Programmatic DOOH Still Isn’t Bought Like Digital
Programmatic DOOH (digital out-of-home) has spent years promising to make physical media easier to buy like digital advertising. New global data suggests that transition is well underway, but also shows how far DOOH still has to go before it becomes a routine component of the digital media plan.
The World Out of Home Organization’s inaugural Global pDOOH Expenditure Study puts worldwide programmatic DOOH spending at $1.339 billion in 2025, representing 7% of total DOOH spending. The study covers more than 40 markets, with confidential revenue data submitted by 12 supply-side platforms and independently aggregated by PwC.
The U.S. is the world’s largest programmatic DOOH market at $545.5 million, but only 15.9% of U.S. DOOH spending is currently transacted programmatically. Programmatic DOOH has achieved meaningful scale, but making screens programmatically available hasn’t yet made DOOH behave like other digital media channels.
Programmatic Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Open Exchange
The way DOOH is being bought helps explain the difference. Private marketplaces account for 75.7% of global programmatic DOOH spending, or just over $1 billion, according to WOO. Rather than primarily flowing through open exchanges, most pDOOH spending is taking place through structured transactions between selected buyers and sellers.
The technology used to execute those buys is similarly specialized. OOH-focused DSPs account for 65.5% of global pDOOH spending, representing $877 million, compared with 34.5% flowing through omnichannel DSPs.
WOO identifies Broadsign, Vistar Media, VIOOH and Hivestack by Perion among the specialist platforms serving the market. Their continued strength suggests buying DOOH still requires capabilities that haven’t been completely absorbed into the broader digital advertising ecosystem.
That doesn’t necessarily represent a weakness. Private marketplaces can give agencies more control over inventory quality, pricing and placement, particularly in a medium where the location and context of a screen can be as important as the audience being targeted.
Specialist Platforms Still Matter
The role of specialist platforms is notable given how aggressively DOOH inventory is expanding. These platforms have been built around the particular requirements of buying and monetizing physical-world media, even as more inventory becomes available programmatically.
VIOOH’s recent partnership with Screenverse illustrates that expansion. It opened programmatic access to more than 38,000 U.S. screens generating a reported 7.7 billion monthly impressions across retail, residential, office, transit, entertainment and healthcare environments.
These platforms have to account for characteristics unique to OOH, including location, screen environments, audience movement, scheduling and the relationship between an impression and a physical audience.
Broadsign’s own 2026 analysis of aggregated transactions across Broadsign and Place Exchange reinforces the preference for curated buying. It found custom private marketplace deals accounted for 65.8% of programmatic OOH spending in its dataset during 2025, reinforcing WOO’s finding that private marketplaces dominate globally.
More Screens Don’t Automatically Mean More Spending
The supply side of DOOH is changing quickly. Commercial displays, retail screens and other place-based inventory are increasingly being connected to advertising platforms. Samsung’s partnership with Smartify, for example, creates another pathway for commercial displays to become monetizable advertising inventory.
But connecting more screens doesn’t automatically translate into programmatic adoption. The U.S. is the world’s largest pDOOH market by dollars, yet Germany has nearly twice the programmatic penetration at 31.8%. Belgium stands at 25.5%, while France is at 16.7%, demonstrating that market size and programmatic adoption are not necessarily moving in lockstep.
Measurement Remains Part of the Equation
Buying technology is only part of what needs to change. DOOH also has to provide the measurement and accountability agencies increasingly expect from digital media, and the industry has been moving in that direction through improved audience measurement, attribution and independent verification.
WOO has identified audience measurement, effectiveness and ad-tech connectivity as areas requiring continued work across OOH. Its latest measurement guidelines address standardized DOOH measurement, impression multipliers, more current data and increased use of third-party datasets.
An agency may be able to access thousands of screens programmatically, but accessibility alone doesn’t make those screens interchangeable with CTV, display or digital video. Buyers also need confidence in audiences, delivery and business outcomes.
The Next Step Is Making DOOH Routine
There is an important counterpoint in WOO’s numbers. Omnichannel DSPs already account for 34.5% of global programmatic DOOH spending, showing that DOOH is moving into platforms agencies use to manage broader digital campaigns.
Specialist OOH platforms have helped turn physical screens into programmatically tradable media. The opportunity now is to make that inventory easier to incorporate into the planning, buying and measurement workflows agencies already use across digital channels.
WOO’s numbers make the state of the market clear. At $1.339 billion, programmatic DOOH has reached meaningful scale, but at just 7% of global DOOH spending, it still represents a relatively small portion of the channel. The next stage is making programmatic DOOH easier to buy, measure and include as a routine part of the broader media plan.
