1. Political Campaigns
in 2016: The Climax of
Digital Advertising
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This 2016 U.S. presidential election will bury all other
prior years in terms of political spending on digital and
social media advertising. Perhaps that’s not surprising
given the overall upward trend of digital combined with
a wild political season, but let’s take a closer look at
what’s driving this record-setting trend.

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Presidential election years fuel more political advertising
overall for obvious reasons. MediaRadar’s internal Digital
Placement ScoreTM
metric[1]
shows that the size of political
action committees’ (PACs) and candidates’ digital campaign
buys were 128% higher in 2012 (the year of the last presidential
election) than the averages in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
Digital advertising will peak again this year. Research firm
Borrell Associates predicts that political digital spending
will break the $1 billion mark in 2016, for the first time,
representing a 5,000% jump over 2008, according to
Wired.[2]
And where will the largest portion of that increase
go? To social media, of course. Display advertising will
benefit, too.
The graphs to the right show this evolution, including
the fairly flat trajectory of print and a 200% jump in the
MediaRadar Digital Placement ScoreTM
which examines ad
positioning, duration, frequency and more to determine the
true size of a buy.[3]
Political Digital
Size of Buy
MEDIARADAR DIGITAL PLACEMENT SCORETM
JANUARY 2012 - DECEMBER 2016 PROJECTED
Estimated Political
Print Spend
[1] MediaRadar Digital Placement ScoreTM
is a metric designed to measure size
and scale of a digital buy. This composite score grades an ad campaign by
ad type, location, duration and size of publisher. For example, high-CPM and
high-impact ad units such as page takeovers, native and video content are
weighted much higher than typical run-of-site units.
[2] http://www.wired.com/2015/08/digital-politcal-ads-2016/
[3] The 2016 print spend projections based off Borrell Associates’ prediction
of 20% increase in overall advertising budgets from 2012 to 2016.
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 PROJ.
1,046,709.00
462,642.00 472,251.00
445,116.00
2,062,016.73
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 PROJ.
$10.00
$
$2.00
$4.00
$6.00
$8.00
MILLIONS
Political Association
Political Candidate
JANUARY 2012 - DECEMBER 2016 PROJECTED

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A SHIFT TO PROGRAMMATIC
How can you capitalize on this upcoming election year? Getting in
on the spending frenzy is not as hard as you might think. Another
trend that we’ve witnessed is an increase in the use of automated
or programmatic advertising for political campaigns.
The graph below shows a decrease in direct buys in the three
years that followed 2012. That means a larger allocation of digital
budgets were put toward programmatic. Although big players
such as agency trading desks, DoubleClick and AOL, are expected
to fill much of the inventory purchased by political candidates,
we’ve seen a lot of smaller companies offering programmatic
programs, which means lower impression guarantees–and more
opportunities for niche publishers.
Perhaps the most intriguing part of programmatic advertising for
candidates is the ability to make decisions and target audiences
in real-time. Not only that, but the use of data management
platforms (DMPs) allows politicos to leverage bidding techniques
and data aggregation to get the most favorable inventory and
audiences available.
As an example, voters who are already receiving calls and direct-mail
campaigns can now be targeted with ads online as well. Similarly, if a
candidate, say Hillary Clinton, wants to target millennials, this can be
done faster and more accurately with programmatic.
All of this creates a great opportunity for media property owners.
Previously, regional publishers benefited most from political
campaigns. Now, any media property can leverage their audience
for political ad sales.
The next few pages will illustrate the ad tech overview of the
presidential political campaigns over the last 14 months, including
where they spent their money and which marketplaces they
turned to in order to reach voters. Knowing which demand-side
platforms (DSPs) and which exchanges political advertisers use,
lets a publisher and its supply-side platform (SSP) partner ensure
appropriate inventory is available to buyers.
Direct Buy Budget:
2012 vs. 2013-2015
Direct
Non-Direct
+7.3%
65.0%
35.0%
72.3%
27.7%

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HOW TO MONETIZE
The diagram above shows the programmatic ad buying habits of
the presidential candidates (or a super PAC) that remained as of
February 2016. MediaRadar was able to determine who their DSPs
were, as well as the SSPs of the websites that they ran on. This is
information a publisher can take to its SSP or ad agency to ensure
that its inventory is available on the necessary exchanges.
The best way to attract buyers is through packaging your inventory
in private marketplace (PMP) offerings, an auction model open by
invitation only that uses real-time bidding and price floors.[4]
Ensure high-CPMs by relying on a private marketplace where a
publisher has more control. An SSP or ad agency can help create
packages to appeal to political campaign buyers. In this instance,
the buyers are not looking to buy in open exchanges, because they
are more concerned about quality and a specific audience, rather
than sheer numbers.
You’ll notice that the websites (on the next page) ran programmatic
campaigns don’t fall neatly into one category. Sports, news, business
and even auto retail and entertainment websites are included in the
pool. This illustrates that programmatic revenue is an opportunity
available to a variety of editorial specialties.
[4] http://digiday.com/platforms/what-is-programmatic-advertising/
Political Campaign Ad Tech Overview
JANUARY 2015 – FEBRUARY 2016

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IMPROVED EFFICIENCY
While direct buying leverages believed audience information of
websites (as seen in Scenario 1), programmatic advertising is data-
driven. Therefore, campaigns are targeted based on a viewer’s
demographic and previous online behavior (as seen in Scenario 2).
A buyer’s target audience can be reached as long as they are willing
to pay for it. This means multiple campaigns might target the same
audience, but the inventory to reach that audience will go to the
highest bidder. This allows publishers to maximize CPMs by creating
ASSUMED MILLENNIAL AUDIENCE
Scenario 1:
Targeting Millennials with
Direct Digital Campaigns
Scenario 2:
Targeting Millennials with
Programmatic Campaigns
MALE, 25-35
Registered
Democratic Voter
FEMALE, 27
Receives Direct
Mail Campaign
from HC
MALE, 21 - 35
Recently searched
for ‘Democratic
Debate Recap’
a bidding scenario on valuable inventory. Furthermore, when this
is done through a PMP, the buyers must be invited to bid. This
prevents any unwanted advertisers/organizations from winning ad
inventory on your site.
Programmatic advertising also provides transparency for both
sides. A buyer can see how much they paid, the audience reached
and how their ads converted. Sellers can see profit made on their
inventory, to the penny. This includes margins given to other players
in the programmatic landscape.

6. B2B VS. CONSUMER
Whether a consumer-focused or B2B publisher, there is a significant
opportunity to be had in the heated 2016 presidential campaign. It’s
true that the campaigns have concentrated on consumer websites
so far. But 3% of the predicted 2016 political digital spend of $1 billion
will land with B2B publishers, according to our estimate. That equals
roughly $30 million in revenue that shouldn’t be ignored. Interestingly,
the campaigns running on B2B websites are primarily programmatic
ad buys, while programmatic is in the minority in consumer media.
B2B publishers are at an advantage when it comes to supplying
a highly targeted audience. While visitors of a consumer website
could vary drastically in demographics and interests, B2B website
visitors tend to be very similar, as well as very specific. This creates
tremendous opportunities to reach a specific audience through
programmatic campaigns. For example, if Donald Trump wants
to target upper middle class individuals, a super PAC backing him
might focus on medical journal and law related websites.
There is a common misconception that running political campaigns
on your site shows a stance or support for a specific candidate or
political party. A great example to dispute this is Fox News Channel.
Although known as a conservative network with general support for
the GOP, several Obama campaigns ran on the network in 2012.
Myriad opportunities exist for publishers to monetize this upcoming
election, but act quickly. We’re almost to the conventions.
NON-DIRECT
68%
DIRECT
32%
NON-DIRECT
38%
DIRECT
62%
Direct VS.
Non-Direct
B2B
CONSUMER
B2B 3% CONSUMER 97%
2016 POLITICAL SPEND:
B2B VS. CONSUMER
MediaRadar is the most sought-after multimedia ad sales
intelligence tool. It enables ad sales teams to uncover new prospects,
create custom pitches and receive detailed competitive analysis.
White paper created by Todd Krizelman and Jesse Sherb.
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