November, budget committee meeting. The “Outdoor 2027” line item gets approved in two minutes: this year’s figure, a small adjustment, and the same display unit. It’s the most expensive planning mistake a marketing director can make today with their digital out-of-home advertising campaigns. In 2027, DOOH won’t be bought like a lit-up poster. It will be bought like a digital channel: with data, by audience, programmatically, and measured against sales. Companies that budget this way will have an edge over those still planning by circuits and fortnightly periods.
This article proposes a different way to plan DOOH for 2027. The idea is to take it out of the “outdoor” drawer and put it into the digital plan. It explains why the market is moving in that direction and which decisions should be closed before January.
The problem: 2027 DOOH is being planned with 2015 outdoor logic
The traditional way of buying outdoor advertising works by circuits, fortnightly periods and geographic coverage. It works for print. Applied to digital screens, it leaves almost everything that makes them valuable unused: activating by the hour, targeting by audience, changing creative based on context, and connecting exposure with mobile and sales.
The clearest symptom is organizational. If DOOH is planned by the offline media team and programmatic by the digital team, no one designs the full journey between the street screen and the search on a mobile phone. And that’s where most of the value lies.
The analysis: five changes redefining DOOH in 2027
1. Outdoor already has greater reach than television
According to the second wave of the 2026 EGM survey (AIMC), outdoor media reaches 81.3% of the population: 35.1 million people per week. It is the second-highest medium in penetration, behind only the internet (91%) and ahead of television (76.6%). For a brand seeking reach in 2027, outdoor is no longer a supporting medium.
2. Investment is already digital, but planning still isn’t
The 2026 InfoAdex Study puts outdoor advertising investment in Spain at 460.5 million euros in 2025 (+6.7%). Of that, 192.1 million went to digital formats, that is, 41.7%. For reference, IAB UK forecasts that DOOH will account for 75% of outdoor investment in the UK by 2027. Spain is heading the same way, a few years behind. Anyone planning 2027 as if the format were still mostly print will be planning for yesterday’s market.
3. Programmatic becomes the main buying route
The State of the Nation 2026 report by VIOOH surveyed 1,050 advertisers and agencies in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Middle East. Its data anticipates what will reach the Spanish market:
- Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) has gone from 28% to 34% of campaigns, and respondents expect it to reach 48% within the next 18 months.
- They expect to increase their pDOOH investment by an average of 44% over that same period.
- 89% already plan pDOOH as part of their digital programmatic activity. In 2023, that figure was 37%.
- When the digital team is buying, 63% of the additional budget comes from other digital channels, not from traditional outdoor.
This last figure is the core of the argument. DOOH increasingly competes with display, online video and social media for the same euro. It needs to be evaluated with the same metrics, not those of print.
4. Retail media arrives on physical screens in Spain
JCDecaux has partnered with Carrefour, Carmila and Unlimitail to develop retail media in their centers in France and Spain. In our country, the plan includes DOOH in 91 shopping centers and in 88 access areas to centers and hypermarkets, with rollout starting in 2027. The novelty isn’t the screens. It’s that campaigns can be measured using aggregated and anonymized transaction and loyalty card data. For consumer goods brands, this turns DOOH into a channel that can be evaluated against sales, not just awareness.
5. Dynamic creative is the opportunity almost no one is taking
90% of the professionals surveyed by VIOOH already use AI in some phase of their pDOOH campaigns, mainly to generate creative. However, only 8% have actively implemented dynamic creative optimization (DCO), compared to 13% in 2024. The barriers cited are lack of training (49%), budget (47%) and lack of creative resources (46%). None of these are technological. For a mid-sized advertiser, this opens a window to stand out in 2027 with messages that change based on time, weather, stock levels or location, while most competitors keep running a single spot.
In 2027, the advantage won’t lie in having more screens than the competition, but in knowing what to say on each one and being able to prove what it sold.
The solution: five decisions to close before January
Decision 1: which budget line DOOH comes from
Assign programmatic DOOH to the digital budget and evaluate it by the same rules as other channels: cost per incremental result, contribution to branded search, and effect on sales. Keep only direct purchases of landmark locations in the outdoor budget, where what you’re paying for is guaranteed presence.
Decision 2: who is responsible
A single person or team should be able to plan the screen, mobile retargeting, and paid search together. According to VIOOH, teams dedicated to pDOOH have grown from 32% to 53% in their main markets over two years. You don’t need to create a new department, but you do need to end the split between “offline” and “online.”
Decision 3: what data will trigger the campaign
68% of the professionals surveyed by VIOOH plan to use more data to plan pDOOH. Before January, take stock of what you have: CRM data by postal code, catchment areas of your stores or branches, seasonality of demand, and third-party data such as weather or traffic. Every piece of data that can serve as a trigger becomes a campaign activation rule.
Decision 4: what you’ll measure and what you’ll compare it against
Define your measurement design before buying the first impression: exposed zones versus control zones, analysis window, and business KPIs. The IAB Spain and Ebiquity study on DOOH records short-term ad recall of 40%, compared to 24% for display and 21% for PPC. It also links sustained campaigns to base sales increases of between 11% and 26% compared to other digital media. These are market benchmarks, not guarantees. Measuring your own campaign is what will tell you how much of that potential you’re actually capturing.
Decision 5: what budget you set aside to learn
Set aside part of the budget for controlled tests in the first quarter: one city, one circuit, and two creative variants. The goal is to learn before scaling up.
Indicative timeline for your digital out-of-home advertising campaigns in 2027
| Period | Objective | Key actions |
|---|---|---|
| November-December 2026 | Prepare | Reallocate the budget line, audit first-party data, choose a DSP and partner, design the measurement framework |
| Q1 2027 | Test | Programmatic pilot campaign in one or two cities with a control group and A/B creatives |
| Q2 2027 | Scale | Expand the location, time-slot and creative combinations that perform best; activate dynamic creative |
| Q3 2027 | Integrate | Sync with mobile retargeting, paid search, and, for consumer goods, retail media networks |
| Q4 2027 | Evaluate | Review annual incremental impact, adjust the attribution model, and budget for 2028 using first-party data |
This timeline isn’t a rigid template, but a way to reach the end of 2027 with something almost no advertiser has today: first-party data on how much digital outdoor contributes to their business.
The result: what to expect from DOOH planned as a digital channel
DOOH integrated into the digital plan doesn’t have to cost more, but it is accountable in a different way. Instead of impression and coverage reports, the management committee receives estimates of increases in awareness, searches, and sales in exposed zones, compared to control zones. The same IAB Spain study notes that combining DOOH and social media improves joint efficiency by 25%. This kind of synergy is only captured if both channels are planned together.
If you’re already finalizing your 2027 media plan and want to integrate digital outdoor with your data, your automation, and your measurement model, the Inprofit team can help you design the first-quarter pilot and the measurement structure that will make it defensible.
Frequently asked questions
Before closing the annual budget, usually in the last quarter of 2026. Decisions about budget allocation, ownership, and measurement shape everything else. If they’re made in January, the first quarter is lost to preparations.
Probably both, with different roles. Direct buying secures landmark locations and major milestones. Programmatic optimizes the rest of the investment by audience, timing, and outcome.
No. Programmatic allows for limited tests by city, time slot, and circuit, with budgets far lower than traditional packages. What you do need is a clear objective and a measurement design in place beforehand.
It’s advertising on screens in shopping centers and points of sale, managed using the retailer’s own data, such as transactions or loyalty cards. It allows you to target audiences and measure the campaign’s impact on actual sales.
Marketing tecnológico en vena. Fanático de las tecnologías Martech que rompen moldes: IA generativa, blockchain, no-code, metaverso, automatización extrema… Convencido de que el futuro no se espera, se construye (y se vende muy bien).
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