Oh, What a Year
We’ve had another election, so it’s time for Spot-On to put on its political reporter spyglass to look (and share!) what we see as important trends for media consultants and buyers. Parties May Not be Dead, But They’re on Life Support The number of voters who refused to affiliate with one party or another is […]
The Last Dance?
If you’re reading this, chances are good that the majority of your digital ad spending this election cycle has gone through what are known as programmatic ad buying platforms. After all, most political ad dollars are being spent that way. But this may be the last cycle where the freewheeling no-holds-barred programmatic market serves political […]
Many Voters, Multiple Solutions
Here at Spot-On, we focus on strategic implementations while our clients dictate strategy.. But also we read a lot and this piece in the New York Times about how campaign should talking to different voters – maybe the ones that aren’t easy to find – hit a nerve.As the authors point out, it’s hard to […]
Direct Dial Deals
Well, well, well, it looks like the rush to access publishers’ advertising inventory directly – without going through the black boxes called programmatic ad buying – appears to be getting traction. Or at least lip service. More and more players in that world, from Google on down, seem to acknowledge that programmatic ads hurt news […]
The Return of Old School Selling
As we’ve built our political ad-buying platform over the past few months Spot-On has noticed that more and more folks seem interested in the whole idea of abandoning the black boxes called part programmatic ad buying in favor of something more direct. From Google on down, more players seem ready to acknowledge that programmatic ads […]
The Year – No, Week – Ahead
About this time every year – Spot-On sits down and thinks about the year ahead, gives you our take on what’s happened and what’s likely to be popping up on our political ad buying radar. We started this year’s naval gazing back in early December. And, well, we got distracted. Being caught in a bad […]
You’re Leaving Money On The Table
It’s an election year. If you’re reading this, it’s likely you work at or run a local news site. We have some good news. And, well, some bad news, too. Good: It looks as though 2022 will be a barn burner of a year for political ad buying. Digital will – for the first time […]
Separate, Maybe More Equal
The time has come for political advertisers to demand different treatment in the digital buying space. 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 […]
Divide, Conquer
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 […]
Leaving Money on the Table (Again)
The programmatic ad market is slowly coming in for its close-up, and it looks as though that scrutiny may start to expand some familiar cracks in the facade. Familiar, especially, to publishers worried about exactly what kind of political ads are running on their pages. The University of North Carolina’s Center on Technology Policy has […]