Marketers are under more pressure than ever to prove their media investments are working.
As wasted spend, signal loss and closed media ecosystems come under greater scrutiny, advertisers are looking for channels that can deliver scale without becoming another black box. An estimated $26.8B in global programmatic media spend is lost annually to redundant supply paths, measurement gaps and low-quality inventory, according to the Association of National Advertisers.
That pressure is reshaping expectations for digital out-of-home. Advertisers want more than high-traffic locations and broad demographic assumptions. They want to understand which audiences are moving through specific environments, why those locations make sense for a campaign and how exposure can connect to measurable outcomes.
Spark Intelligence, JOLT's new audience intelligence platform, was built to close this gap.
From location-led to audience-informed planning
Traditional out-of-home planning starts with a location: pick a high-traffic area and then assume the right audience passes through. JOLT's Spark Intelligence changes the starting point. Instead of treating location as a stand-in for the audience, it uses behavioral, purchase and movement data to identify where a brand's target audience is most concentrated and recommends the best screens that reach them.
That audience intelligence is the foundation for planning across JOLT's full network, which spans more than 4,750 digital ad screens across 65 designated market areas. Those screens are strategically placed across the places daily life happens: from sidewalks and retail corridors to roadside and commuter routes. Spark Intelligence determines which screens offer the greatest opportunity to reach a specific audience.
🎥 VIDEO: See how JOLT connects brands with audiences across high-attention urban, streetside and retail-adjacent environments.
In practice, the highest-traffic location isn't always the highest-value one. Audience composition, context and proximity to moments of intent often have a greater influence on campaign performance than raw impression volume alone.
For example, a regional health system looked to identify where likely care seekers are most concentrated. In one Atlanta analysis, selected screens achieved an average audience concentration of 66.29%, enabling the health system to prioritize locations based on audience relevance, not simply traffic volume.
For years, out-of-home meant renting the busiest corner and hoping the right people walked past. Busy isn't the same as relevant. The best sites aren't the ones with the most traffic; they're the ones with your audience in it.
Making physical media more measurable and impactful
Spark Intelligence gives advertisers greater confidence in where and why they're investing through audience concentration, market-level recommendations and reach/frequency insights.
Depending on the clients' business objective, Spark Intelligence can support studies tied to store visitation, sales lift, web activity and brand lift, connecting planning decisions to outcomes. It's the same proof buyers already expect from every other digital channel, now available from physical media.
Globally, advertisers on JOLT's network have seen double- and triple-digit lifts across store visitation, consideration, recall and purchase intent, with most attributed actions coming from net-new audiences. Results have included foot traffic lifts of up to 89%, product preference lifts of up to 43% and brand consideration lifts of up to 26%.
JOLT has also shown how DOOH can become a connected, impactful brand experience. JOLT recently became the centerpiece of a brand campaign in Austin, Texas, for Lemonade, the tech-first insurance company. JOLT wrapped DOOH charging stations throughout the city in the brand's signature hot pink, offered free charging to electric vehicle drivers and paired the physical takeover with in-app messaging.
DOOH is no longer just about where your screens are. It's about how well you understand the audiences moving past them and using that intelligence to make every impression work harder.
Spark Intelligence helps advertisers move beyond traffic counts and demographic assumptions to plan against real audiences, optimize campaigns in flight and measure business outcomes.
That's the secret behind smarter DOOH: turning reach into relevance, and relevance into measurable results.
Have a business objective or audience you need to reach? Click here to tell us what you're looking to achieve, and JOLT will use Spark Intelligence to build a data-led media solution designed to help you reach your goals.
