What The Digital Data Is Telling Us So Far This Election
One of the many values of digital advertising is that unlike with traditional ads, digital provides vast amounts of data. With campaigns now in full swing, we're getting the first rounds of that data. Here's what we see so far in the trends, and how you can use this data to get an edge in the final weeks.
🔱 Millions of TV Viewers Are Being Missed by Campaigns Over-Relying on Linear TV
We've written about it several times before in this newsletter, but this is what the current TV ecosystem looks like:
To reach all of these viewers, even the most robust cable and broadcast (linear) buys must be supplemented with connected TV ads (CTV). And now with ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) data, we can see exactly who is underexposed to cable and broadcast ads.
Here's one anecdote from a race we're involved in. A candidate who is the heir to a billionaire's fortune is spending with a blank check, but still missing nearly 75% of the TV audience in the district, simply because he's over-indexed on linear TV.
That's just one of countless examples. We've seen congressional races missing hundreds of thousands of voters who are only reachable on CTV. And remember that cable boundaries bear no relationship whatsoever to political districts. So not only are the linear-heavy campaigns missing the CTV audiences, but they're paying for ads—sometimes to millions of people—who can't even vote in their race. With CTV, we deliver ads only to your target audience.
We've said it before, but now the data is proving it out—this is the CTV election. And many winners and losers will be divided by which side of the CTV/linear line that campaigns straddle.
🔱 Campaigns Are Over-Indexing on So-Called "Premium Inventory," Driving Prices Sky-High on Those Platforms
Premium inventory consists of brand names like Hulu, The New York Times, major regional newspapers, and YouTube. Many campaigns are buying this inventory faster than a run on toilet paper, driving prices for the remaining inventory on these platforms to nose bleed levels—if you can get the inventory at all.
But this strategy is misguided. Because when you're targeting voters, we believe you shouldn't be emotionally attached to where you find them. Here's an example: Imagine your voter target is on a recipe site and you can deliver your ad there for 1/100th the price you would pay for a New York Times placement to the same voter with the same ad. Wouldn't you rather buy the recipe site placement and also serve 99 other voters your ad?
Come to think of it, here's a screenshot of a Neptune Ops ad running on a recipe site. It gets the same amount of attention whether it's next to short ribs or short stories.
There's still plenty of ad inventory left at great prices, even in the most saturated markets. You just need to look a little deeper to find it.
🔱 The Right Video Is Holding Voters' Attention
One of our favorite pieces of digital data is so called "VCR," or video completion rates. It lets us see exactly how long people are completing ads that are skippable. VCR lets us compare how well particular creative is performing versus other ads and industry benchmarks, and make adjustments accordingly to targeting, creative, and budget allocations.
What we're seeing this cycle is that compelling ads are holding voters' attention, even in a very noisy election cycle. The right creative is keeping people from tuning out, at a time when many of us want to.
Here's a recent ad of ours we're particularly proud of that is capturing and keeping voters' attentions. We used AI throughout the production process of this ad. In an age of short attention spans, the right video is more important than ever.
Three Ways To Operationalize This Email
🔱 Fill in the gaps your campaign may be missing on linear TV with supplemental CTV ad buys.
🔱 Focus on targeting voters, not targeting media outlets. If you take this approach you won't overpay for particular inventory, and you'll stretch your campaign dollars much further.
🔱 Closely monitor VCR rates in your video ads. Listen to what that data is telling you, and make adjustments accordingly.
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