In this industry, there are no mistakes — only lessons learned. The 2024 cycle was a heavy hitter with campaigns pulling out all the stops to reach voters where they were and get them to the ballot box.
Gone are the days of simple one-dimensional media plans. This year, strategists leaned into buying smarter, not harder, expanding strategies beyond Facebook to new media like podcasts and emerging digital spaces. Some campaigns turned modest budgets into major wins, while others missed the mark.
Here’s a look at the biggest winners and losers in digital advertising this cycle. Let’s start with the winners.
1. Hybrid Ads
Hybrid ads were a game-changer in 2024, with the NRSC, NRCC, DSCC, and DCCC adopting them as a key strategic tool. By sharing costs between party committees and individual campaigns, these ads maximized budgets, achieving broader reach at a lower individual expense. Hybrid ads seamlessly blend local and national messaging, securing impressions at favorable candidate rates.
This approach allowed campaigns to amplify their message through high-impact video content, leveraging sight, sound, and motion to capture attention where it matters most. Recent FEC guidance clarified that for split-cost ads to qualify, at least 15 percent of the content must focus on federal issues or candidates, ensuring compliance with coordination rules.
As a result, hybrid ads are now poised to become a core component of digital strategy for every major campaign in the years ahead. As campaigns continue to look for ways to stretch their resources while maintaining effective outreach, hybrid ads offer a powerful, cost-efficient solution for reaching audiences across multiple touchpoints. In short, hybrid ads are here to stay.
2. SSP’s + Supply Path Optimization (SPO)
Supply-side partners (SSPs) like FreeWheel and Magnite, along with Supply Path Optimization (SPO) created a “rising tide lifts all shops” effect. Both positioned clients closer to inventory sources and streamlined ad delivery. SSPs found success by moving beyond DSP relationships, building direct connections with agencies and committees to boost transparency and educate us all about inventory supply. SPO complemented this by simplifying ad paths, reducing middlemen, and directing more budget toward voter engagement resulting in lower tech taxes. These two cycle additions made the digital inventory supply chain smoother, smarter and primed for bigger wins ahead.
3. Authentic Creative On OTT Programmatic Ads
OTT ads hit new heights in 2024, as streaming viewership officially surpassed traditional cable, making OTT a must-have for most digital programs. Campaigns leveraged OTT’s targeting capabilities, delivering localized, relevant messages directly to engaged viewers. This cycle, OTT wasn’t about just mass reach (looking at you, YouTube), but was more about targeted messaging at scale. Paired with authentic, varied-length creative tailored for streaming, OTT became a powerful tool for creating real connections in voters’ living rooms. This approach proved to be a high-impact tactic across many digital programs.
4. Bid Stream Data
Bid stream data gained attention in 2024 as a new tool for refining targeting, offering real-time insights from ad auctions to help advertisers focus on valuable audience segments. Combined with first- and third-party data, it helped improve ad-buy efficiency by reaching more engaged and relevant viewers.
Early adopters like Adam Wise — and our team — used top DSPs integrating bid stream data to make quicker, more precise ad placement decisions. This approach allowed campaigns to fine-tune audience targeting, reduce budget waste, and reach voters at optimal times, making bid stream data an interesting addition to digital strategy discussions this cycle.
5. Competitive Research Maturity
This cycle, campaigns gained a serious edge thanks to competitive research tools like AdImpact and Ascend. These platforms offered a behind-the-scenes view of rivals’ ad buys and messaging in real-time, giving campaigns the power to pivot fast and strike back with precision.
But it wasn’t just about watching the competition—embracing transparency in digital ads became a secret weapon of its own. As I wrote a few months ago, transparency isn’t just ethical, it’s a competitive advantage. Campaigns that doubled down on openness found it strengthened their brand, proving that building trust can be one of the most powerful moves in the game.
The Losers
1. Limited Scale With Audio Ads
Audio ads on streaming and podcasts initially looked promising for engaging voters on the go, but in reality, they fell short on scale in a lot of swing states. While excellent for persuasion and candidate ID, audio struggled to achieve the reach needed to make a big impact. Securing impressions on the open exchange proved harder than skiing a black diamond in Big Sky. Audio ads ultimately worked best as a supplement, reminding campaigns that without more scale, audio isn’t ready to fly solo. That said, comms should still make a play for earned, as opposed to paid media in this channel — although pick your platform wisely.
2. Conflicts Over OTT/CTV Strategy
In the quest for OTT/CTV dollars, who came out on top? Internal turf wars made things complicated, with linear teams treating OTT/CTV like traditional TV buys while digital teams approached it as online video.
The result? Some campaigns ended up with fragmented streaming efforts, missing out on the full power of OTT/CTV’s targeting potential. As budgets for these platforms continue to grow, it’ll be fascinating to see where this ever-expanding spend goes in future cycles—and whether campaign teams can finally get on the same page to make the most of it.
3. Over-Reliance on the Voter File
In 2024, campaigns that relied heavily on standard voter file data, even from trusted providers like L2, found their messaging sometimes missed the mark. While these voter files are essential, adding layers of modeled insights and behavioral data can make messaging more dynamic and relevant.
Today’s voters expect more personalized outreach, and without supplementing voter files with advanced modeling, viewership data or first-party data insights, campaigns missed opportunities for deeper engagement. This cycle underscored that relying solely on basic voter file data, without enriching it, limits connection with diverse audiences and highlights the need for a well-rounded, adaptable data strategy. To succeed in the future campaigns need a comprehensive strategy that blends the voter file with additional dynamic data layers.
4. The Challenge of Massive Digital Spend and the Need for Smarter Strategies
According to Open Secrets, this cycle’s digital spending was indeed hefty but, when adjusted for inflation, fell short of 2020 levels. Campaigns invested heavily in high-cost platforms like Roku and Hulu, while some leaned too far into hyper-targeting, limiting their audience reach. The contrast between Kamala Harris’s high-spend approach and Donald Trump’s leaner strategy highlighted that more dollars don’t always equal more impact.
Redundant impressions, missed opportunities for broad reach, and stretched budgets showed that spending smarter — not just more — is essential. Moving forward, success lies in balancing reach with precision and fostering real voter connections. After all, memorable moments like Kamala’s Sphere ad can only go so far.
5. Social Media’s Policy Maze
Social media may be the biggest loser of the cycle. Platforms like Meta have been on a gradual decline for political campaigns over the past two cycles, and the policy maze didn’t make things any easier. Each platform’s unique, often shifting ad rules forced campaigns to continually adjust and reformat content which fractured the consistency and was just irritating for all of us.
In the end, the social-media-policy maze limited its effectiveness as a voter outreach tool and left campaigns frustrated by the lack of stability, rising CPM’s and annoyed by those pesky blackout periods.
The 2024 digital landscape rewarded flexibility, unconventional media planning, and data-driven strategies while highlighting the need for adaptability. Hybrid ads, SPO, and bid stream data stretched budgets and reached voters effectively, while audio limitations, team conflicts, and bloated digital media programs underscored where improvement is needed.
These takeaways will shape the next cycle, as campaigns that master agility, platform-specific strategies, and real-time insights — along with competitive spend data — will be better positioned to win in the next cycle. In the meantime, follow my colleague Jordan’s recommendation: take a much deserved vacation and leave your notifications turned off.
Kate Holliday is the Vice President of Politics and Public Affairs at Powers Interactive Digital, an SPO-driven digital company.
