Here’s a little good news: Political and advocacy efforts want to advertise in this crisis-fueled climate. And publishers should be waiting for them.
A few trends, accelerated by the Covid-19 crisis, might make it easier.
The lingering and slow death of the 3rd party cookie, brought on by fatigue, frustration and fraud, along with the enactment or threat of enactment of online privacy protection laws means the most popular means of buying political ads, known as “programmatic advertising,” is losing its shiny gloss.
At the same time, attention to local news sites, spurred on by the Covid-19 Pandemic, has increased dramatically.
“What often you can’t find in the world of digital advertising is the adjacency and the renowned brand construct that makes your advertising important in context,” says McClatchy CEO Craig Foreman, describing an environment that’s friendly to political. He was speaking in a different context, but the message endures. Political buyers want to be on news sites because news readers are voters.
Things were headed this way even before the pandemic. In late February, Pew Research Center found that 75% of the folks they surveyed – from both political parties – did not believe Facebook or Google would be able to prevent election interference on their platforms. Another survey found that readers were more trusting of the ‘open web’ – not platforms.
There’s more: Pay TV – that’s cable and satellite – is seeing a pretty interesting slow-down in growth. One analyst told Variety: “There are now as many non-subscribing households (46M) as there were pay TV subscribers in 1988.” In other words, the number of folks using online to access information and entertainment is now the size of the early days of the cable TV business.
Even better: More – a lot more – political money is coming into the system. Since the pandemic began, estimate of the amount of money being spent on digital ads has been revised – twice. The most recent projections estimated spending at just about $2 billion for digital.
The big bucks get spent after July 4th, which means publishers have some time to get ready to take direct ad buys. Spot-On’s been buying directly from every major online publisher in the country for more than 10 years, so we have some ideas that can help.
The first step is the one that needs the most discussion. Close your programmatic channels to political buyers.
News outlets love to say they charge all political campaigns the same rates and make compliance the same across the board. They don’t (we have the invoices to prove it). If your site is selling political ads programmatically – and it is – you’re undercutting the rate card, leaving the door open to election interference and hurting your bottom line.
Once your programmatic channel is closed, you can take a look at all those new readers you’ve got through new digital subscription sales.
Figure out how many registered voters regularly look at your sites. You’ve got their addresses, which is all you need to check your county list of registered voters. Use it.
Take a deep dive with your subscriber demographics: Political campaigns are not interested in your well-off readers who can buy houses and cars; they want demographic information to help them see your audience – regardless of income. The more you know, the better off you will be
Set fair and clear political ad rules for federal and state election ads disclaimers. The laws are different for each – know this and know what you (and the campaigns) need to do to comply.
Don’t want to do any of this but want some of the $2 billion political ad revenue expected to land this year? Drop us a note and we’ll get you a demo of Spot-On’s new Pinpoint Persuasion Platform. It lets you speak directly to political ad buyers in their language with safe, secure and profitable ad delivery and measurement – at no cost to publishers or outlets.
