Smart Media Buying in a Presidential Election Year

Executing a successful advertising strategy – one that helps your organization maintain share of voice in a presidential election year – is no easy challenge. As political campaigns heat up over the summer into fall, it is essential to consider how political ad spending will impact, or should we say dominate, the advertising ecosystem you’re competing in.

Between 2020 and 2024, U.S. digital political ad spending has surged by more than 156 percent. Your digital spending needs to be surging at the same time. Why? Because digital programmatic media is driving the health market right now.

Consider that 77 percent of patients perform online research before booking an appointment. Google receives more than 1 billion health questions every day, totaling 7 percent of all Google searches. Video is king: In 2024, nearly 9 in 10 consumers said they want to see more videos from brands, and those consumers are 52 percent more likely to share video content than any other type of content.

It’s clear you want a strong digital presence, but digital political ad spend in the 2024 election is anticipated to reach an all-time high of $12.32 billion, which is nearly three times the 2016 spend and almost $3 billion more than 2020. While there is more Connected TV (CTV) inventory to go around this year, advertisers should be aware of how inventory will be impacted.

Even as digital political ad spending soars, Linear TV and CTV will still represent the greatest overall spend in the political arena. Most spending will be in key battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These are the states poised to see the largest share of political expenditure, which could profoundly affect local ad rates.

Spend Smarter: Understanding the Nuances

Media pricing will be affected, but don’t feel compelled to spend more or less – just aim for spending smarter. To do that, you’ll need to understand the nuances of the market and what is happening where.

Meta, for instance, is placing limits on political spending and posts to reduce the amount of political content in feeds. This presents an immediate opportunity to reach your audience with little political noise. Paid search is largely immune to political advertising. Maximize search engine marketing (SEM) to capture intent-driven traffic. Now is a good time to revisit your SEM ads to see if they will benefit from updating keywords for localized and voice search activity.

It’s not necessary to completely abandon Linear TV or CTV. Just avoid the general election run-up (Sept. 6-Nov. 5), and buy early to avoid “last in, first out” preemptive scenarios. Leverage the nimbleness of programmatic media, maximize channel integration and monitor closely to shift resources to top performers. At Dobies Health Marketing, our team has the capability to track some viewership in linear TV and can integrate CTV to complement and extend reach and frequency.

From traditional media to streaming media and every platform in between, there’s so much to consider, and terrain is shifting constantly – but help is available for smart media planning. When you partner with Dobies Health Marketing, you partner with world-class media power integrating traditional and programmatic digital media. We bring experienced media buying capabilities for increased media efficiency and performance. Our team harnesses data and predictive intelligence to deliver and execute digital marketing strategies that are custom-built for your unique challenges. Contact us to learn more today.