Vendor Profile: Fliphound

This is the fourth in a series of Billboard Insider profiles of the companies who are automating the out of home sales process.  We’ve previously written about Adsemble and Adquick, and ADstruc. Insider counts 10 North American companies that are trying to develop websites to facilitate buying and selling out of home advertising: ADstruc, AdSemble, Adquick, Broadsign, DoMedia, Fliphound, Kinetic, rVue, Vistar and Xaxis Places.  

Company:  Fliphound, LLC

Headquarters: 216 N Mosley St. #200, Wichita, KS  67202

Phone:  316-854-8668

Email: sales@fliphound.com

Fliphound operates an online platform for selling and buying out-of-home (OOH) digital sign inventory. Fliphound’s ~500+ digital billboard network continues to grow and attract new advertisers.   The company is affiliated with Atomic Enterprises, an outdoor advertising company specializing in digital billboards.  Company executives include Douglas Robertson (CEO), Brandon Shuey (President/CTO) and Elizabeth Farha (VP Sales).

Insider has summarized a presentation by Elizabeth Farha from Fliphound at a recent OAAA tech webinar.  Readers can access Farha’s talk as well as a number of other outstanding archived seminars by visiting the OAAA website. Also see Doug Robertson’s thought leadership article: Why the OOH Industry needs Online or Programmatic Buying.

What are the problems with the current process for buying billboards?

  • Buying is complicated and an offline process. Rate and location information are not online and obtaining it requires phone calls and manual research, making it frustrating for the 96% of advertisers who have never tried outdoor advertising. High minimum spend requirements ($1,000-$3,000+), credit checks, and other requirements create additional barriers for new online and small to medium sized business (SMB) advertisers.
  • Digital and SMB advertisers have many ways to allocate their ad spend and are accustomed to searching the internet before making buying decisions.
  • Today’s OOH buyers want: 7/24/365 access to pricing and location information, the ability to buy smaller packages, to run shorter campaigns, the flexibility to buy dayparts,  dynamic messaging capabilities (like running ads after a hail storm), analytics, and to combine with other marketing initiatives.
  • The industry controls a powerful digital platform but needs to make it more accessible.

How does Fliphound work?

Fliphound provides a comprehensive platform that automates the buying and selling of billboard ads. Users locate a billboard on a map, shop billboard pricing, add their creative, choose campaign start/end date, and execute their buy.

What products does Fliphound have?

Fliphound offers two main products: Contracts – these are fixed or guaranteed contracts and Real-Time-Bidding (RTB) or spot buying for short term buys.  Operators can enable different levels of functionality to provide advertisers maximum flexibility. 

How is Fliphound being used?

Fliphound has executed thousands of campaigns for more than 600 brands.  An example is Wendy’s in Wichita, Kansas.  Wendy’s and its agency started using Fliphound for spot buys.  Now Wendy’s is a regular user of Fliphound for product announcements and rollouts.

What do out of home operators do to enroll their boards in Fliphound?

OOH companies can access our board enrollment page and enroll their digital boards for free.  They choose which boards to include in sale and enter pricing (pricing can be changed any time), board info, packaging and impressions data.  Fliphound allows billboard owners to increase their online presence, participate in a national network, generate leads and increase sales from new advertisers.

Do out of home operators retain control?

Yes.  They control pricing, inventory availability, retain content approval rights, and can take boards in/out of the network   Fliphound is designed to sell premium open inventory.

Can Fliphound handle static boards?

Right now we are focused on digital.  We will add static billboards in the future.

How do advertisers pay and how do board owners get paid?

Advertisers pre-pay on Fliphound via a secure third party and add money to their accounts for every buy.  Board owners are paid monthly- Fliphound has made payouts for 44+ months.

Where do board impression numbers come from?

Impression information is provided by the board owner.  Our inventory includes Geopath audited billboards and others billboards that are not audited.

Who does the creative?

The user typically uploads their creative into Fliphound or they can also use Fliphound’s graphic design team who turnaround requests in 24-48 hours. Fliphound usually approves ads in minutes during normal working hours (~4 hours off hours).

How is an out of home operator connected to Fliphound?

It’s easy to connect Fliphound with Daktronics, Formetco, and Watchfire digital billboards via internet feeds.  Fliphound can also be integrated with ERP and signage software systems like Apparatix, Ayuda and Broadsign.

How does the advertiser know their request has been fulfilled?

Advertisers can pull live analytics out of the Fliphound system to see when and where their ads run.  95% of Fliphound advertisers would recommend to a friend or business partner and we continue to receive accolades for the platform capabilities from agencies and national buyers.

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