The Billboard Insider Podcast
00:08:36 · Dave Westburg, Kym Frank
[00:08:36] S0: Kym, you're almost done with a major redesign of the Insights Suite, the audience and measurement and data systems of Geopath. Can you just do a bring down on what's new there? [00:08:50] S1: Yeah. Sure. So the data have been out and have been being vetted by our members for quite some time. We just released a new faster version of our API for any of our members who are ingesting the data directly into their own systems and platforms. And now we're really in the final stages of having our members just look at all the impressions for their inventory, flag anything that doesn't feel right or look right to them so that we can, you know, do QA on them, make sure everything's right. We improved our methodology beyond the measurement. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes. Like, the way that we audit inventory is significantly more precise now, so there may be secondary or tertiary reads that we weren't giving credit before. So a lot of that has changed on the back end. Mhmm. And, you know, our members have been really great in helping us and looking at the data and saying, hey. Can you flag this? This doesn't look right. And so now we're kind of in the final stages. So it won't be terribly long before we're asking our members to officially vote, migrating to the new data. So [00:09:54] S0: Wow. [00:09:54] S1: Super excited about that. Yeah. [00:09:56] S0: What are some of the features that the new system is gonna have that out of home companies may not be aware of?
00:09:56 · Dave Westburg, Kym Frank
[00:09:56] S0: What are some of the features that the new system is gonna have that out of home companies may not be aware of? [00:10:03] S1: Yeah. You know, it's so funny because I think when we first headed down this path, there was this feeling that the tool was more focused on national buying and planning than it was on local. And I think now that it's in front of everyone, everyone realizes that the opposite is true. It's... You can do great national planning that you could never do in our system before, but the local data are awesome. Someone told me... One of my members told me that they still have this old Arbitron study that they bought, like, decades ago that they reference about where cars were coming from that were passing each of their pieces of inventory. But now because we have the mobile data, we know what neighborhoods audiences are originating from. So you can get, you know, a unique origin study for every piece of inventory you own. And in so many cases, we see that the audience is obviously not coming from the ZIP code in which the inventory is sitting. [00:10:59] S0: If I own a digital sign, for instance, in Sherman, Texas, I can say to an advertiser in Denison, Texas, which is just down the road, did you know that two thirds of the people going by my billboard end up in your neighborhood? [00:11:13] S1: Yeah. Or or live somewhere else outside of the market. [00:11:16] S0: Yep.
00:11:16 · Dave Westburg, Kym Frank
[00:11:16] S0: Yep. [00:11:17] S1: And it could even be if you have inventory by an airport Mhmm. Or on an interstate. They may be coming not even just from another ZIP code, but from another DMA completely. [00:11:26] S0: Wow. [00:11:26] S1: And we're able to see that, and I think that's really super valuable for us as a selling tool. [00:11:31] S0: Wow. [00:11:32] S1: Something else that I think I'm really advocating for people to use these data. We now have cross channel media consumption as a target in our platform. You know, we talk a lot about, well, we can target people who are in the market for a new car. We can target people who are planning to go to college next year, but we can also target people who aren't watching television. So if you have an advertiser who is maybe spending a lot of money in television, you can look across your inventory and say, well, where are the people who aren't watching television, who aren't using social networks, or who... You know, maybe the... You know, their digital habits are different. They're low Internet users, or they're low mobile users so that we can start to encourage advertisers to look holistically across their media plan and say, am I getting all of the audience? Or if I'm only using one channel, who am I missing, and where can I reach them? [00:12:22] S0: Mhmm. Wow.
00:12:22 · Dave Westburg, Kym Frank
[00:12:22] S0: Mhmm. Wow. [00:12:23] S1: Yeah. I think that's hugely powerful powerful for us. And the other thing that's great about that is you can look at it that way. Right? So let's say you have a big restaurant in town and they buy a lot of television. You can identify where the audiences are that don't watch television, and you can also identify where the audiences are that are likely to eat at a restaurant, you know, who are frequent restaurant eaters, and then find the overlap. So you can say, well, not only are you amplifying your TV by by reaching people who aren't watching television, but we can even target people who are likely to eat in your restaurant. [00:12:55] S0: Wow. Let's stop here for a word from our sponsor. Adomni increases your billboard revenue by selling unsold ad space at top dollar. Whether you have Watchfire for Medco or Daktronics billboards, Adomni easily integrates. Get started selling in as little as one business day on the fastest growing out of home network of over 60,000 digital screens. Visit adomni.com or call 844ADOMNI to speak with an Adomni billboard specialist. Mention this Billboard Insider Podcast to receive one free year of Adomni's white labeled booking engine on your website. My company, in addition to publishing Billboard Insider, we are a small out of home operator with about 55 billboard faces. Could you make the case? Why does a small independent out of home advertising company like me need Geopath? What does Geopath do for me?
00:12:55 · Dave Westburg, Kym Frank
[00:12:55] S0: Wow. Let's stop here for a word from our sponsor. Adomni increases your billboard revenue by selling unsold ad space at top dollar. Whether you have Watchfire for Medco or Daktronics billboards, Adomni easily integrates. Get started selling in as little as one business day on the fastest growing out of home network of over 60,000 digital screens. Visit adomni.com or call 844ADOMNI to speak with an Adomni billboard specialist. Mention this Billboard Insider Podcast to receive one free year of Adomni's white labeled booking engine on your website. My company, in addition to publishing Billboard Insider, we are a small out of home operator with about 55 billboard faces. Could you make the case? Why does a small independent out of home advertising company like me need Geopath? What does Geopath do for me? [00:13:49] S1: Sure. So we are a member organization. So, you know, there's always a value of being a part of a trade association, whether it's OAAA or Geopath, so that you have a seat at the table with the rest of the industry. I think that's great. We have buyers on our board, so there's certainly opportunities to network. I think what brings a lot of smaller operators to our organization is we've, you know, lowered our dues for operators. We've created new tiers for smaller businesses. But also because they're getting turned away a lot from agencies specifically [00:14:24] S0: Mhmm.
00:14:24 · Dave Westburg, Kym Frank
[00:14:24] S0: Mhmm. [00:14:24] S1: Because they're not measured or they're using circulation counts. So we do provide that. In assessing the landscape, you know, I had said earlier that we provide a lot of consultative work on behalf of our members, and I think that's also been a huge new value for some of our smaller operators is feeling like, well, I can't afford a research person on my team. You know, there's maybe only two of us and a dog sitting in our office, and and and we're all doing sales and changing the light bulbs. But to be able to reach out to a team of researchers who you can consider part of your own team and say to them, hey. I got someone in town who won't even take a meeting with me. Mhmm. Do you have any information that can help me? Mhmm. And having someone here actually help curate content so that you can get that meeting, so that you have something to send to that client that maybe perks their ears up or gets them to take a phone call. And we've had a lot of members who have used that service to great results. [00:15:20] S0: I could tell you that from a practical point of view, as a small operator, trying to get any national business without impressions data is next to impossible. They just don't wanna deal with Impressions is the currency that they want when they're doing buys. [00:15:37] S1: For sure. And I also think a lot of them are quite frankly using either our software or our our data through another piece of software. And if you're not then Geopath measured, you're not even in the system.