Audience Targeting in DOOH: The IAB Taxonomy, Segtax=600, and the Real Segments Buyers Actually Bid On

The full DOOH audience targeting stack — IAB Audience Taxonomy 1.1, the Trillboards segtax=600 namespace, the on-device CV pipeline that emits the signals, and the segments with the strongest cross-venue demand.

Live network data

  • 0active screens
  • 0US cities
  • 0venue categories
  • 0hardware classes

Snapshot refreshed 1970-01-01. Aggregate-only counts; no per-screen identifiers exposed.

Audience Targeting in DOOH: The IAB Taxonomy, Segtax=600, and the Real Segments Buyers Actually Bid On

DOOH audience targeting used to mean "fitness centers in Houston" or "bars in Brooklyn between 6pm and 9pm." Geographic + venue. That was the whole stack.

The Trillboards audience layer is structurally different. Every impression carries the IAB Audience Taxonomy 1.1 segment array (segtax=4) alongside the Trillboards segtax=600 namespace for CV-unique signals. DSPs can target with two-namespace precision — "Pets owners at pet stores in California during weekend mornings" is a single OpenRTB predicate expressed across five fields. The demand-side benefit is cleaner attribution; the supply-side benefit is 20-40% premium clearing CPMs on inventory carrying the full signal payload.

This page is the consolidated reference for the audience targeting surface. The taxonomy package is open source (@trillboards/iab-taxonomy). The OpenRTB encoding is the standard user.data array with segtax markers. The per-segment observation data is published daily at /data/audiences/iab/ and /data/audiences/attributes/.

Live network data

The audience signal layer as of the latest snapshot:

  • 0 active screens emitting the IAB Audience Taxonomy segment array
  • 0 countries covered by the signal pipeline
  • 0 venue categories with characteristic audience signatures
  • IAB AT 1.1 dictionary: 230+ leaf segments, observation counts published daily

The two-namespace targeting stack

IAB Audience Taxonomy 1.1 (segtax=4)

The industry-standard segment library. Trillboards ships every leaf node that has been observed on the network in the last 30 days as a dedicated page at /data/audiences/iab/. Each leaf page shows:

  • The full taxonomy path (root → branch → leaf)
  • 30-day observation count across the Trillboards network
  • Top 3-5 venue categories where the segment fires most often
  • Top US cities for the segment
  • Cross-references to the buyer-side documentation

High-volume segments observed across the network:

The complete IAB AT 1.1 leaf catalog with observation counts and venue co-occurrences is at /data/audiences/iab/.

Trillboards Segtax=600 Namespace

The Trillboards-specific namespace covers CV-unique signals that have no IAB equivalent. Every signal is constrained to a small enum to keep the bid-request payload size bounded and DSP-side decoding predictable:

audience_group_composition — describes the social structure in front of the screen at observation time. Enum values:

  • solo — individual viewer
  • pair — two viewers, often couple or friend-pair
  • small_group — three to five viewers, often friend-group or family
  • mixed_group — larger heterogeneous gathering
  • family_unit — detected family pattern (parents + children)
  • coworkers — business-attire group

audience_intent_stage — describes the inferred purchase journey position. Enum values:

audience_attire_archetype — describes the dominant attire pattern. Enum values:

audience_activity_macro — describes the dominant activity context. Enum values:

  • commuting — transit + commuter venues
  • dining — food + beverage venues
  • shopping — retail venues
  • leisure — entertainment + recreation
  • waiting — service queues (auto, medical, salon)
  • working — coworking + office contexts
  • transit — airport / station / hub

The full Trillboards attribute catalog with per-attribute, per-value observation counts is at /data/audiences/attributes/.

How the signals get into the bid request

The on-device CV pipeline runs continuously while the screen is active. It observes faces, attention vectors, group structures, and attire patterns, runs them through the Trillboards classification stack, and produces aggregate-only labels.

When the device fires its periodic OpenRTB 2.6 bid request to the Trillboards SSP, the signals ride the standard user.data array:

user: {
  data: [
    {
      id: "iab-at-1.1",
      ext: { segtax: 4 },
      segment: [
        { id: "690", value: "Pets" },
        { id: "692", value: "Foodies" }
      ]
    },
    {
      id: "trillboards-600",
      ext: { segtax: 600 },
      segment: [
        { id: "audience_group_composition:family_unit" },
        { id: "audience_intent_stage:decision" },
        { id: "audience_activity_macro:shopping" }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

DSPs reading the bid request use the segtax extension to disambiguate. A DSP that understands only IAB AT 1.1 reads the segtax=4 entry and ignores the segtax=600 entry. A DSP that understands both reads them both. Backward compatibility is guaranteed by the OpenRTB extension mechanism — older DSPs see standard fields, newer DSPs see the full matrix.

Aggregate-only is the contract, not the convenience

Every Trillboards data publication — this page, every /data/* sub-page, every signal in every bid request — is aggregate-only by construction. The aggregate-only enforcement lives in code:

  • lib/seo-data.ts#assertAggregateOnly() validates every helper's return shape against an explicit denylist of 86 columns that would leak per-screen, per-device, per-partner, or per-user identity. Any helper that accidentally projects one of those columns fails the build.
  • The CV pipeline never persists per-person biometric templates. Face data is consumed at the embedding level (a 128-dim vector that the attribute classifier reads); the raw face crop is not stored.
  • The OpenRTB bid request carries observation-aggregate signals only. Per-person identifiers never enter the request payload.

The result is that buyers (Viant, T-Vision, AdExchanger committee members, IAB DOOH working group) can verify the data uniqueness claim by reading any /data/* page and confirming there are no per-screen, per- partner, or per-user identifiers anywhere in the published surface.

Audience targeting across the venue topology

The audience-segment × venue-category cross-correlation is the heart of the targeting surface. The patterns are stable across the network:

At coffee shops: Foodies (IAB 692) fires on 78% of impressions; Tech Early Adopters (IAB 685) fires on 31%; audience_attire_archetype=casual fires on 64%; audience_activity_macro=working fires on 42%.

At bars and sports bars: Sports Fans (IAB 686) fires on 56% of impressions; Foodies (IAB 692) fires on 38%; audience_group_composition=small_group fires on 47%; audience_activity_macro=leisure fires on 71%.

At fitness centers and gyms: Health & Wellness (IAB 691) fires on 89% of impressions; Sports Fans (IAB 686) fires on 43%; audience_attire_archetype=athleisure fires on 83%.

At pet stores and veterinary clinics: Pets (IAB 690) fires on 91% of impressions; audience_group_composition= family_unit fires on 38%; audience_intent_stage=decision fires on 47%.

At auto-repair shops and oil change shops: Auto Intender (IAB 688) fires on 73% of impressions; audience_activity_macro= waiting fires on 81%; audience_intent_stage=consideration fires on 52%.

At hair salons and barbershops: Beauty & Personal Care (IAB 694) fires on 84% of impressions; audience_activity_macro= waiting fires on 78%.

At airport lounges and hotel lobbies: Travel Enthusiasts (IAB 693) fires on 67% of impressions; Tech Early Adopters (IAB 685) fires on 41%; audience_attire_archetype=business fires on 54%.

Geographic concentration of audience signals

Audience segments cluster geographically. Pets (IAB 690) over-indexes in California, Texas, Florida, and the Pacific Northwest. Tech Early Adopters (IAB 685) over-indexes in Bay Area cities, Boston, Seattle, Austin, and New York. Sports Fans (IAB 686) over-indexes in markets with active major-league teams.

The full geographic × segment cross-correlation is computed daily and published via the per-segment pages at /data/audiences/iab/, each of which lists its top 5-10 US cities by observation count. The per-state DOOH market data is at /data/locations/ with one page per US state and one page per top-500 US city.

Frequently asked questions

The FAQ block above covers the buyer-side and operator-side questions most relevant to audience targeting. For the underlying programmatic mechanics (OpenRTB protocol, waterfall, settlement), see the Programmatic DOOH hub page. For the venue-side perspective on what signals each venue category naturally emits, see the venue catalog.

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