How GSTV Used FatTail to Scale Campaign Automation — And What It Means for the Future of DOOH

Written By barbara mota

In a world where digital advertising budgets are projected to surpass $1 trillion in total ad revenue, most of that growth is happening in digital channels and automated buying systems, according to the Financial Times. Digital spend is expected to continue rising, fuelled by programmatic platforms, cross‑channel measurement, and data‑driven targeting.

For GSTV, a leader in digital out‑of‑home (DOOH) advertising, this shift was more than industry noise — it was a strategic imperative.

The Challenge: Manual Campaigns in a Digital World

GSTV runs one of the largest on‑the‑go video networks in the U.S., reaching audiences across tens of thousands of fuel retailer locations. Before automation, campaign setup looked like many ad ops environments:

  • Teams pulled spreadsheets with budgets, IDs, and targets

  • Campaign parameters were manually coordinated

  • Errors and delays were frequent

  • Teams had little time for strategic decision‑making

But DOOH isn’t just another channel, it’s a rapidly expanding one. The global DOOH market was valued at around $15–$16 billion in 2022, and is expected to climb significantly in the coming years as advertisers allocate more spend to digital outdoor formats.

And that’s before you factor in programmatic DOOH — which now accounts for around 40% of digital out‑of‑home ad spend and is expected to reach 60% by 2030 according to Verified Market Reports.

For GSTV,  this offered a massive growth opportunity,  so long as they could automate the operations behind it.

The FatTail Solution: Plugging Automation Into a Complex Workflow

FatTail worked with GSTV to build a smart campaign module that did something most manual systems couldn’t:

  • Turn simple inputs like budget, targeting, and timing into a fully configured campaign

  • Automatically assign IDs, placements, and audience parameters

  • Enable real‑time visibility and updates without manual wrangling

The result was an end‑to‑end automation layer that turned hours of manual setup into minutes, freeing the team to focus on strategy, optimization, and cross‑channel coordination.

This wasn’t just convenience. Recent industry research by Gitnux shows that automation in ad operations cuts manual tasks by up to 50% for most marketers and significantly reduces setup time across complex campaigns. 

Why This Matters: DOOH Performance and Attention

Automation alone is powerful — but the medium in which GSTV operates makes it even more effective. A 2024 study from GSTV and Lumen Research uncovered extraordinary audience attention and engagement:

  • 95% of impressions on GSTV deliver visual attention — beating digital, CTV, and linear TV benchmarks

  • GSTV ads generate 2.7x the attention of CTV ads and 2.5x that of linear TV

  • Brand recall from GSTV exposures topped norms by more than 50% compared to video and CTV formats

  • On attentive reach (seconds of attention per thousand impressions), GSTV outperformed online display by a factor of 5× and social by 2.3× 

These kinds of engagement metrics matter. Industry data suggests DOOH advertising can lead to high brand recall and engagement, with up to 90% recall rates among viewers — far exceeding static formats, you can read more about this on ZipDo.

The Bigger Picture: DOOH, Programmatic, and Automation

GSTV’s experience isn’t unique — it reflects a broader industry shift. Adoption of programmatic DOOH is accelerating, enabling real‑time targeting and truly dynamic content delivery. Today, roughly 45% of DOOH campaigns leverage dynamic triggers such as weather and time of day, according to WifiTalents. And more than 70% of advertisers say they plan to increase DOOH spend in the near future, citing its unmatched reach and effectiveness, per ZipDo.

But complexity is the catch. Without the right systems, DOOH campaigns become operational bottlenecks, the exact problem GSTV solved with FatTail.

What This Means for Revenue Leaders and Ad Ops Teams

As advertising continues to digitize, the lines between different channels, whether DOOH, digital video, or CTV can blur. Advertisers increasingly expect:

  • Automation that scales campaigns across formats

  • Real‑time insights and optimization

  • Cross‑channel measurement and performance tracking

GSTV’s fusion of automation and premium DOOH media positions the company to capture more of these trends, and FatTail’s platform helped make that a reality.

Ready for the Full Story?

The results of GSTV’s automation journey go deeper than what we can cover in a blog post — from workflow metrics to ROI impact, strategic business insights, and the technology decisions that drove them.

👉 Download the full GSTV + FatTail case study and learn more

barbara mota
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