Regardless of the outcome this November, over the coming months we should expect screens of all sizes to abound with political advertisements in the US, which are only as effective as the technology partner who helps deliver this messaging to voters.
At PubMatic, we aim to take a holistic approach to political advertising. One of the biggest differentiators for buyers when working with PubMatic is the ability to secure premium inventory at a scale that is not available with our competition. This election cycle, we’ll continue to work with many sought-after publishers, who typically block political as an IAB advertising category, and help open their inventory to political advertising in full or limited capacity with PubMatic, thanks to some new and improved products and capabilities designed with this election season in mind:
- Creative Category Manager is one of the industry-leading solutions that allows publishers to verify in the UI that only creatives that match their preferences are allowed on their platform. This ensures that publishers can stay confident in the tagging process and ensure that only relevant and appropriate creatives are displayed to their audiences. PubMatic is one of the only tech companies that offers this solution, and while Creative Category Manager is a publisher tool, it benefits buyers by enabling access for DSPs to efficiently reach voters at federal, state, and local levels at scale, which is especially important in the presence of so many competitive races this cycle.
- Political Auction Packages: PubMatic has also curated auction packages in partnership with strategic publishers to help buyers address specific campaign targeting goals, i.e. reaching liberal voters, swing states audiences, etc. At PubMatic, our political auction packages can be pre-built, customized, and fully packaged for you as a buyer, and we can also curate multiple audiences in a single Deal ID.
- Targeting on the Supply Side: With PubMatic, political buyers also have a unique opportunity to gain better control of the supply chain by shifting their targeting and activation to the supply side. By doing so, they can reap a myriad of benefits:
- Greater Reach & Performance – Data applied through PubMatic’s Connect has helped advertisers double their reach and increase viewability and CTR.
- Better Workflow – Limited activation steps to streamline setup and measurement helps political advertisers stretch media dollars further with fewer fees.
- Measurable Quality – Mitigate fraud with less data leakage and understand what drives performance with near real-time analytics across your deals.
- Unbiased Approach – Reach your audience whomever, whenever, and however you want with data direct from the source.
- PubMatic’s Inventory Discovery Tool offers political advertisers a deeper understanding of available relevant inventory and audience segments from the previous 30 days on our platform to help them find unique inventory and go live quickly; in politics, speed is paramount, especially given how fast news travels.
- Omnichannel display and video solutions that span not only screens (Connected TVs, Desktop, Mobile, Tablet), and formats (in-stream, outstream, OTT), but also deals, with flexible and brand-safe programmatic deal models encompassing Open Exchange, Auction Packages, PMPs (Private Marketplaces), Programmatic Direct, and Programmatic Guaranteed.
- To bring these screens and formats to life, Activate is our self-service media activation platform that brings buyers and sellers closer together, specifically political advertisers and sites that allow political advertising. Activate allows political buyers to discover, plan, negotiate, execute, troubleshoot, measure, report, and optimize media campaigns
- Our real-time Analytics equip political advertisers with a clear line of sight into how campaigns are performing across several standard metrics, all in one place. Standard dashboard analytics include the following:
- Spend – How much your campaign has spent in near real-time.
- Paid Impressions – How often your content has appeared in front of audiences.
- eCPM – Discover the average cost per thousand across your deals.
- Additionally, because our buying platform is built on the same cloud-based infrastructure that publishers access, you can dive deeper into analytics, selecting various dimensions to understand your deals even better, including publisher, site, platform, and channel.
- Advertiser Solutions: PubMatic has created a dedicated team of ad tech and political experts to help with management, optimization, implementation, and advocacy, based locally, to help you maximize success.
With November only three months away, and a new, history-making presidential match-up on our hands, it’s important for everyone to consider what’s at stake this election cycle, regardless of what state you call home, or how competitive you believe your state is. Every single vote counts in this election, and we would do well to refrain from making assumptions about outcomes based solely on the simple bifurcation of states as “red” or “blue.” Doing so overlooks the far more nuanced political landscape on a congressional district and/or local level that has the potential to transform the power dynamic between the legislative and executive branches.
For political advertisers, while the window of opportunity is shrinking to drive turnout and convince undecided voters that their candidate is the best option, it’s far from shut, and key moments to influence decisioning abound – all the more reason to select a partner like PubMatic to help you navigate these uncharted political waters.