Billboard Insider polled readers on their experience with the automated out of home sales platforms (e.g. Adomni, Adquick, Blip, Place Exchange, OneScreen.ai, Vistar). Some interesting findings.
- 90% our readers use one or more of the automated sales platforms. This number is higher than Billboard Insider expected.
- 68% of our poll respondents had to wait more than 90 days for payment. We thought a benefit of the out of home sales platforms was faster pay. Have we added another buying layer and one more place for money to sit around?
One out of home executive says some platforms take longer to pay than others…
We are pleased with the new money and growth from programmatic, but the aging is starting to attract investor attention. If you remove Blip from the equation the other companies have between 55% and 63% of their receivables over 90 days, and when combined 22% are over 180 days.
This out of home exec wishes there was clearer reporting
I am glad you have brought this to the surface. This is a serious issue that has made us really take a look at the benefits of these services. We have seen as much as 120 days to get paid from Adkom. The other issues we see is tracking payments from such short term buys on digital buys from platforms such as Blip when they do a one day buy in One day buy in January and four months later you get a payment and it’s almost impossible to figure out what it is for. For a small operation it almost makes no sense to use these services. We have to make multiple calls and send several emails to get paid.
Another independent out of home exec is frustrated…
The lack of overall transparency, lack of payments or when you do get paid it’s 90-120 days or longer and the submitted payment reports do not match up with the limited run reports we are able to access is very discouraging and concerning. We supposedly generated over $340k in net programmatic revenue in 2023 but trying to follow the payment trail matched to the advertiser or matched to the ad that ran is a joke and these programatic companies know it..Trying to get someone to reply or answer questions is virtually non existent.
Billboard Insider’s take: When you are looking at connecting your OOH plant to an automated sales platform you need to ask how long it will take for your automated sales to pay.
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Advertisers should pre-pay their entire run up front and then have the loan on their end if they need it. If you don’t have the money to run a $60,000 campaign over 12 weeks, then don’t do it. Billboard companies should partner with loan officers. There’s simply too many businesses that would seem credible like schools, roofers, and restaurants that simply never pay their bills on time.
FYI—I own and run (a very under utilized) double sided 10×35 digital billboard in Alabama. Most of the income comes from Blip the have two slots they can use. They pay each month via direct deposit from a “BILL”—attached is alway a long list of invoices (those “paid” and those “unpaid”). Blip invoices appear to be paid in a more timely manner than those other programmatic platforms utilized by Blip —I reached out to Blip. The response was —those programmatic platforms are “waiting on customer” to pay before they pay. Blip also said they could pay the all outstanding invoices minus 10%—-I thought that’s brilliant maybe I should contact my lenders for various services—car —credits cards and tell them that I would be happy to pay my bill on time for a 10% reduction!!—It didn’t work—they just decided late fees charged to me was better for them!—Thank you for highlighting this issue—I thought it was just me!—LyRae Swaim owner RJS Legacy. Huntsville, Alabama
All of these responses are spot on. We have the control but yet we’re getting taken advantage of. There should be some more serious conversations in-regards to this in the future.