With the Friday announcement that it was cancelling contracts with political ad buyers, Adobe – a venerable Silicon Valley company – is sending a clear signal: Political ads are too hot to handle.

The Adobe news broke at the end of a week that saw The Big Tech Four on the hot seat before Congress and word that Hulu, Facebook, Verizon and Google made an editorial judgement about a political ad.

These are all indication of how the established practices in the online political world are changing – and a hint that they may change again before the election.

Of course, these practices aren’t all that established. The current (but fading) fad for voter targeting – also known as ‘micro-targeting’ really came to the forefront in 2016 when campaigns became convinced – wrongly – that online targeting was the same as mail targeting.

It’s not. It never was, especially for anything smaller than a Congressional race. But using voter targeting to buy remnant ads via platform dashboards – which is what Adobe’s stopped on its platform – is an easy and fast way to buy lots of cheap ads and avoid oversight by regulators. No editorial or legal review. No need for substantiation or disclaimers.

So, oversight is the big news here. Google, Hulu, Facebook and Verizon (which now owns the still-popular Yahoo!) have actually looked at the ad and decided not to run it. Adobe, realizing somewhat belatedly that its acquisition of TubeMogul in late 2016 brought them a political business, decided to remove a potential PR nightmare like the one dogging Facebook.

There’s more change coming between now and the election as shortcuts taken for granted by many online advertisers get closed off. Here are two more important changes we’ll see before Nov. 3.

Apple is ramping up protections against ad tracking. These privacy protections will be part of Apple’s next software updates for all its phones scheduled for mid-September.

On July 12, Facebook announced that the dashboard buttons allowing users to block political ads were fully in place. It doesn’t take a marketing genius to realize that the more political ads a Facebook user sees, the more likely they’ll be to block those ads.

All this against a real world background that is, to understate the situation, a bit unsettled. Congress is making odd noises about election interference. And others are – perhaps not coincidentally – looking at the likelihood that there will be political ad fraud this year. It’s considered all but certain which is another reason why Adobe may have abandon the market.

Not to be outdone, it seems, the US Post Office is warning of a series of crises over mail delivery. Congress is in on this, too because USPS is warning that it may not be able to get ballots to everyone who wants one for voting at home or by mail.

What to do? Well, consider buying digital ads directly from local publishers to reach voters. Don’t know what they’re reading? Spot-On does. And we’ve got the experience and data – a list of 4,000 sites across the country – to support those buys.

Give us a shout. We’ll make your digital headaches go away.

With the state primaries schedule slow down it’s time to survey the digital ad environment for fall.

Like almost everything else, it’s changing. Again.

The ability to use user data to target mobile devices and desktop computers is under new fire. And the one platform campaigns have used as a go-to to reach voters is, well, playing games that will hurt political campaigns.

Let’s start with Facebook. Under fire from brand advertiser (who pay the bills) with suspicions about their political motives under new scrutiny, the platform made an announcement that’s a cynical as anything it’s done so far. And that’s saying something.

Users will have the ability to block all political ads. So if your ad says “paid for by…..” Facebook will let a voter say “never more.”

So Facebook is now officially a casino: Campaigns pay their money, they take their chances on reaching voters and the house always wins. 

We’ve written enough about how so-called voter targeting on the open web is being eroded by various legislative and other protective measures so we’ll skip those revisits (here and here) for some new news.

Apple – as part of its battle for user trust against Facebook and Google – has announced that it will restrict targeting on iPhones. Apps will no longer be able to share data without user permissions. And those permissions must be actively granted so there will be warnings as well as an easy-to-read privacy guide for users.

As one tech newsletter put it: “This definition of tracking includes, data collected for ad targeting, location data, and email lists to share with data brokers, and a third-party [software developer kits] placed in the app to track user behavior.”

So the vendor who’s telling you they can track a phone into a home or event just got their wings clipped. It’s just a matter of time before Google’s Android devices catch up.

This doesn’t mean mobile advertising doesn’t work; it does and Spot-On has seen engagement rates that dwarf desktop for most of our campaigns. Devices can be targeted by language, age and geography, all powerful tools for reaching groups of voters. 

But the inaccurate perception that specific devices can and should be targeted with specific one-to-one ads is now official nonsense.

Our last bit of news concerns the buying and selling of consumer data – the fuel that drives voter targeting. With more publishers paying attention to the revenue generated by their websites, many are casting a jaundice eye on these data resellers who they believe are taking subscriber information without paying for it.

The New York Times is pulling out of its agreements. Other publishers are following – and quickly. So the ability to use this data, which is the backbone voter targeting is weakening. Again.

Oh, and a footnote on the TikTok Tulsa Trump Troll. TikTok, a Chinese-owned company does not accept political ads.

But here’s some good news: Local news outlets reach voters. They talk to people who are engaged with their communities. And they’re getting better at responding to queries about subscriber demographics with surveys suggesting that about 60% of regular local news readers are regular voters.

Spot-On has always believed in the power of local ad placements. Which is why we can help your campaign navigate this often difficult terrain.

Shoot us a note and we’ll share our 10 years of detailed knowledge about placements, outlets and ways to reach voters.

Thinking differently about how to run your campaigns? It could be time to change up your digital ad game as part of that process. 

Two online publishing trends are coming together in a way that should encourage political campaigns to think differently about the tried-and-true method of reaching voters with digital technology.

First, the lingering and slow death of the 3^rd party cookie, brought on by fatigue, frustrationand 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.

That gloss included the ability to use redacted voter information in an attempt – in Spot-On’s eyes, an overstated one – to target specific voters. With the death of the 3^rd party cookie, alltargeting loses its effectiveness.

At the same time, attention to local news sites, spurred on by the Covid-19 Pandemic – has increased dramatically. McClatchy, which has outlets from California to Miami – says its online readership is up by more than 60%. They’re not alone.

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, meaning they trust ads on news and information sites, not the platforms’ walled gardens.

When it comes to TV, well, there’s more acceleration of existing trends that change campaign outreach.

Cable and satellite are seeing a slowdown 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 – when political advertisers began to notice.

The pandemic is creating problems for political campaigns that won’t disappear with any fall-off in illnesses.  

Door-to-door outreach – the go-to voter contact method since Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign will change – that’s if campaigns are even using it.  And vote-by-mail is on the increase as more states solicit voters to register for that process. 

So, what to do? Well, as we said, these trends are accelerations – not new ground. So, there’s room to adapt.

Online publishers were looking for ways to reclaim ground lost to Facebook and Google before the pandemic hit; voters  distrusted social and other platforms before the crisis.  The use of vote-by-mail and remote contact tools like Zoom and WebEx isn’t new it’s just moved away from the office to daily life. Cable subscriptions have been falling for a while and the use of voter ‘targeting’ has been on the wane for at least a year.

But change is hard – even in the best of circumstances. So here are some real-world suggestions on how campaigns might adapt

Buy your political ads directly from publishers. It’s not just good business,  it’s good politics. Publisher are paying more attention to their website than ever before. Your ads will be seen – and appreciated.

            Spot-On has a database of more than 4500 trusted local news sites. We can tell you who serves your district and advise you on options and buying strategies.

A well-run online ad buy can avoid waste – without voter targeting.  Advertising on trusted news sites reaches voters. Look for ways to target by geographic and zip, not just voter lists. And use high-impact ads that can generate attention both inside and outside the newsroom.

            Spot-On’s new Pinpoint Persuasion buying platform lets you see your buy before its executed so you know where your ads are running and can see their impact on your campaign.

Plan now for fall outreach. Once pandemic panic fades, it’s going to be harder to draw voters to real life events. Help your virtual outreach efforts – phone calls, texting and video meetings – with targeted local ad buys that tell people reading the news what you’re doing so they can join in.

            With its database of more than 4500 trusted local news sites, Spot-On can help you plan ‘air cover’ for phone, in-person or virtual meetings that get voters to you and your event. 

Want more? Drop us a line and let us show how our new platform makes your ad buying easier, clearer and more secure. 

It took a pandemic to completely destroy the false perception that digital events or online behavior was somehow distinct from other day-to-day activity. No longer can a campaign say that ‘digital’ is different from mail, telephone calling or television.

Increasing use of online tools – for doctors’ visits, business meetings and calls with friends and relatives – means what were once novelties are now somewhat reliable consumer services. These devices have been in our lives for some time but staying at home to work is just driving that, um, home.

The first evidence of this is the popularity of telephone town halls and Zoom meetings. Online is being used for lawmakers’ formal meetings as well as for campaign outreach.

The increased integration of digital tools for campaigns and voters should come with at least one warning: the “free” use of these tools means they’re less secure. That’s already provided some dramatic lessons about online privacy – for campaigns and for voters.

Looking to the summer when these tools will still be needed, it’s important to remember that intense crisis-driven interest won’t last. And door-to-door field work will be more restrained so the need to reach residents – not just voters, everyone in a community – will be a more necessary compliment to online gatherings.

Happily, interest in local media is surging. The chart below shows the dramatic increase in audiences across all news sites. This trend is likely to continue, pounding home to news outlets the value – maybe even the superior value – of their websites over their printed product.

While audiences are growing, ad revenue for many of these outlets has fallen dramatically. So publishers will start looking – and looking hard – for revenue. Political campaigns should expect to see less effective reach with ad buys that are made ‘programmatically’ as publishers begin to monitor the sales of their remnant ad placements.

Many voters and residents are seeing changes in how they vote, when they vote and where they vote as we move to the reschedule primary season and away from mandatory in-person voting. In particular, new vote-by-mail elections will need sustained support as well any online outreach via phone or video conference.

There are plenty of ways to do this but, for our money, the best one will be direct buys on reliable, known outlets that voters have trusted for years. Spot-On has a range of approaches to suit any and all budgets – for telephone town halls, video events or vote-by-mail and election changes.

Give us a shout or drop us a line to learn more.

Are you getting that sneaky feeling that maybe – just maybe – the online political ad market is getting more unsettled? That this year – oh, why THIS year – is the one where the changes come fast and furious without warning? 

Reluctantly, Spot-On agrees. From our point-of-view there are three hot spots: privacy law changes, election oversight changes and wildly inconsistent market responses. But, as they say, forewarned is forearmed. So here’s a quick look ahead.

Privacy

California has enacted new privacy legislation which took effect on January 1. There is a six month grace period but most companies doing business in the state – the ones that aren’t making noises about suing – are making preparations. Among them, large visible signs on websites that say “Don’t sell my data” and more visible privacy policies, cookie tracking and other notices.

That “don’t sell” option means that a site – and its data partners – can’t collect as much information about users as they have in the past. So the data pools (also called ‘3^rd party data’) used to fuel the impact of voter targeted ads will become less reliable. An example: while writing this, I responded to an email from Alaska Airlines and told them not to implement “social cookies” that would help them show me ads on Facebook and Twitter (and allow Twitter and Facebook to know more about my travel choices).

It is a myth that voter targeted digital ads rely only on voter data. Voter targeting cannot work alone because using some voter information is prohibited. To function, voter data is combined with other data sets – that 3^rd party data. A deterioration in the quality that data affects the accuracy of voter registration targeting.

It’s not just California; at least 10 other states are considering various privacy measures.

Election Law/Proposals

A great deal of fuss has been made about Federal Election Commission Chair Ellen Weintraub’s seemingly successful request to ban the use of ‘micro-targeting’ for political ad placements. “Micro-targeting” is the phrase used to describe the use of voter registration combined with specific web behavior data to send ads to particular demographic groups. 

Google grabbed a lot of attention when it said it would follow Weintraub’s recommendations. Starting this week, the Mississippi River of Ad Tech will not permit political ads on YouTube or search or display to be targeted below the geographic level (by zip) with some limited demographic information. 

Other firms are opting out entirely. Spotify, which was never equipped to handle the nuances of political ad sales has withdrawn completely. Good thing, too. They laughed in 2016 when Spot-On told them they needed a decision making structure. So has Twitter and the Chinese-owned TikTok.

But it’s worth asking if these public pronouncement are reliable. Some of this is lip-service and nothing more as Google has demonstrated in regard to state election laws.

Market Responses – Or Not

Facebook has declined to follow Google’s lead on microtargeting – and is challenging the California privacy laws – so smaller players have felt free to follow the flow of political ad dollars.

Third party entities that sell online ads are not complying with the suggested prohibition on micro-targeting. If Spot-On wants to microtarget political ads, we can. So can anyone else. Whether those ads are ‘quality’ placements is an open question. Our bet: They’re not. Which means campaigns will pay more for less effective ads.

Now Add Billionaires….

There’s gasoline to pour on this fire. Three billionaires are running for president. 

And brand advertisers aren’t going to treat political advertisers any differently. They’re going to ‘tier’ advertisers based on spend, for starters. And even without preferred treatment, wealthier campaigns will bid up the prices for ads, putting the less well-heeled at a disadvantage – even for junky inventory.

So here’s the hottest spot of all: Fair and consistent decisions make for fair and consistent elections. Inconsistent decisions made as a way to compensate for regulatory oversight make for, let’s call them….misunderstandings. 

Deliberately or not, consistency has gone out the window. Used to trafficking brand ads, the platforms don’t understand that setting requirements on tone or style, letting ‘the market’ dictate price or optimization is endorsing one form of political speech or point-of-view over another. In short, digital ad platforms are unprepared for the clear, consistent decision process that needs to be part of political ad sales. 

There’s More…But We’re Out of Time

Facebook is facing 48 state attorney general investigations. Google has 50. More Congressional oversight is in the works. The Federal Trade Commission is looking around; so is the U.S. Department of Justice.

So buckle up. All campaigns are going to be affected by these changes. And almost no one’s going to like it.

Spot-On’s got some ideas on how you can work through this mess. Start with a look at our 2020 Best Practices White Paper which takes a look at some of the problems ahead. Then drop us a note and we’ll set you up with a media plan that works. 

Changes in election and privacy laws aren’t the only adjustments that digital ad buyers should worry about going in to 2020. The folks who make web browsers have stepped in with changes in how ad trackers can follow consumers .

These adjustments are going to affect political ad targeting – not at some future point when laws take effect and regulations have been approved – but now, as we head into the 2020 election cycle.

The big driver here is Apple, whose Safari browser no long permits the wholesale use of cookies – small pieces of html code that track users’ behavior. The Firefox browser has similar blocking. This is important because the wholesale buying and selling of this tracking information, so-called “cookie pools,” is a vital part of online voter targeting.

Some may console themselves with the fact that Google’s with its Chrome browsers hasn’t been as aggressive but that’s bound to change. Google and Apple compete head to head in the mobile market – Android v. iPhone – and Apple’s is doing a pretty good job of showing up Google in the “don’t be evil” argument to consumers. Respect – defense, even – for user privacy is part of that effort.

We’ll leave the tedious conversations about replacement technologies to the ad tech geeks. Suffice it to say that there are three big changes in the works.

• The use of cookie-based targeting is official over. Online ads aren’t targeting individual voters. Using cookies, ads are targeting pools of people who are like those voters.
• The effectiveness of what’s known as ‘real time bidding’ is coming to an end. RTB with cookie targeting is is the technique that most political ad resellers rely on for inexpensive remnant video and banner ad placements.
• And the much-ballyhooed cross-device tracking is not going to get off the ground as anticipated. If a vendor suggests they’re using phone device IDs to find specific users, they may be using questionable practices to get that information.

In other words, many of the technologies that political advertisers depend on – cheap video and banner ads, targeting to voters using cookie pools – won’t work as effectively six months from now.

Within the ad tech community, there seems to be one common theme: given these changes, buying ads directly from outlets is is safer and more effective than relying on ad exchanges or networks.

This change – a spill over effect of changes in European privacy law – is something Spot-On’s prepared for. As dollars and attention flow to digital ad placements, it make more sense to buy political ad directly from known outlets – where a constant and significant number of regular readers are voters – than it does to trust a soon-to-be-obsolete technology that’s always been hit-or-miss.

Spot-On is getting ready to roll out its Pinpoint Placement buying platform which automates direct buying and provides transparency and security for buyers and sellers. We’re looking for a few good beta testers. Care to join us?

Send an email if you’d like to learn more.

Seems that the tried and true method of reaching voters online – the use of purported targeting using voter registration information – is under fire.

And it’s not just one or two little attacks; the hangover from the 2016 election is turning out to be longer than expected. So concerns about individual online privacy, national security and the need to place legal restraints on Big Tech are coming together.

California’s privacy law appears – as of today’s writing – to change the use of voter file information for targeting ads. If it’s not amended the law takes effect as is on January 1, 2020.

Interpretations of the law aren’t exactly clear on a number of fronts. But the basic ideas is that any company which uses data to target ads will be required to notify recipients that they have the right to have their personal info deleted from that company’s records.

This could cover firms (like Spot-On) that run political ad campaigns and companies that sell data derived from voter information. The law is meant to protect users in the state so anyone doing business in California is affected.

In other words, it doesn’t matter where the company using the data is based. Although, of course, the two biggest beneficiaries of political ads spends are located in Menlo Park and Mountain View, California.

Just as important: other states have similar privacy laws. And now there’s a federal effort to specially restrict the use of voter data.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has introduced legislation that would work much like California’s privacy law. The “Voter Privacy Act” would pretty much shut down voter targeting as its currently used online. “Political candidates and campaigns shouldn’t be able to use private data to manipulate and mislead voters,” Feinstein said in her statement on the bill. “This bill would help put an end to such actions.”

The press around this announcement credited the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal but Spot-On looks to the release of the heavily redacted Senate Intelligence Committee report on the 2016 elections as the motivation here.

You haven’t read that full report. We haven’t either. We can’t – it’s secret. But Sen. Feinstein is a member of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence. We bet she has.

There’s no sure path for passage of her bill but there’s a lot of talk about election security. That might mean some form of Congressional action this fall.

And that’s going to mean big changes in how online campaign are run. Bigger than the ones in the works already.What’s the alternative? As long-time readers are aware Spot-On thinks that most voter targeting is a panacea that does little actual targeting. The personally identify information that makes up the bulk of a voter registration file is stripped out for most uses. Targeting often creates a universe so small that it’s ineffective or, worse, an ad buy that’s so expensive that the use of targeting is counter-productive.

We have long preferred the tried-and-true way to reach voters: Buying ads on local news sites which have an overwhelming number of voters as readers. Most TV buyers invest heavily in local news avails. The same strategy should apply for online political placements for one really good reason: It works.

Until recently, it’s been too difficult to buy directly online but Spot-On’s Pinpoint Placement platform will debut this fall, solving that problem for our customers. And providing some much-needed transparency along the way. What a demo? Send an email and we’ll hook you up.

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Targeting Alert: Just in time for the 2020 Election, a key buying tool in online advertising – tracking the behavior of Internet users – is coming under increasing fire.

Political folks don’t spend a lot of time thinking about targeting other than by voter registration information. But voter targeting is a sub-set of “behavioral” targeting for several reasons.

The first is the one most often overlooked: Voter registration information contains a lot of what’s known as PII – personally identifying information. It’s not acceptable to use PII to target ads online across the ‘open web’. So large buying platforms use the behaviors associated with a group of voters on a target list to send them ads.

This has a bunch of what you might call dumb results. First, consumer behavior and voting behavior are often very different. We all know Democrats who shop like a Republicans. One even ran for president. Also, most online ad targeting relies on financial data – credit cards, mortgages, buying habits – and that means some populations can’t be easily found online.

Over reliance on targeting also means that competing campaigns go after the same sets of people. Result? Increased pricing. Second result? Lower bidders – even if they’re political ad buyers – loose out to corporate brand campaigns or deeper pocketed opponents. So, if you’re looking for women in November you’re up against Target, Safeway and Wal-mart (Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas).

Also, there’s some evidence that behavior targeting does’t work as promised. And its coming under increasing scrutiny in Europe as more stringent privacy regulation takes effect.

The sorest of the sore points in Europe: Real-time bidding and use of behavior information in tandem. Translation: the process by which most political advertising – which emphasizes low cost and voter targeting – is purchased.

It’s gotten to the point where Silicon Valley companies are calling for more oversight of the data sales business. And, control of consumer data is at the front and center of a series of legislative proposals Congress is contemplating, all of which is going to change how voter lists are handled.

The conventional wisdom says no substantial legislation on privacy or any other ‘big’ topic will pass Congress this year. But this isn’t a political climate where conventional wisdom endures. Regular readers know Spot-On has always had a jaundiced view of voter and behavioral targeting for political outreach so we’re prepared for what we think are inevitable changes in the law.

Question is: Are you? As we look ahead, Spot-On sees a more complex market for online ad buying.

That’s why Spot-On’s working on a solution. Our Pinpoint Placement platform is built on a database of more than 2700 local news sites across the country. They’re divided up by Congressional and state districts, searchable by zip code. We’ll offer automated direct buying, real time campaign reporting and a host of other features.

Want a seak peek demo? Send an email.

By reputable accounts President Donald Trump is spending more than $1 million a month on Facebook advertising in preparation for his re-election bid.

He may well be spending more on other platforms. We just don’t know since there are no legally mandated reporting structure for online ad buys for federal elections.

The spend and the mystery about spending has his potential opponents flipping out. But hand wringing isn’t really productive. Trump opponents as well as those hoping to emulate him might take a bit of a lesson here – before it gets too painful.

To start, there’s a bit of legacy thinking going on here. In the past, spending a lot on TV – or saying you’re spending a lot on TV – early means your campaign doesn’t have a money problem. And money for TV means you’re well positioned to win.

That’s not necessarily the case with online advertising, especially the kind of “lead generation” advertising that Trump Campaign Manager Brad Parscale says he’s conducting. It’s also possible that $1 million/month on Facebook means that the data collection and message validation operations aren’t working as well as they have in the past.

It’s also worth remembering that the ads running now are not persuasion or calls to specific action. They’re for fundraising and collecting information about potential supporters – regardless of party or status. Ads are being used to do message validation against specific demographics and locations, not against pre-bought list of known voters.

He’s not shy about it either. In this “Face the Nation” interview Brad Parscale spelled out – again – what he’s doing Here’s the – literal – money quote:

“We’re spending millions of dollars a month, light years ahead of any campaign in history, to build the foundation of who we need to market to, what we need to understand, what we need to say to them and how to exactly deliver to them.”

He’s exaggerating; former President Obama’s campaign did something similar when Facebook and online advertising was a political novelty (and a whole lot cheaper). But the motives were the same: Message validation is part and parcel of every digital brand advertising campaign. And it’s why message validation should be a bigger and early part of every political campaign for every candidate across several platforms – not just Facebook or Twitter.

Spot-On calls this service “incumbent protection”. It’s a good way for those in office to keep in touch with the voters who elected them AND learn more about how those voters see their elected officials.

An incumbent protection plan can provide a political campaign with information about platform preferences – not just tried and true Facebook video and YouTube but banner ads targeted to specific local outlets, on streaming video and audio targeted to demographics, all looking at performance and messaging. So when it’s crunch-time – voters are out and interested – the campaign is ready to go with strategies it knows will work. 

Do older women in Michigan respond to messages on immigration or are they more interested in health care? Do young men in Ohio engage with ads about guns owners’ rights or do they react to immigration messages? Do you really find young people in your district on Hulu? Or does YouTube work better? Facebook does well with older women but is Spotify a good investment for younger potential voters? What about voters’ general concerns. Do you know what they are and how they may change between now and November 2020? If you could find out – quickly and cheaply – would you do it?

You can. You should. And it won’t cost millions of dollars. An effective campaign can be run at any level of political engagement for costs suited to a campaign budget that breaks away from ‘silver bullet’ thinking to truly reach across the panoply of local news offerings in city, town or state.

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