The Art & Science Behind Billboards

Summary

MarTech Podcast ™ // Marketing + Technology = Business Growth
Episode: The Art & Science Behind Billboards
Release Date: December 12, 2024
Host: Benjamin Shapiro
Guest: Scott Harkey, Founder and CEO of the Harkey Group

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1. Introduction and Background of Scott Harkey

In this episode, host Benjamin Shapiro welcomes Scott Harkey, the founder and CEO of the Harkey Group, to discuss the intricate dynamics of billboard advertising. Scott brings over 20 years of experience in the out-of-home (OOH) advertising sector, having owned and operated billboard companies and worked extensively with major brands in various industries, including hospitality, digital creative, and video production.

Notable Quote:
[02:37] Scott Harkey: "I've owned and built and bought billboards as almost like a rental house business. This dual perspective as both a media buyer and an asset owner helps in unlocking the value that exists in between transactions."

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2. Trend or Trash: The Resurgence of Out-of-Home Advertising

The conversation begins with an exploration of whether the current resurgence in OOH advertising is a passing trend or a lasting shift, particularly fueled by new technologies.

Key Points:

• Digital Integration: Scott emphasizes that the resurgence is a trend backed by technological advancements. Programmatic buying platforms like The Trade Desk, Google, and Vistar have revolutionized how digital billboards are purchased, making the process more targeted and scalable.
• Market Share: Major players such as Lamar, Clear Channel, and Outfront control a significant portion of the U.S. OOH market, integrating their inventory with DSPs to facilitate data-driven ad placements.

Notable Quote:
[05:38] Scott Harkey: "It's a trend. Digital advertising networks are taking their inventory and putting it on DSPs, allowing for more targeted and scalable ad placements."

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3. Digital vs. Traditional Billboards: Performance and Inventory

Scott delves into the differences between digital and traditional static billboards, discussing performance metrics and inventory management.

Key Points:

• Cost Implications: Digital billboards tend to have higher CPMs (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) compared to traditional billboards. While digital offers enhanced targeting and ease of purchase, traditional billboards can be more cost-effective.
• Effectiveness: Both mediums serve as powerful tools, but the choice depends on the campaign's goals and budget constraints.

Notable Quote:
[07:05] Scott Harkey: "CPMs on programmatic networks are double or triple what you could buy direct, but it offers more targeting and faster transactions."

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4. Analytics and Measuring Billboard Effectiveness

Moving into the analytical aspect, Scott discusses the challenges and methodologies in measuring the effectiveness of billboard advertising.

Key Points:

• Measurability: OOH is one of the least measurable media tactics. Unlike digital platforms, tracking direct conversions from billboards is inherently challenging.
• Integrated Analytics Systems: Scott highlights the use of integrated analytics systems, such as Alight Analytics, to assess campaign performance by comparing sales lift in regions with and without billboard campaigns.
• Impression-Based Metrics: Utilizing companies like Geopath, Scott relies on impression-based data that considers factors such as sign size, location demographics, traffic patterns, and visibility enhancements.

Notable Quotes:
[08:43] Scott Harkey: "Out of home advertising is probably the least measurable media tactic out there. It's a giant sign, and you can't directly measure its brand effectiveness."
[09:22] Scott Harkey: "We saw sales lift between 7 and 20% when we ran campaigns with billboards compared to those without."

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5. Creative Strategies: Designing Effective Billboards

The discussion shifts to the creative elements that make billboards impactful and memorable.

Key Points:

• Simplicity and Clarity: Scott advocates for minimalist designs, recommending no more than seven to eight elements on a billboard to enhance readability and effectiveness.
• Unique and Innovative Designs: Emphasizing the need for creativity, Scott suggests incorporating unique physical elements or extensions that interact with the environment, making the billboard stand out.
• Consistency and Brand Recall: Maintaining consistent branding across different billboards in a campaign reinforces brand recognition without overwhelming the audience.
• Color and Contrast: Utilizing bold colors and high-contrast combinations enhances visibility and catches the viewer’s attention swiftly.

Notable Quotes:
[15:23] Scott Harkey: "Less is more. Every time you have fewer than seven or eight elements, the effectiveness doubles."
[16:48] Scott Harkey: "You need to think about if you wanted to interact with somebody, it needs to consider the environment it’s in and be unique in that space."

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6. Integration of OOH with Other Media Channels

Scott discusses how billboards can effectively complement other digital and traditional media channels within an integrated marketing strategy.

Key Points:

• Media Multiplier: Billboards act as a cost-effective multiplier for other media messages, enhancing overall campaign reach and brand presence.
• Upper and Middle Funnel Work: OOH is best suited for brand awareness and maintaining top-of-mind presence rather than direct response or low-funnel conversions.
• Store Locator Functionality: Billboards can serve as effective locators, guiding consumers to physical retail locations, which is particularly useful for industries like QSR (Quick Service Restaurants) and cannabis.

Notable Quotes:
[14:12] Scott Harkey: "Billboards can be used successfully as a media multiplier and as a store locator."
[15:07] Scott Harkey: "It's upper, middle funnel kind of work, enhancing brand presence rather than driving direct sales."

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7. Conclusions and Key Takeaways

In wrapping up, Scott offers valuable insights into maximizing the effectiveness of billboard campaigns through strategic planning and creative execution.

Key Takeaways:

• Strategic Placement: Choosing the right locations based on traffic patterns, demographics, and visibility is crucial for maximizing impact.
• Creative Excellence: Investing in high-quality, innovative designs that interact with the environment can significantly differentiate a billboard from competitors.
• Integrated Campaigns: Billboards should be part of a broader, integrated marketing strategy to enhance overall campaign performance and brand recognition.
• Adaptability to Market Trends: Staying abreast of technological advancements and market trends ensures that billboard advertising remains relevant and effective.

Notable Quote:
[21:42] Benjamin Shapiro: "A billboard has to have a great message, be legible, and be in the context of the real world. Without understanding its placement and environment, tracking analytics is futile."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of the MarTech Podcast provides a comprehensive exploration of billboard advertising, blending both the art and science behind effective OOH campaigns. Scott Harkey's expert insights shed light on the evolving landscape of billboard advertising, emphasizing the importance of strategic placement, creative design, and integrated marketing approaches to drive business growth.

For more information or to connect with Scott Harkey, visit theharkeygroup.com or find him on LinkedIn and Instagram.

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Transcript

[Benjamin Shapiro]

The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the iHear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast, iHear everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iheareverything.com from advertising to software.

[Scott Harkey]

As a service to data across all.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55 to 65% open rate.

[Scott Harkey]

Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours. If we're reaching out to the right.

[Scott Harkey]

Person with the right message and a.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Clear call to action, then it's just.

[Scott Harkey]

A matter of timing.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast you'll hear the stories of world class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's a host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro. Welcome to the Martech Podcast. I'm your host, Benjamin Shapiro and joining me today is Scott Harkey. Scott is the founder of the Harkey Group, which is a full service integrated marketing agency with consumer centric, performance focused and creatively inspired teams across multiple industries and verticals like Monogram, which focuses on the hospitality industry, or Nomadic for digital creative and of course Matter Films, their video production firm. Scott is also the host of the Rebrand Podcast which is a member of the I Hear Everything network. He's a wonderful guy, one of my favorite people, and today Scott and I are going to discuss the art and science behind billboards. But before we get to today's interview, I want to tell you about what I'm listening to. Ever wanted to sit down to a candid conversation with marketing leaders from the world's biggest brands? The Current podcast is your chance. On the current podcast you'll find exclusive interviews with the experts and trendsetters who are on the front lines of digital advertising and they always leave the ad tech jargon at the door. So subscribe to the [e-mail] or anywhere you get your podcasts today. All right, here's the conversation with Scott Harkey, the founder and CEO of the Harky Group. Scott, welcome to the Martech Podcast.

[Scott Harkey]

Good to be here, Ben. Yay. We met on the Martech Podcast multiple years ago and we're bringing it right back.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

One of my favorite guests. And then you decided you wanted to do your own podcast and we helped you build it.

[Scott Harkey]

Great.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

And it's good to have you Back here. I feel like it's a home game for me. You're the road team and we've changed around a lot of how we do the Martech podcast since you were here before we started. Instead of doing longer form content, we get to do these more quick hitter, fun style contents. We call them segments. Can I throw a couple segments at you to talk about what you've been learning about out of home?

[Scott Harkey]

Absolutely. I love it. Yeah, I heard more like kind of like a PTI setup.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

So there you go. So let's start off with an elevator pitch. You and I are going to New York City. We're going up to the top of the Chrysler Building. I think that's in New York. Did I get it right? Maybe that's the wrong city.

[Scott Harkey]

I think it's Detroit, isn't it?

[Benjamin Shapiro]

I don't know Detroit. What's the big building? The Empire State.

[Scott Harkey]

The Empire State Building.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

There's a million big buildings. We're going up to the top floor. Give me your elevator pitch. Who are you and why are you a specialist at billboards?

[Scott Harkey]

Before I started my group of agencies at the Herky Group, I started an agency called OH Partners, which is an integrated full service, you know, more regional challenger brand agency. But I ran a billboard company called Molina Outdoor. And the guy that taught me about billboards, his name was Manny Molina. He was Arty Moreno's college roommate at U of A. Arty Moreno, of course, is the founder of what we know today as out front. Before that it was CBS Viacom. Before that it was Outdoor Systems. But Artie Moreno is considered one of the pioneers, like Carl Eller and Ted Turner of billboards. Now, of course, Artie owns the Angels, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Let's not hold that against him.

[Scott Harkey]

Yeah, exactly. So I learned billboards from him. We had about 60 billboards in Phoenix and Las Vegas. I learned a lot about billboards and really grew an affinity and love for billboards. Throughout the last 16 years, I've owned and built and bought billboards as almost like a rental house business. And about three to four years ago, I got more seriously involved in billboards. I started other small billboard companies. I've of course bought a lot of out of home for a lot of big brands, especially big casino, hotel, sports app betting brands. So I love billboards. It's a media multiplier and everything about it. So there's a lot changing in the space and certainly happy to share my, I don't know, 20 year history in a lot of out of home as either a media buyer of out of home or an owner of out of home assets. So I sort of know both sides of the business which I think really helps figure out how to get clients unlock that value that exists in between this transaction. Almost like an airline flight, there's inventory that's expiring every day if you don't sell all that inventory. So how do you find the right locations for the right price? How do you pair that with other mediums? Because it is the medium multiplier. It helps make your other media message and brand message go farther at a cheaper cpm.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

All right, so I'm going to fire off a couple questions at you. Let's start off with what we call trend or trash. Is it trend or trash that out of home advertising is experiencing a resurgence because of new technology?

[Scott Harkey]

Absolutely. A trend. As we see more and more digital advertising networks take their inventory and put it on DSPs like for example the trade Desk or Google or Vistar, there's about eight different programmatic trading companies now helping non sophisticated out of home buyers place digital out of home inventory. And again it's perishable inventory. So similar to where Expedia and other sort of search engines got involved in the airline business. I see that really as where the next innovation is for the digital billboard business. Lamar Clear Channel out front, which is about call it 35, 40% of the share of the at home business, at least in the US JC to co of course more European markets they have all this perishable digital inventory. Now they're putting on DSPs and exchange networks and digital marketers and advertisers are finding this inventory that we can buy now with the click of a button that has data and demographics on it. So it's sort of the way we buy digital advertising. So it's more comfortable, it's more targeted and it's faster and it can be bought at scale. So yes, absolutely, a trend.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

I understand that technology is helping people buy the right inventory in the right places. Using things like the trade desk for your digital billboards. Is there a big difference or any difference in terms of performance or inventory when you're looking at something that's a digital placement as opposed to your traditional poster or whatever they use to make the big static billboards.

[Scott Harkey]

Yeah. So again I think history has a tendency in the advertising business of repeating itself. If you look at when all the major publishers had inventory they were trying to sell to advertisers at a certain cpm and then you had people like Google and the Trade desk and other DSPs package up all that inventory and sell it in a package using data and analytics and putting the right inventory to the right advertisers at the right time of the consumer journey. Now you would hardly ever buy direct publisher inventory, right? You'd buy it all through exchange networks and DSPs. That's what's happening with billboards now. That's a double edged store. Is it easier to buy? Is it more targeted? Is it more data rich? Of course. Is it a little bit more expensive? I believe so. I think if you're buying it direct with the clear channels, out fronts or other, even independent operators, which there are thousands of independent billboard operators out there, I think you can get a little bit lower CPM. I'm seeing CPMs on a lot of these programmatic networks. Double or triple what you could buy direct. So you are buying it at a premium, but it is faster and you can be a little more targeted in terms of demographics.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

All right, well I want to go to our next segment. We call this one Talk Nerdy to Me. We're going to push up our glasses here and I want you to break down the analytics behind measuring a billboard. I get that you can buy media mostly with digital billboards. Your day, parting your geographic targeting, trying to hit the right person, the right place, the right time. How do you figure out if it's working? If the people driving by your billboards are actually influenced by the content, if they're actually converting what the analytics look like? So you did just put your glasses on to do the talk Nerdy.

[Scott Harkey]

I did. I'm going to go nerdy on this one. Right? Look, there's no question that out of home advertising is probably the least measurable media tactic out there. At the end of the day, I say this all the time, it's a giant sign. Can you measure the brand effectiveness of a sign at a QSR restaurant or at your office? You can't. But look, branding helps. The average American consumer is seeing at least 5,000 messages a day. And that was a few years ago. I haven't seen the latest Google study, but it's probably even double. I mean look, we just coming off a political election, I think the number was what, three, $4 billion in ad spend, maybe even more. I think just the presidential alone was two or three.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Thank God that's behind us.

[Scott Harkey]

I know, me too. But look, we're bombarded with messaging so you want to be top of mind and that's why people talking about you, people seeing your message over and over and over again. Google did a study a few years ago where they said the average American consumer needed to see an ad within 30 days. I think it was 18.7 times. So what billboards do, what other signage does for you as a brand is it keeps that brand out there over and over and over again. A lot of people drive, especially in the American market, drive the same patterns to work over and over and over and over again. So the reason it's effective and the reason billboards are effective is because it just keeps your brand message out there as many times as possible. And if you look at a CPM model where Digital advertising and CTV now is so expensive, we're talking $12, a thousand to 40, $60, 1,000 for every thousand people. It's going to cost you between, call it, let's just say $15 and $50 for every thousand billboards still between 75 cents and $3 per thousand. So if you just look at pure math for cost per impression, billboards are way up on the list. Now again, you don't have a video, it's just there. It's not quite as dynamic as a CTV ad. So if you're watching Yellowstone and that ad comes up, that's pretty special. It's an ad unit that is very coveted by brands and which is why it super expensive. So how do you actually measure the effectiveness of billboards? Here's what we've done. We built out a fully integrated analytics system using a company called Alight analytics, which the MBA uses and others use, and basically plugged in every advertising data source we could. And in some cases it was thousands of lines of different data and it was 20, 30 different media tactics and out of home being one of them. And what we would do is through our client, the Arizona lottery, they're about $1.7 billion in sales. We would measure each campaign that we were running with our 3,000 retailers and we would figure out if we did a campaign without a home, and we would do a campaign without a home and we would check the sales lift and in a lot of cases we saw sales lift between 7 and 20% lift when we ran campaigns without a home rather than not ran campaigns without a home. Now, our digital marketers out there, of course they want return on ad spend and all this stuff. You're not going to get that without a home. It's got to be within an integrated campaign and it's one element of a campaign or a brand message. But I can tell you fast food restaurants wouldn't have giant Signs and grocery stores like Signage Matters and multiple impressions for a brand matter and how you can measure it. I do like how we've done it where you try different campaigns with it and without it and just check overall lift because again, it makes everything you're doing better. But it's not something that carries the campaign.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

It's interesting. The only thing I've ever heard that is outside of what you said, right. It's a giant sign. How are you going to track whether somebody actually saw it? You can't. The only thing I've heard, and this was in my first year of recording of the Martech podcast 374 years ago. Somebody told me that you can get cell phone data and understand who has had multiple times trips past the billboard and infer that they've seen the message and then try to backtrack and it just sounds like it's very convoluted trying to figure out who's on the road at what given time and how many impressions they got for a billboard. But I've heard that location data can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of your out of home campaigns. Have you tried anything like that?

[Scott Harkey]

Yeah, I've seen a lot of it. It's been cost prohibitive in the past and I don't like to treat out of home like I treat my digital campaigns. I know its effectiveness, I know the locations we're buying. I use a company called Geopath which gives me very detailed analysis on eyeballs basically per day and per week. And they take in consideration how big the sign is, where it's at. There's also other demographic information in terms of household income, traffic patterns. Again, is the sign on the left side of the road or the right side of the road? How close is it to the road? How high up is it? Does it have any trees blocking it? So I use it more impression based and I understand the demographics and area that assign where it's located. I've seen a lot of things with cell phone data. Of course billboard companies are putting different beacons on the boards not only for cellular service, which they have some, but also for beacons for tracking and data. So yeah, you can do some of that. I'm not sure how effective it is. I've done a lot of other digital ad serving campaigns where you can track if that mobile phone went into the retail location. We've seen some success with that, but I just love using billboards for media. Multiplying the other way billboards can be used successfully is more of a locator. A store locator.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Your McDonald's is three stops away.

[Scott Harkey]

Correct. You see this a lot in the cannabis business. You see it in the QSR business. So two things like let's run a big campaign and let's add out of home at 10 or 15 or 20% of our budget to multiply our message for cheaper. GEICO is genius at this. The insurance category as a whole is very good at using out of home as a media multiplier for an overall campaign and market by market. The only other thing is you're using it as sort of a store locator. Turn left here, next exit. Those are the two ways I really love using out of home. It's not great for sort of like buy now or sales messaging or direct response kind of stuff, which is why you see very little doctor or what I would say in like the CPG or the fashion business that has done really well with influencers and more Instagram direct response, low funnel stuff. It's not used for low funnel. It's upper, middle funnel kind of work.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

All right, last question I have for you. On billboards, we're calling the secret sauce. You're putting together the sauce that you're going to put on your billboard. Cheeseburgers. What are the ingredients that you're including to make an effective billboard? Talk to me a little bit about the creative portion of this.

[Scott Harkey]

So my rule of thumb is seven to eight, meaning you get seven to eight things maximum on a billboard and the less things, the more effective. And the percentage of effectiveness is double digits more every time you have less than seven or less than eight. So words count, websites count, logos count, images count. So less is more. Certainly with digital billboards and static billboards. If you're doing a static billboard, I really prefer doing something really unique, especially if it's a perm location where you can cut out where things are coming off the top top or out the side. And think of it really innovative manner. There's a lot of other really unique out of home things coming from a technology standpoint creatively, like projection, where you're projecting on the side of buildings, which is really unique, or wall scapes or even art collages that are actually built. So Pabst Blue Ribbon, I love their creative. The other thing is you want it consistent around market. You don't want 20 different creatives. You want maybe three different that are all within the same family of brands. I think website addresses on boards are less important now. I think you just want brand recall. Let Google get the credit digitally Any sort of unique URLs or phone numbers are a no go for me. And something that has bold colors and contrast, black and yellow, black and white, white and black, like a strong contrast of colors when you look at fonts and logos. And messaging is certainly a rule of thumb on out of home as well.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

I'm here in the suburbs of San Francisco, so every time me and my wife drive into the city, we read the billboards and we're always looking for trends. And they're all B2B SaaS companies. We're in Startupville and they're all centered around artificial intelligence right now. And it's consistent. And to me, the ironic thing is there's no pattern disrupt. It might be a great billboard, but is Clay's billboard any different than Klaviyo's, which is different than Salesforce's, which is different than whatever is down the block on the way to get to the Salesforce tower to go over the bridge to 101? Look, you mentioned you want to do something that's like a little different in the building and the landscapes. How do you manufacture some sort of pattern disrupt so your billboard stands out from the other signage that's around it?

[Scott Harkey]

I do think there is a lot of opportunity in B2B for out of home. There's a few things that psychologically happen with out of home advertising. When you see a brand that's on a lot of billboards or on billboards consistently with, to your point, a traffic pattern. And that traffic pattern, let's say, is high income and B2B decision makers. There's something about when somebody's on a billboard or a brand's on a billboard, it gives a sense of legitimacy, right? It says they have enough money to be up there, they must be credible. I'll give you an example. I work with a large real estate office, B2B company, and they go against some of the biggest other national office players in the globe. Really, like a JLL or cbre. And so he says, scotty, I just do billboards. I helped him get into billboards and then he ended up loving it. And this is a commercial real estate guy all around town because all my competitors have offices everywhere and they have brands that people know. Now I'm everywhere in traffic patterns where high income people are going by on their daily commute to work and they see me everywhere and it just gives them a sense that I'm as powerful of brand as my competitors who are much bigger than me. So I think you're seeing a lot of SaaS companies do that. To your point, to make it stand out. I look for ways to do things on the billboard that other people aren't. I love what I call extensions. So extending something off the billboard. I love doing things where let's say there's two billboards in a row and one has one message and maybe could have a second message. So just thinking about things that are more innovative in the space. I'm working on a really interesting campaign that I can't talk about with a major Fortune 500 brand and a really respectable agency where we're doing something that hasn't really been done in the out of home space. And I like using elements of the board as part of the creative, whether that's the pole or the bottom, or maybe elements around the billboard that just sort of use it in space. You've seen this done in other markets, European markets, their percentage of spend of billboards are in the double digits. In terms of your percentage of ad spend towards that category, call it 10, 20% of total advertising going to out of home, where in the US market it's like 3 to 5%. And you see some really unique things. Like you go into a tunnel and the tunnel's wrapped and it's using sort of an element of the tunnel with the ad. So you want it the same way. Like video game people are advertising within phone games that like make a fun game with the ad, like use the out of home asset and element of driving and the environment around it as part of the creative. But a lot of times you see designers that are designing billboard ads and they design it like a banner ad. And it's a horrible mistake because these are not banner ads. And you have a lot of people and designers used to making banner ads and so they think they're billboard ads. And I never freak out at creative teams. I've freaked out at creative teams over the years because they've made a lot of bad billboards. I'd say 70% of designers make bad billboards. They just don't know how to do it. They're looking at a computer screen. My rule of thumb is print the damn thing out, put it on the wall, tape it up to the wall and walk 10 steps back. And if you can't read the thing first of all, then it's done. You start over. You need to print it out and you need to walk backwards and look at it. And then imagine going 60 an hour, buy the damn thing. So this isn't a banner ad. Don't get Cutesy with the fonts and the sophisticated fonts and the all the different offers you want on there and how it looks. It's going to look like crap. It's a giant sign. So you need to think about if you wanted to interact with somebody, it needs to think about the environment it's in, the community that it's in. Is it on a wall or a billboard or a projection? How big is a billboard? Is this little one? Is it a big one? What's around it? What's that headline that gets somebody's attention? Is it something unique? Is it cool? Is it conversational? Is it current? Is it pop culture? Y like, there's so many ways to do it and you've seen, I would say, maybe 10% of the market that's doing it well and about 90% of the market that's doing it half ass. So I do think there's a major opportunity for people that are doing out of home and using it right to really step up their game creatively. And it's two things. It's the first step is it's got to have contrast and it needs to have less than seven or eight things. And then the second part is it needs to interact with people that drive that same route over and over again in a fun way to get their attention.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

We're also wrapped up in digital marketing, right? We've gone through this evolution where we're able to track and account for virtually everything that happens online. And we try to shoehorn the type of tracking and analysis that we do with digital media into all channels and all things. And yes, with something like billboards, you can be very strategic with your media buying. When you're looking at digital, you can also do some analysis on the back end. But fundamentally, a billboard, as Scott said, is a giant sign. It's a sign, it's got to have a great message, it's got to be legible, and it's in context of the real world. It's not on a screen. So when you're designing the billboard, which is probably the most important part of this process, you have to understand where it's going to be and what the experience is. And without that, you're tracking your analytics, none of it matters. All right, that wraps up this episode of the Martech podcast. Thanks for listening to my conversation with Scott Harkey, the founder and CEO of the Harkey Group. If you'd like to get in touch with Scott, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes. He's on Instagram as well under Scott Harkey. Or you could visit his company's website, which is theharkygroup.com T-H-E-H-A-R-K-E-Y-G-R-O-U-P.com A special thanks to the Current Podcast for sponsoring today's interview if you're looking for candid conversations with marketing leaders from the world's biggest brands, then give the Current Podcast a listen. On the Current Podcast you'll find exclusive interviews with experts and trendsetters who are on the front lines of digital advertising, and they always leave the ad tech jargon at the door. So subscribe to the [e-mail] or anywhere you get your podcasts today. If you'd like a summary of this podcast, or if you'd like to apply to be one of the next guest speakers on the Martech Podcast, head over to martechpod.com you can also find us on YouTube. Just search for Martech Podcast and if you'd like to contact me, you can find my LinkedIn handle in the Show Notes. Or you can just search for Ben J. Shaft. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app and we'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy. Thanks for listening to the Martech Podcast and Ihear Everything Production Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit iheareverything.com.