By Rodolfo Saccoman, CEO, AdMobilize

This is the second article by Rodolfo Saccoman the CEO of AdMobilize, on vehicle analytics and out of home advertising.  Yesterday he described what vehicle analytics is and how it works.  Today he talks about what it costs and why you should do it.  You can reach AdMobilize at info@admobilize.com or Rodolfo at rodolfo.saccoman@admobilize.com

The subject of costs should be transparently communicated with you; this openness is one of the pillars of how we have earned the trust of our 100+ clients.

“This solution seems too expensive, and not scalable at all?”

Each installation requires the following:

• One Camera
• One Computer
• Connectivity (existent in most digital boards)
• Power (existent in most digital boards)

The total one-time hardware cost is $650. Our team has worked with dozens of camera manufacturers and PC providers to optimize our solution.  Thus, a $650 one-time cost is not that inhibitive.  Now, you might be thinking that we will charge you an expensive first-time setup cost for the dashboard, setting up for logins, etc…. Nope.  The only other cost is $150 per month per camera. The $150 monthly fee per location is the subscription cost for the software, data, dashboard, ability to extract reports, and customer support.

“So how is the activation, machine training and installation process like?”

• Hardware Acquisition: We acquire all the hardware equipment (at cost) for you and pre-configure the camera and PC prior to shipping.
• Remote Set-up: We work with your installers to efficiently position the camera angle for optimal results.
• Scene Training with Machine Learning: We utilize our cutting-edge and proprietary machine learning algorithms to train the angle, location, and traffic flow of that specific camera to ensure the highest accuracy.
• Online Dashboard: We provide you with access to your dashboard and train you on accessing the data and reports.
• Customer Support: We constantly monitor and communicate with you. Our customer support is awesome. 

“Okay, so let’s do the math for a moment… for one digital billboard.”

Hardware cost:          $650 (one-time)

Software license:      $1,800 (yearly)

Installer expense:     $50 (one-time install, usually takes a technician 30 minutes)

Cost for Year 1:         $2,500

Cost for Subsequent Years: $1,800 (per billboard)

Okay, so the cost for real-time vehicle analytics for Year 1 is $2,500.

Now let’s assume an ROI scenario for a digital billboard (6 to 8+ flips per minute).

Avg. monthly revenue potential for a large-format digital board: $24,000

Now let’s assume 75% of the flips are sold out; new gross monthly revenue at: $18,000

Assuming we keep that 75% industry average for the entire year, that board should gross about $216,000 per year. 

Let’s assume that the total first year cost of the vehicle analytics solution is $2,500, it would only be 1.2% of total yearly revenues for that board; a small investment for the revenue enhancement potential.

So, onto the magic question, “How do we make money by integrating vehicle analytics into our portfolio?”

Actually, this is one of the questions we enjoy the most when working with our clients. We have deployed our vehicle analytics platform in dozens of cities in 4 different continents, so the spectrum of how these clients are justifying and benefiting from the ROI is comprehensive.  You can use our system to generate more out of home revenues using the following approaches:

1. Charge a Premium (1% to 5%): when you provide brands with vehicle intelligence analytics and dashboards you can charge premiums for those billboard flips because that billboard is now a “smart asset.” Brands understand there is a cost for the operator in providing transparent and real-time data for their campaigns.
   1. i) Quick ROI math: If you charge a 3% premium for all those flips on the scenario above of the $216,000 yearly revenue, you will have generated another $6,480 in revenues, minus the $2,500 platform cost, and you made another $4,000 per board.
2. Institute a “Vehicle Analytics” Internal Team: reallocate a couple resources towards a “consulting role” that can assist brands better understand the results of their vehicle campaigns… Some agencies and brands will pay for this “white-glove” service vs. the do-it-yourself or no metrics whatsoever.
3. White-label the Solution: you can package our entire platform and white-label it as an internal solution to provide directly to your clients under your brand. Lots of freedom in creating revenue opportunities with this approach.
4. Yield Management: this is potentially one of the industry’s least talked about subject and in my opinion the one that can catapult us to two-digit growth. Perhaps on my next blog, I will focus on providing some insight on yielding rates.
   50. i) For brevity sake, the potential here resides in triggering different ads based on real-time data and events. For instance, suppose you have a billboard on a road with a speed limit of 50.  Now, our vehicle intelligence software can tell with 100% accuracy that the cars are suddenly moving at 10 miles per hour.  Why are you serving the same ads with no intelligent triggers?  You should be showing an ad where you charge the brand 3x more because the cars are being exposed to that ad 5x longer…  By utilizing our technology, and integrating it into any CMS provider in the world (we already have a few integrations so ask), you can trigger those ads instantly and benefit from those premium rates.  Not only that, but you can show the brand, exactly when it happened and they can access it themselves online, and so forth. Talk about feeling empowered!
   51. ii) This type of yielding can happen with any of the key performance indicators we measure in real-time.
5. Creative Campaigns: the ability to trigger ads via an integration of our technology into a CMS system can stimulate the creative juices of agencies and brands. It allows you to show ads based on other attributes as well, such as car type and model.  This is called vehicle recognition.  Last year, the industry saw a couple of examples of vehicle recognition campaigns, which we were happy to see!  The challenge with those is that the accuracy of the triggers were still very low and it was more of a one-time implementation because the costs were too high.  We are proud to say that after months of coding, our vehicle recognition triggers and dashboard will be available to our clients this quarter.  Let us know if you want to be preview to this, only existing clients with have the initial access.
   1. i) Imagine showing a “Tesla” car ad on a billboard every time a high percentage of Audi’s passed by or on slow days, where that single Audi driver is driving home late at night, and they see the billboard ad verbiage change:: “Audi, lots of gas. Tesla, We Don’t Need Gas”. How much do you think Tesla will pay for that type of a customized, personal campaign? If this didn’t get your revenue juices flowing, then we might need an intervention.

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