do you prioritize where to invest as the industry continues to evolve?

We invest in two ways: through products and through acquisitions. When we see an opportunity to acquire and integrate a company that can accelerate progress faster than building organically, we’ll often take that approach. It allows us to move more quickly and bring capabilities to market sooner.

Traditionally, we’ve focused our investments on technologies and capabilities that help connect different parts of the ecosystem more effectively over time. Sometimes, the fastest way to move the industry forward isn’t always the most obvious or direct one. It can mean building complementary products or investing in areas that help create a more connected and scalable market overall. Ultimately, the goal has always been the same: reducing friction across the industry and making it easier for advertising dollars to flow into out-of-home.

Where do you see the biggest disconnect between how OOH is perceived and what the medium is actually capable of?

I’d say the biggest challenge is that OOH still hasn’t reached the point where it’s as easy to buy as some other advertising channels. The industry has evolved quickly, and many companies are bringing new ideas and technologies to market, creating a wide range of workflows and solutions across the ecosystem.

Over the years, Broadsign has focused on building technology that helps create more seamless connections between the demand side and supply side. Publishers, agencies, and technology partners will always have their own approaches, and innovation is important, but the industry also needs more standardized and connected transaction paths that can scale efficiently.

The industry talks a lot about collaboration and growth. What does real collaboration actually look like across OOH?

OOH represents roughly 5% of the overall advertising market, and the focus is on how to continue growing that share. But the way to grow the industry isn’t by competing for incremental share within the existing programmatic market. Rather than competing for share within OOH or pDOOH, the bigger opportunity is growing the broader OOH market across both digital and static.

As the industry becomes more connected and standardized, OOH increasingly operates like other major media channels, making it easier for larger advertising investments to flow into the space. That’s one of the reasons we acquired Place Exchange. We’re committed to long-term industry growth, and over time, industries naturally consolidate as it becomes less practical for multiple companies to keep building the same technologies in parallel.

The acquisition strengthened our ability to help unify the ecosystem and create a more connected path between the demand side and supply side of the industry. We’re already seeing stronger momentum toward that kind of unification through greater consolidation and integration across the ecosystem, which is naturally attracting more investment and attention from the broader advertising industry.

What does the next phase of digital transformation in OOH look like over the next few years, and how do you hope it ultimately shapes the future of the industry?

The next phase of digital transformation really comes back to unification. A lot of people focus on growing the industry incrementally, but the most important thing is building a more connected market. That’s been a major focus for Broadsign for a long time, and it’s why we continue investing across different parts of the ecosystem, including static.

AI will also play an important role, particularly in improving operational efficiency. It can help streamline workflows, campaign planning, and many day-to-day processes. But at this stage, there’s a significant role for technology providers to support the end-to-end transaction infrastructure and the broader flow of ad dollars. Beyond that, any technology, trend, or opportunity that broadens the market ultimately accelerates industry growth. That’s part of the reason we’re also interested in areas like retail media and audience analytics.

Audience measurement will be especially important moving forward. OOH already has unique strengths as a medium because it exists so close to the point of purchase, but the industry still needs stronger audience analytics and measurement capabilities to fully demonstrate that value to advertisers.

You’ve emphasized culture as a core part of transformation. What role has it played in enabling meaningful change across the business?

Culture has been a huge part of Broadsign’s success. A lot of that comes back to our values and the fact that people genuinely believe in them. We try to make decisions based on doing the right thing for the business, our customers, and the industry overall. There’s very little internal politics because the focus has always been on building something better together.

That mindset becomes especially important during acquisitions and periods of transformation. When new teams come in, we don’t approach it from a place of protecting turf. If another company is doing something better, we want to learn from it and embrace it. That’s one of the reasons the Place Exchange acquisition worked so well. The two companies had very complementary strengths with very little overlap, so it wasn’t about duplicating efforts; it was about bringing together capabilities that made the combined business stronger.

What does the Digital Transformation recognition mean to you personally, and what impact are you most proud of?

I’m proud of what Broadsign has become and the role it’s played in moving the industry forward. Over the years, we’ve continued investing in products and acquisitions we believed would improve the industry, even when it sometimes took time for the market to fully adopt them.

We may not always move as quickly as some other industries, but we’ve always had a relentless focus on getting better and helping push the industry forward along the way. I think Broadsign has earned its position in the industry because our motivations have always been rooted in building something meaningful and creating long-term value for the ecosystem. I’m grateful to the OAAA for the honour because it reflects the collective effort behind everything we’ve built. We’re committed to this industry for the long term, and we’ll keep working to help it evolve, grow, and improve.