For years, agency buying of out-of-home advertising followed a familiar ritual: call the publisher, negotiate rates, book a package, receive a spreadsheet. Programmatic DOOH has upended that ritual — but it hasn't replaced it. In 2026, the most sophisticated media agencies in Australia aren't choosing between direct and programmatic buying. They're learning how to use both, strategically, in the same campaign. Getting that balance right is becoming one of the defining skills in modern media planning.
The Numbers Behind the Shift
The case for embracing programmatic DOOH is now well-supported by data. Australia's total DOOH market is forecast to reach US$707 million in 2025, growing at a 6.14% compound annual rate through to 2029, according to Statista. But programmatic DOOH — pDOOH — is growing far faster within that total. Vistar Media data puts Australia's average annual pDOOH growth rate at 180% since 2020, and VIOOH's State of the Nation report projects that pDOOH's share of media plans will rise from 27% to 35% over the next 18 months.
More telling is the breadth of adoption. Over 1,000 brands and agencies in Australia are now running campaigns through programmatic DOOH platforms — spanning global marketers, performance-driven independents, and everything in between. This is no longer a niche capability reserved for tech-forward early adopters. It has crossed firmly into the mainstream.
Why Direct Buying Still Has a Place
None of this means direct buying is obsolete. For campaigns with a specific creative vision, a fixed set of premium sites, or a long-term brand-building mandate, the direct relationship between an agency and a publisher still delivers things that a DSP cannot. Premium sponsorships, exclusive location packages, roadblock takeovers, and integrated activations all require the kind of human negotiation and partnership that sits outside a programmatic pipe.
Many major DOOH publishers in Australia also continue to reserve their best inventory — high-traffic flagship screens in CBDs, airports, and major retail centres — for direct deals. Agencies that rely solely on programmatic access may find themselves locked out of the most-coveted placements for brand campaigns where context and prestige genuinely matter.
Premium site packages and long-term sponsorships are best negotiated directly
Roadblock and takeover campaigns require publisher partnership beyond DSP access
Brand-safety-sensitive clients may prefer curated direct packages with contractual guarantees
Established publisher relationships offer added value: insights, co-marketing, early access to new formats
Where Programmatic DOOH Wins
Programmatic buying excels at the things direct deals struggle with: flexibility, scale, audience precision, and the ability to respond to real-world conditions in near-real time. An agency running a campaign for a grocery brand can use programmatic DOOH to activate screens near supermarkets on weekday mornings when commuter traffic peaks, then suppress spend on weekends when the audience profile changes. That level of tactical control simply isn't available through traditional buying methods.
IAB Australia's 2025 Attitudes to Programmatic DOOH report — based on a survey of 116 agencies — found that 83% of agencies are now using pDOOH for top and mid-funnel campaign objectives. The ability to integrate DOOH inventory into existing DSP workflows, alongside digital and social channels, is a major driver. Planners can manage audience targeting, frequency caps, and budget pacing from a single platform rather than juggling multiple vendor relationships.
The Barriers That Still Need Solving
Despite strong momentum, the same IAB research identified persistent friction points. Some 36% of agencies cite a lack of understanding and clear cost-benefit analysis as barriers to allocating more programmatic DOOH budget. Measurement remains a sticking point: proving the incremental value of a pDOOH impression — particularly when a campaign is running across multiple channels simultaneously — is harder than reporting a digital click-through rate.
Workflow complexity is another friction point. Many agencies still operate with separate teams handling digital and OOH planning, creating internal silos that slow down integrated campaign execution. The most progressive agencies are actively dismantling these silos — consolidating planning under unified heads of investment who can treat DOOH inventory on the same footing as CTV, social, or display.
"The agencies getting the most out of programmatic DOOH aren't treating it as a separate discipline — they're weaving it into the same data-driven planning process they use for every other channel. That's when the real value unlocks." — Eric Fan, CEO, Lumos
A Practical Framework for the Right Balance
So how should agencies actually think about splitting budgets between direct and programmatic DOOH? There's no universal formula — it depends on the campaign objective, the client's risk appetite, and the specific inventory that matters most. But a working framework is emerging from agency best practice across the Australian market.
Brand awareness and prestige campaigns: weight toward direct deals for premium, contextually relevant placements
Performance and activation campaigns: weight toward programmatic for audience targeting, flexibility, and measurement integration
Broad reach campaigns across multiple markets: programmatic provides scale and efficiency that direct negotiations cannot match
Event-driven or time-sensitive campaigns: programmatic enables rapid activation and real-time scheduling adjustments
Always-on brand-safety-critical verticals (finance, pharma, government): a direct-first approach with curated programmatic extensions
The emerging consensus among leading Australian agencies is roughly a 60/40 or 70/30 split favouring programmatic for performance-oriented brands, with that ratio inverting for pure brand campaigns. Crucially, the two approaches are becoming complementary rather than competing — with programmatic data informing which direct packages are worth paying a premium for.
What Brands Should Ask Their Agency
If you're a brand reviewing your DOOH strategy with your agency, the right questions aren't 'should we go direct or programmatic?' They're more nuanced: Which inventory matters most to our brand, and can we access it programmatically? What audience data is informing our targeting, and how will we measure outcomes? Are we treating pDOOH as part of our unified media plan, or as an isolated channel experiment?
Agencies that can answer those questions clearly — and demonstrate fluency in both buying models — are the ones who will drive meaningfully better results for their clients in 2026 and beyond. The days of treating direct and programmatic as binary choices are over. The future of DOOH buying is both, applied with intention.
To learn how Lumos helps agencies and brands navigate the direct and programmatic DOOH landscape with data-driven planning and real-time campaign intelligence, visit spotlumos.com or get in touch with our team.
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