It’s easy to think the political ad buying season is over.
But, just like Monty Python’s Polly Parrot it’s only resting. The next year will see a number of mayoral races, no shortage of ‘special’ elections for seats left empty as officeholders joined the Biden administration and a fair amount of advocacy and legislative jockeying.
So publishers might take some time to look back at 2020 for insights about 2021 and, of course, the increased activity in 2022.
Naturally, Spot-On has some ideas about getting ready. After all, our main business is helping local news sites secure political ad dollars.
In 2020 a number of ad platforms shied away from political sales. Adobe closed down political sales as did other like Spotify and Twitter. Before election day, Google banned ad targeting with voter and behavioral data. And they’ve got a ban on post-election political ads.
And it’s looking likely these bans will stay in effect for a bit longer.
It’s also likely that the ability to use cookie-based targeting – which many political campaigns rely on – will become less and less effective through next year. Privacy laws are the main culprits here.
So there’s a nascent interest on the part of campaigns in buying political ads directly from publishers. Good news all around!
Except that very few publishers are able to talk about their political – as opposed to brand – audiences. News outlet media kits like to emphasize the wealth of their readership. That’s great for car and department store ads. Not so much for political.
Political and advocacy buyers want to know a few things: how many voters regularly read your sites (on average, it’s an impressive 65-70% of subscribers). Where do they live? What party registrations do they have?
Engagement rates – again, usually high for news placements – matter to political ad buyers. Can placements on your site demonstrate high click-through engagement rates? Since political campaigns use websites to talk about their candidates – and opponents – that metric is very important when it comes to political sales.
Lastly, take a look at your rate card and approval process.
Skittish about fraud and nefarious ad buyers, many publishers added requirements above and beyond what was often called for by local law. This was well-intentioned but often misguided and poorly executed.
Publishers confused federal election law (Congress, U.S. Senate and presidential campaigns) with local state regulations (everyone else). Some of their ad-on requirements were put in place in August and September – late in the game for many campaigns.
And most were arbitrarily enforced: Ads bought via programmatic exchanges escaped review; direct buyers who were paying a premium for their placement ran into roadblocks.
We can’t say this often enough: A political ad buyer who’s turned away because their ads don’t meet a publishers idea of what’s suitable, a political ad buyer who can’t get reliable data about ad performance and readership, a political ad buyer who can’t secure inventory at rate card price is a customer who is going to seek another way to reach voters.
The dust hasn’t quite settled but when it does, Spot-On is confident that the total digital spend in 2020 for political will be well over $1billion. And for the first time, because of bans and limitations by the platforms, it’s likely that more than 40% of those dollars went directly to publishers.
That, as they say over on the editorial side of your house, is a trend we can all learn to live with. So spend a few moments now while political is still top-of-mind to look at head. 2022 will be here before you know it.
Need help? Spot-On’s happy to help you learn more about reaching political campaigns and advocacy efforts in your city, state or broader readership. Drop us a note and we’ll help you get started on our Pinpoint Persuasion direct buying platform.
