Yandex Direct publishes Real Time OTS methodology for DOOH ad pricing
Opportunity to See, or OTS, measures potential contacts with an ad message and underpins how digital out-of-home inventory gets bought under Yandex Direct's auction. Yandex has now detailed the methodology behind Real Time OTS, the version of the metric used to price DOOH placements by the thousand contacts recorded at the moment a screen displays an ad. A contact registers only when a person is located within the geometric visibility zone calculated individually for each screen. In pedestrian areas the model excludes anyone moving faster than 15 km/h, such as people on scooters, bikes or in cars, since they have no physical opportunity to see the message, and rooftop taxi displays apply a similar cutoff at 30 km/h. The underlying data is aggregated and anonymized traffic information from Yandex services, calibrated against verified mobile operator datasets and checked against physical on-site measurements. Yandex says unexpected snow in Moscow in late April cut reach by 20% to 29% as pedestrian traffic dropped.
Billing by real-time contacts lets a placement that runs during a storm cost ten times less than the same spot in good weather with dense foot traffic, since a campaign pays for the audience actually present at the moment it airs. Predictive forecasts in the Direct interface let a buyer estimate contacts before launch, factoring in location, partner category, time targeting and seasonal trends, and set a starting bid accordingly. Segment OTS and Affinity Index give planners a way to build address programs around audience interest, layering Yandex's behavioral data over each screen's OTS alongside geography and screen type. The 'Maximum OTS at minimum price' strategy reallocates plays automatically toward the screens and hours with the lowest contact cost, and lift analytics ties offline exposure to online actions such as branded search growth, site visits and store conversions.