It took more than two years, several Congressional hearings, the levying of a multi-billion dollar fine, countless PR missteps and Lord only knows how much Menlo Park navel gazing but Facebook has finally gotten out of the political ads business.
In true Facebook style of course, they aren’t saying they’re leaving. No, they’re just saying they won’t pay commission on political ads sales.
That has some naive reporters reaching into the archives to suggest that statements Facebook made last year still apply and that the company will continue to take political ads.
This is nonsense. Put another way: Would you work without commission? Didn’t think so.
What’s really going on here? Well, Facebook is going back to the political business it should have stayed in, serving local campaigns on a self-service level. School board race? No problem. City council in a small or medium size city? Upload that creative!
But if you have a multi-state, multi-creative campaign with voter or demograhic targeting and need help or advice using and properly deploying the Facebook platform? You’re outta luck.
And this is where local publishers can step in.
Facebook has offered political campaigns, political media buyers and consultants a way to effectively reach voters allowing the use of targeting lists, demo and other data targeting that – they said – was the most effective way to reach voters.
That may have been true. But local publishers – whose readers are mostly voters – have a sales entry point. If you can tell a campaign what percentage of your readers are voters, you may close a sale.
Because it’s not just Facebook that’s scaling back.
Google is still active in the political ad arena but is now operating with significant restrictions. The firm won’t take political ads for local races or ballot measures in Washington, Maryland, New Jersey and Nevada and has restricted the types of ads it will accept in New York.
Election officials in one of the states affected say that programmatic ad platforms are still running political ads so it’s not clear if Google is refusing ads directly – for YouTube and search – while allowing third-party ad platforms access to its display inventory.
That’s an entry point, too, for a good sales person. Making sure a campaign understands that ads might be subject to cancellation on a platform – but not on your outlet – could be an incentive to buy direct.
Spot-On’s in the business of buying political and advocacy placements direct from publishers and we’re rolling out a buying platform that will allow for seamless and automated direct buying by campaigns on your websites.
The Pinpoint Placement platform is built on a database of more than 2700 local news sites – like yours – across the country. They’re divided up by Congressional and state districts, searchable by zip code to let our clients find what they want, when they want it.
Want to learn more? Send an email. We’ll tell you what we’re doing, how we’re selling your outlets and let you tell us what we could be doing better.
