Local marketing: linking programmatic DOOH to store sales

Local marketing has shifted from flyers and signage to coordinated digital paths that end at a street-level door. Lowe’s move to put marketing, loyalty, personalization and its e-commerce marketplace under one executive signals this clearly. The job of attracting shoppers now includes ensuring they can actually buy when they arrive. The story also reaches beyond retail. Programmatic digital out-of-home (DOOH) is growing into a channel that can link broad campaigns to physical locations. Local marketing teams need to learn how to buy and measure DOOH alongside search, social and email.

When marketing must own the whole local experience

Lowe’s expanded the chief marketing officer’s remit to include Lowes.com and the third-party marketplace, a change meant to stitch discovery to transaction and local fulfillment. The company reported online sales up 15.7%, that is one in seven more online sales in the quarter, while overall comparable sales rose just 0.2%, that is nearly flat.

More than 80% of home-improvement shopping journeys begin online. That figure makes local availability the decisive moment in a campaign’s success.

Putting marketing and commerce together allows audience signals used for loyalty and personalization to inform product discovery and conversion. The marketplace also serves as a low-risk test bed: Lowe’s sees demand for premium faucets and chandeliers without placing every item in every store. Yet the company also warns that operations still determine outcomes: if pickup isn’t ready, a good ad still fails. That mismatch is a caution for local businesses that aim to scale digital demand into in-person sales.

Why programmatic DOOH is not yet just another digital buy for local campaigns

According to niipy, Programmatic DOOH reached $1.339 billion in 2025, that is measurable scale, but it still accounts for only 7% of total DOOH spending worldwide, showing the channel remains distinct from display and video buying. The U.S. market led with $545.5 million, that is almost half of global pDOOH, but only 15.9% of U.S. DOOH spend flows through programmatic transactions. Programmatic access does not yet make every screen interchangeable with online ad placements.

Private marketplaces dominate the programmable side: 75.7% of global pDOOH spending flows through curated deals rather than open exchanges. Specialist OOH demand-side platforms account for 65.5% of global pDOOH spending. Omnichannel DSPs manage 34.5% of that spending. These figures show buyers still rely on platforms built for location, screens and audience movement. VIOOH’s opening of more than 38,000 U.S. According to niipy, screens and 7.7 billion monthly impressions is one sign of supply expansion. But supply alone does not make measurement or buying seamless for agencies or local advertisers.

How local businesses should combine retail-focused marketing and programmatic DOOH

Local businesses should treat programmatic DOOH as a way to extend a multi-touch customer journey that starts online and ends at the location. Combining Lowe’s insight that online shopping drives store visits with DOOH’s ability to reach people in physical contexts creates opportunities for message timing tied to local inventory and pickup readiness.

Measurement and curated buying will be essential. The World Out of Home Organization highlights audience measurement, effectiveness and ad-tech connectivity as areas needing work. Broadsign’s dataset shows private marketplace deals made up 65.8% of pDOOH transactions in 2025. Local marketers must therefore demand clear metrics that map an ad impression on a screen to store visits, online conversions or pickup completions. A sponsored placement that drives short-term revenue but degrades relevance risks undermining longer-term loyalty. This echoes Lowe’s warning about retail media versus customer experience.

Practical steps and the open questions ahead for local teams

Local marketers should begin by aligning common goals across marketing, operations and fulfillment so digital signals lead to a predictable in-market result. Inventory accuracy, pickup readiness and delivery options must become part of campaign KPIs, not afterthoughts.

On the media-buying side, buyers should prioritize curated programmatic deals that guarantee placement and context when screens matter most. Agencies should push for integrations that bring DOOH metrics into the same reporting dashboards used for social and search. Programmatic penetration varies across markets. Germany sees 31.8% programmatic DOOH penetration, Belgium 25.5% and France 16.7%. Local market norms will dictate how easily agencies can fold DOOH into existing buys. The next phase will be about making programmatic DOOH routine. The outcome depends as much on operational discipline at the location level as on ad-tech improvements.

The immediate change is organizational and tactical: more teams must be measured on the same outcomes. The open questions are technical and behavioral. Can DOOH measurement and private marketplaces evolve until screens become a predictable extension of a digital plan? Can local operations keep pace so impressions actually turn into purchases?

Sources:

• Lowe’s Is Merging Marketing With Commerce | streetfightmag.com
• Programmatic DOOH Still Isn’t Bought Like Digital | streetfightmag.com