Kamala Harris Just Made The Largest Digital Ad Buy In History—What This Means For You

If a campaign flush with over half a billion in cash can’t afford to waste money on traditional advertising—can you?

In the just over a month since President Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Vice President Harris has raised of over $540 million, the most of any campaign in history during that amount of time.

With over half a billion in cash, Harris could not only afford to carpet bomb the swing states with traditional advertising like broadcast and cable TV, she could afford to buy many of those rustbelt TV stations just for giggles. But what she's doing instead? She just announced the largest digital ad buy in history.

“This is a modern campaign in 2024 and we’re not just stuck in the times of old, where 80 percent of the budget has to be on television,” said Quentin Fulks, Harris’s principal deputy campaign manager, in an interview with The New York Times.

In this initial reservation of ad time, the flush Harris campaign has set aside less than half of its budget for traditional television. By comparison, four years ago, the Biden campaign spent 80% of its initial ad buy reservation on traditional TV. As The Times correctly observed:

"Of course, the difference between digital and television is increasingly blurred as a growing number of Americans watch television programs through streaming platforms . . . all of which are part of the Harris digital reservation."

The Harris campaign said their strategy reflects the need to reach voters digitally "as traditional television audiences continue to fragment and shrink."

Harris's initial digital ad buy includes Connected TV, programmatic audio, and online video, tactics which we regularly discuss in this newsletter. We couldn't imagine a better datapoint for the strategies we cover here each week. 

What Harris's Digital Buy Means For You

Ask yourself this question—if a campaign swimming in cash like the Harris campaign can't afford to waste money on traditional forms of advertising—can you? 

As you consider that question, remember too that the vast majority of Harris's digital ad buy is in rustbelt states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which are significantly less connected and older than places like California. It's not just young, plugged in demographics that she's targeting digitally. Harris is reaching voters across all demographics with her digital-first approach.

We've written before about the fragmented nature of how TV is now consumed, which looks something like this:

And in almost all DMAs, traditional TV now represents the minority of TV market share.

Source: Comcast

We've also written about how one piece of direct mail now costs anywhere from 10-17x the price of a non-skippable, 30 second Connected TV ad.  

Given these facts, there's nothing weird or surprising about Harris's digital-first strategy.

In fact . . . it's just normal (click here to play).

Three Suggestions To Operationalize This Email

🔱  Ask yourself how you will explain to your bosses, clients, and donors why you think you can afford to spend more of your budget percentage on traditional advertising than a campaign sitting on a cool half a billion.

🔱  Re-consider your budget allocations, including mail and traditional TV in favor of a digital-first strategy just like V.P. Harris (without all those zeros of course).

🔱  Reserve Connected TV time now as prices have already started to go up from election-related ad buying.

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