Have you ever been in a room full of publishers intent on landing all of the $2 billion about to be spent on political digital advertising this year? We have, and it’s a unique experience.
The balance of power remains on the buyer side, with publishers listening hard, and in many cases over investing and over promising with the goal of netting massive ad dollars. A decade after political digital spending exploded, we’re mostly left with slight exaggerations and statistics. Liars don’t last long here.
Publishers have only recently begun to figure out how to sell to the political market. But there’s still a gap between what’s being sold and what’s being bought. We tackled this issue eight years ago.
Since then, publishers have come a long way. But there’s still room for improvement and we decided to deliver this as an open love letter.
Dear Publishers,
Happy Election Year! Thank you for now auto-accepting political creative, with a few exceptions. In past cycles, your approval turnaround times were unacceptable and in some cases arbitrary, but you’ve taken great strides to right the ship.
More recently, many of you have begun to understand our cadence with creative swaps and customer support. You’ve made informed decisions to work at our pace or not work with us. Great job! You’ve made it to first base. But there’s still room to improve.
Many buyers in the industry express frustration with publishers like Netflix and Amazon, who don’t accept political ads, while others that do often have cumbersome processes. Consequently, a significant portion of potential voters remain unreachable particularly in ad-free subscription-based environments, though most ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) services do accept political ads. But attracting those highly coveted political dollars goes beyond just waiving creative approvals. We have some ideas on how you can attract even bigger budgets in 2024..
First-party matching will make you more attractive to political buyers and not expose you to data privacy risks. We’re HDMI cord agnostic. Our religion is efficient cross screen media delivery and that only comes through targeted audience reach and frequency. Targeted media is where all the growth is and not just for our vertical.
Consider show-level ad placement for the handful of times where audience targeting isn’t the priority. You’re welcome to charge whatever you want. Clients will pay a premium to be inside a streaming episode of Yellowstone and The Bear. Just keep ad frequencies in check to ensure viewers (read: voters) aren’t bombarded with the same message. No buyer wants to hear their client’s ad was annoying a potential supporter because they saw it four times in an hour.
Creative swaps without tags are still suboptimal when dealing with publishers directly. They just don’t move at the speed of programmatic advertising. New creative requests can get buried in a sales reps inbox delaying the process and potentially hindering campaign effectiveness. Do better here. Explore options for quick and painless same-day creative swaps with limited email exchanges.
Getting detailed reports from publishers directly can be tricky. Some have limitations on the geographic and audience data they provide. Plus, some publishers require buyers to use their reporting platforms and don’t offer daily updates or data exports. Election season is when we work smarter, not harder. Streamlining the ability to access complete and timely reports will go a long way with buyers.
Not every publisher needs a DC-based political sales rep. Do some hard math. You’ll realize that the sales rep you hired has to close seven figures in incremental business before this is worth considering. Also, those off-year downsizings and team “reorgs” aren’t a good look. You only get to lay employees off once before having trouble attracting quality sellers.
And OEMs, just a quick reminder: you’re publishers with valuable data. Exclusives don’t work because all your inventory, including FAST channels, is available programmatically. Once all the pipes are connected, there’s no such thing as a truly exclusive OEM deal. Clients do enjoy your free sound bars though, so don’t stop pitching.
Media buyers are sharp, they can sniff out fishy impression counts and audience reach. Last cycle, one of the biggest OEMs claimed to reach more Wisconsin households than actually exist. It didn’t sit well and ended up costing them credibility, leading to their (permanent) removal from the media plan. Please take a moment to provide accurate and responsible impression estimates and audience counts. It matters.
Publishers, despite the noted bumps in the road, we truly appreciate you. Together, we can achieve some fantastic results and hopefully many wins. We’re grateful for your commitment to embracing a more mature and nuanced political sales cycle. Let’s continue working hand in hand to make a positive impact this election year and beyond.
Sincerely,
Your Friends In Political Advertising
Jordan Lieberman is CEO and Kate Holliday is a VP, Politics & Public Affairs at Powers Interactive, a programmatic media company.
