Year after year, digital media continues to make up larger shares of campaign budgets. This means new technology, new regulations, and a rapidly changing landscape. Compared to new, highly efficient methods, the “old digital” of yesterday is obsolete and in some cases – such as with political ads on Facebook – non-existent. Success in the digital sphere is reliant on how quickly you can adapt to, and take advantage of, these changes.
Banning Political Ads
The biggest hurdle for political digital media are social media regulations and bans on political ads. Within 12 months, Facebook went from dominating the political digital ad industry (almost 60% of all political digital ad spending went through Facebook in 2019-2020) to completely banning all political advertising – with few exceptions. https://www.emarketer.com/chart/233589/us-digital-political-ad-revenue-share-by-company-20192020-of-total-digital-political-ad-spending
Many organization, political committee, and campaign digital strategies relied heavily or solely on Facebook. When the ban was put in place, they went dark and couldn’t compete.
Bottomline – it is malpractice to put all your eggs in one basket and be at the mercy of any single platform. Successful campaigns have the ability to digitally contact audiences through multiple avenues.
The New Kid on the Block – CTV and OTT
Another major contributor to the changing digital landscape is Connected TV (CTV) and Over-the-Top (OTT) advertising. The impact of CTV/OTT is so significant that it allows digital advertising to compete with traditional TV advertising. Roughly 25% of U.S. households are unreachable using traditional TV ads after “cutting the cord” and choosing streaming services over traditional cable – up from just 19% in 2019. By 2024, this number is expected to grow to 35%. https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/21/pandemic-accelerated-cord-cutting-making-2020-the-worst-ever-year-for-pay-tv/
CTV and OTT advertising is a highly accurate, highly efficient way to stream political ads into the living rooms of your target audience. Instead of blanketing an entire DMA with a traditional TV ad, CTV/OTT allows you to choose which households your ads are served to – cutting down waste and maximizing the use of every penny. Although it is unlikely that CTV/OTT will replace traditional TV ads in the near future, it is making a huge splash in the digital world.
