Why Political Campaigns Are Moving Millions to Connected TV

During every major election cycle, local broadcast TV networks become flooded with political attack ads. Candidates for everything from the US Senate down to the local school board often spend their entire war chests buying up 30-second spots on the evening news.

However, modern campaign managers have recognized a serious flaw in this strategy: it is incredibly inefficient. That is why millions of political advertising dollars are currently flooding into Connected TV (CTV).

The Flaw in Traditional Political TV

If you are running for a specific Congressional district, your boundaries are rigid. Yet, when you buy a broadcast TV ad, that ad is beamed out to the entire Designated Market Area (DMA). You are frequently paying a massive premium to show your commercial to voters who do not even live in your district and cannot legally vote for you.

The Precision of Voter-File Targeting on CTV

CTV completely eliminates the district-boundary issue. Advertisers can isolate the exact zip codes that comprise the voting district.

But CTV takes it a step further. Advanced platforms allow campaigns to securely onboard their actual voter files. This means a candidate can match their list of "undecided, high-turnout voters" directly to household IP addresses. The commercial runs only on the televisions inside the homes of the exact voters the campaign needs to sway.

Immediate Persuasion Tracking

In the final weeks of a campaign, immediate feedback is critical. Waiting until Election Day to see if the messaging worked is a recipe for losing. With CTV retargeting, campaigns can serve a television commercial, see exactly who watched it, and then measure if that viewer subsequently visited the campaign's website to volunteer or donate. Campaign managers can track Cost-Per-Donation on a daily basis.