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Tuesday, February 10th, 2026 – 9:00 am. The Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) today announced a significant update to its OpenOOH venue taxonomy, a move poised to revolutionize how digital out-of-home (DOOH) inventory is classified and traded programmatically. This enhanced taxonomy, an evolution of the standard first introduced in 2020, aims to provide programmatic buyers with the granular detail and transparency they require, thereby unlocking greater integration of DOOH within omnichannel advertising strategies and fostering continued revenue growth for the industry.
The OAAA’s decision to release an updated taxonomy stems from a growing demand from programmatic buyers for more precise inventory classification. Traditionally, DOOH inventory has been categorized broadly by venue type, such as "retail" or "transit." While this approach has served the industry in the past, the increasing sophistication of programmatic buying and the desire to seamlessly extend omnichannel campaigns into the out-of-home space have highlighted the limitations of such generic classifications. Programmatic buyers, accustomed to the detailed targeting capabilities available in other digital channels like Connected TV (CTV) and retail media networks, have found the broad categories of DOOH insufficient for their needs. This lack of specificity has not only hampered the efficiency of programmatic buys but has also, at times, led to a perception of opacity when publishers and Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) bundle media of varying quality under single, undifferentiated labels.
Recognizing these challenges, the OAAA has developed a more sophisticated, hierarchical schema designed to bring DOOH inventory classification in line with the expectations of modern programmatic trading. This initiative is particularly timely as the DOOH sector continues to demonstrate robust recovery and growth, with 18 consecutive quarters of ad revenue expansion. The third quarter of 2025, for instance, saw a 4.5% year-over-year increase in ad spend, reaching a record $2.13 billion for that period, according to OAAA data. Despite this impressive growth, a significant portion of DOOH advertising revenue still originates from direct-sold deals, with open-auction programmatic accounting for a smaller, albeit growing, fraction. The OAAA’s enhanced taxonomy is seen as a crucial catalyst to further shift this balance.
Evolution of the OpenOOH Taxonomy
The newly released OpenOOH venue taxonomy adopts a "parent/children/grandchildren" hierarchical structure. This innovative approach allows media owners to classify their inventory with a much higher degree of precision, which can then be communicated directly within OpenRTB bid requests. For example, instead of a digital screen at an airport baggage claim being broadly classified as "transit," it can now be precisely identified as "transit/airports/baggage claim." This level of detail empowers programmatic buyers to make more informed decisions and target specific environments within larger venue types.
"Programmatic advertisers need an easier way to use OOH inventory as an extension of their omnichannel campaigns, particularly for retail media and CTV buys," stated Premesh Purayil, CTO at OOH publisher OUTFRONT Media. "By bringing OOH media classification more in line with programmatic buying, out-of-home publishers can capitalize on the recent explosion of programmatic CTV and retail media spend in recent years."
Anna Bager, president and CEO of the OAAA, echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the strategic importance of this update. "OOH has rebounded since the dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic," Bager noted. "The channel has seen 18 consecutive quarters of ad revenue growth, including a 4.5% year-over-year improvement in Q3, when advertisers spent a total of $2.13 billion – the most ever for third quarter, according to the OAAA." She further elaborated on the necessity of the taxonomy update: "Yet OOH remains a largely direct-sold channel. Open-auction programmatic accounts for only a fraction of OOH ad spend, partly because the taxonomy for classifying OOH inventory hasn’t offered the precision programmatic advertisers expect."
Addressing Granularity and Transparency
A key innovation of the updated taxonomy is the deprecation of the venueTypeString field, which was a free-text field in previous iterations. While this field offered some flexibility for media owners and SSPs to manually add descriptive details about a venue, its inherent inconsistency made it difficult for programmatic systems to parse accurately. "Free text fields can be hard for programmatic systems to read accurately because they tend to be inconsistently applied across platforms," explained Purayil. The new, standardized hierarchical structure eliminates this ambiguity, ensuring that the granular data is consistently interpreted by programmatic platforms.
The OAAA has also formalized the structure for the ongoing development and maintenance of the taxonomy. The OpenOOH Taxonomy Working Group, which was instrumental in designing the new specification last year, will now be integrated into the broader OAAA Taxonomy Committee. This consolidation aims to ensure a continuous and collaborative approach to evolving the standard as the DOOH landscape changes.
Democratizing OOH for Programmatic Buyers
The implications of this more granular classification are far-reaching, promising to "democratize" DOOH advertising by making it more accessible and effective for a wider range of advertisers. With the new taxonomy, advertisers can achieve a level of precision previously only available in other digital channels.
For instance, CPG brands can now target specific types of stores where their products are actually sold, moving beyond the broad "retail" category. This allows for more strategic allocation of advertising budgets and ensures that campaigns are delivered in environments most relevant to the brand’s target audience and product distribution.
Furthermore, advertisers gain increased flexibility in specifying ad placement within venues. A brand selling potato chips might opt for street-facing displays in bodegas to reach impulse buyers, while a pharmaceutical company might prefer screens located near pharmacy counters in drug stores to target consumers actively seeking health-related products.
The taxonomy also provides a mechanism to distinguish between different types of DOOH inventory that might otherwise be conflated, such as avoiding placements that Purayil referred to as "sorta CTV" inventory. These are typically screens, like those found in bars, that resemble CTV environments but operate differently within the OOH ecosystem.
"A brand whose CTV creative depends on sound will likely prefer to skip those environments," Purayil elaborated. "While a brand targeting sports fans with ad creative where the audio isn’t so important might deliberately target ‘sorta CTV’ inventory to broaden its reach." By clearly delineating these nuances, the taxonomy helps advertisers avoid mismatches and ensures their creative is served in the most appropriate context, whether they aim for high-fidelity audio engagement or broad reach where sound is secondary.
This enhanced clarity benefits both buyers and sellers. Advertisers gain access to more relevant media opportunities, leading to improved campaign performance. Publishers, in turn, can better articulate the unique value of their inventory without the risk of mismatched placements negatively impacting campaign results and, by extension, their reputation.
Empowering Niche Publishers and Open Marketplace Growth
Beyond large OOH media owners, the new taxonomy is expected to significantly benefit smaller and more niche publishers. These entities often lack the established relationships with specialist agencies and the extensive direct sales teams that larger players possess. Consequently, they have historically found it challenging to compete in the programmatic space, where understanding inventory organization is crucial for planning and execution.
"Large OOH platforms like OUTFRONT have an advantage because they’re well known to specialist agencies and have established direct sales teams. Agency buyers understand how these larger networks organize their inventory and can plan accordingly. Smaller OOH publishers, by contrast, don’t have that," Purayil observed.
However, by adopting the standardized OpenOOH taxonomy, smaller publishers can make their inventory more discoverable and easier to activate programmatically. This levels the playing field, enabling them to compete more effectively for programmatic ad spend. It also provides advertisers with a more streamlined approach to curating mixed media buys across a spectrum of large and small publishers, integrating these decisions directly into their existing omnichannel programmatic workflows rather than relying solely on direct deals or private marketplace (PMP) arrangements.
Purayil highlighted the potential financial implications: "The revenue is already flowing in heavily through the private marketplace side. But this could potentially move some of that revenue into the open marketplace, if it makes sense." This suggests a significant opportunity for increased liquidity and efficiency in the programmatic DOOH market.
While the OAAA has made this significant stride, the industry’s full embrace of the updated taxonomy will depend on its seamless integration into the broader programmatic ecosystem. AdExchanger’s outreach to the IAB Tech Lab regarding their plans for incorporating the new OOH taxonomy into the OpenRTB specification and deprecating legacy fields did not yield a response by press time. However, the OAAA’s proactive approach in developing and promoting this standardized classification system marks a pivotal moment for the future of programmatic DOOH advertising, promising greater transparency, efficiency, and growth for the industry.
