The time has come for news outlets to start separating – really separating – political and advocacy ad sales from brands.
This is not a dramatic step. In the analog world, political campaigns enjoy special treatment that brand advertisers don’t. TV stations set political rates for candidate ads. Election-oriented mail is red tagged by the post office.
But in the digital arena, political is just another brand silo – and an intermittent one at that, that’s almost entirely bought via programmatic trading desks. And despite publishers’ loud protestations to the contrary, more than 60% of political ad dollars are spent this way.
Here’s an example. In California, the recent but unsuccessful effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom spent more than $5 million on digital ads just on Google’s AdX exchange and YouTube.
But that can change. It should change. Adjustments in the ad tech ecosystem are opening the door for publishers to rethink how they sell political ads. Because what’s an adjustment for brand is a seismic shift for political buyers.
In the analog world, political advertisers like to argue that they shouldn’t be treated the same as brand advertisers because they have smaller budgets raised in shorter time frames with a hard election day ‘close’. That’s one good set of reasons why the digital market needs to be adjusted for political ad outreach.
But there’s another: Political advertisers like to rely on personal information about voters to target their ads. The easy way to do that is going away – which creates another opening for publishers to reclaim their place in the political ad market.
Referring to the changes that Apple and Google are making (or announcing they will make) to protect user privacy, New York Times readers were recently warned:
“The developments may seem like technical tinkering, but they were connected to something bigger: an intensifying battle over the future of the internet. The struggle has entangled tech titans, upended Madison Avenue and disrupted small businesses. And it heralds a profound shift in how people’s personal information may be used online, with sweeping implications for the ways that businesses make money digitally.”
It’s been clear for a while that political advertisers should be barred from programmatic ad channels. Instead of buying video and banner ads via black box exchanges that allow them to avoid editorial review and compliance with state or federal laws, political ad buyers should have one open, transparent marketplace.
There’s a third reason for the political ad segregation: Its messaging matters. That’s also recognized in the real world where TV stations have special political desks charged with assuring viewers that the ads they’re seeing are at least based in publicly substantiated claims.
Online news outlets have been reluctant to enter into this conversation, preferring to avoid confronting Google and its ‘first look’ deals or triggering regulatory oversight (and legal fees). But changing how political ads are sold is an easy call to make, and it’s one where individual publishers who know their communities can take a stand – and win.
Blocking – really blocking – political ad sales via programmatic exchanges would mean more revenue for publishers. And this isn’t just incremental revenue. Look again at that $5 million spent in California this summer as an example, and show me a news chain that doesn’t need or want that revenue.
Spot-On’s working to see if we can’t help this change along. Our Pinpoint Placement ad buying platform matches buyers – the folks now using programmatic almost exclusively for their ad placements – with local news outlets. We’ve included a one-stop creative review and we’ve made it easy for publishers to talk to campaigns and advocacy efforts about their sites.
We’ll be showing this service off for the first time publicly at the American Association of Political Consultants Las Vegas Conference and talking about how we think a new digital marketplace should function.
Drop us a line, and we’ll get you on the schedule for a publisher demo after November 1.