Are you a political ad buyer who wants to buy ads on local news sites? You should be – more than 70% of local news readers are voters.
Local news sites want you to buy ads, too. They consistently miss out on spending that’s diverted to programmatic and social ad buying – mostly because it’s easier for you to buy than it is for them to sell.
Which is a shame because political and advocacy efforts, more than anyone else, take advantage of ‘free’ earned media to spread the word about what they’re doing. Meaning there’s a direct connection between the revenue they collect and the coverage they can offer. That’s one connection that political and advocacy efforts can appreciate a lot more than most small businesses.
Spot-On thinks it’s time for this to change. Our Pinpoint Persuasion Automated Direct Ad Buying platform – P3 to its friends – is ready to help buyers – and sellers.
You can get a quick early look at what we’re up to here.
Starting next month – that’s also next year – we’ll be running some focused tests in states with March primaries. Our aim is to demonstrate how P3 makes it easy to buy local news placements.
And, of course, to show how effective they are. With click-through engagement rates that can top 1% on some outlets and placements, it’s money well spent.
There are strategic reason to include local buys in your media plan. In 2024, six U.S. House seats won with margins as tight as 2% – that’s small enough to justify placements on voter-rich local news sites to speak directly to community leaders and decision makers.
And while streaming video is popular, it doesn’t reach everyone, especially in more rural areas with unreliable broadband. Social platforms have restrictions on paid political ads and not every candidate has the energy or personality to run a Mandami-esque campaign.
Programmatic voter ‘match’ has run its course along with targeted emails and text messages. Privacy law. Automatic screening tools (many AI-generated by users) and dramatic swings in voter behavior make it much harder to rely on what’s happened to decide what tools to use for next year.
It’s getting to the point where political predictions should carry the same disclaimers that stockbrokers use: Past performance is not a promise of future returns. Which is why a local new site – in front of readers and voters last year and the year before – is a sound strategic buy.
Or, more simply put: Do you want to be the campaign that forgoes local ad placements for techniques that “worked” in 2008?
We’re opening up P3 on a limited basis for folks who want to kick the tires. If you want to be one of them, send us a note.
