Are you a political ad buyer who wants to buy ads on local news sites? You should be – more than 70% of local news readers are voters. Local news sites want you to buy ads, too. They consistently miss out on spending that’s diverted to programmatic and social ad

Let’s talk about how much trouble – real, legal, messy trouble – Google is in with the U.S. Department of Justice. Why? Because the changes that are going to take place in ad tech as the result of two federal court rulings are going to affect the political ad market

Wanna see a picture of money burning? Sure you do – it’s a little chilly out there. Take a look at this screen shot (left) from the phone of a kindly small money donor. It’s the list of solicitations she received in the days leading to the election. See the

Ah, the hype. There really isn’t anything quite like a Silicon Valley generated hypefest and the introduction of Artificial Intelligence technology – most famously in its ChatGPT and (for images) Lensa AI iterations – is as one Silicon Valley pundit put it “a Netscape moment”. It is a dramatic departure

Social “media” sure isn’t what it used to be, is it? Facebook’s made itself more difficult to use and less reliable for targeting voters. NextDoor, LinkedIn TikTok, Spotify and Reddit either ban election-related ads or have broad policies in place that allow them to reject ads as they see fit.

A few months ago, Spot-On did its usual post-election forecasting and predicted some rough roads ahead of political ad buyers and tech platforms. We may have understated things. Take a look at this story from Bloomberg. Facebook, it seems, changed the technology underlying its political targeting – making it more

We’ve had another election, so it’s time for Spot-On to put on its political reporter spyglass to look (and share!) what we see as important trends for media consultants and buyers. Parties May Not be Dead, But They’re on Life Support The number of voters who refused to affiliate with

If you’re reading this, chances are good that the majority of your digital ad spending this election cycle has gone through what are known as programmatic ad buying platforms. After all, most political ad dollars are being spent that way. But this may be the last cycle where the freewheeling

Here at Spot-On, we focus on strategic implementations while our clients dictate strategy.. But also we read a lot and this piece in the New York Times about how campaign should talking to different voters – maybe the ones that aren’t easy to find – hit a nerve.As the authors

Well, well, well, it looks like the rush to access publishers’ advertising inventory directly – without going through the black boxes called programmatic ad buying – appears to be getting traction. Or at least lip service. More and more players in that world, from Google on down, seem to acknowledge

About this time every year – Spot-On sits down and thinks about the year ahead, gives you our take on what’s happened and what’s likely to be popping up on our political ad buying radar. We started this year’s naval gazing back in early December. And, well, we got distracted.

The time has come for political advertisers to demand different treatment in the digital buying space. In the analog world, political campaigns enjoy special treatment that brand advertisers don’t. TV stations set political rates for candidate ads. Election-oriented mail is red tagged by the post office. But in the digital

There may be no better indication of the rising cost of digital advertising than a little missive Google sent out earlier this month to its ad buying customers. In a number of countries that are taxing digital ad placements, the big ad firm will be adding surcharges to cover those

Looks like Google’s first attempt to shut down the circus known as “ad tech” was more clown car than Big Top. After months of saying that cookie-based ad targeting – used to support voter file matching – was going away, the tech giant pushed that transition back by almost two

It’s late. It’s likely to be questioned for the next 9.5 years but – finally – the 2020 U.S. Census data is getting kicked out for review and analysis. The re-allocation of Congressional districts got the headline but lots of folks are digging around on more granular data. The results

Wanna be seen as a kewl kid in the online ad world? Use the word ‘privacy’ in a sentence when you’re talking about online advertising. It’s getting to the point where it’s hard to tell which of the massive platforms which depend on mining of user data is now –

Silicon Valley has a saying: Live by the platform, die by the platform. Translation: If your business relies on anyone else to exist then your livelihood is subject to the whims of that provider, which can change at any time. Their business is more important to them then yours. So,

Spot-On normally uses the first newsletter of the year to reflect on the last and look ahead. This year we feel it necessary to start by channeling the late great Yankee shortstop (and poet) Phil Rizzuto. Holy Cow! There’s a lot more we could say – but none of it

It’s going to take a while for the professional political class to digest the 2020 election. Trends that popped up and were dismissed in 2016 came roaring back. And there was plenty of new stuff. One thing is clear, however. Like 2016, the 2020 election brought a lot of new

It’s gotten a fancy high-tech name now but the old fashion technique that political ad buyers have relied on – buying ads where they think they’ll find voters – is coming back with a vengeance. This time around it’s called “contextual targeting.” Which means that advertisers run ads where they’ll

This newsletter, coming to you at the beginning of the earnest and chaotic political buying cycle, comes with some good news. You are not alone. A recent survey by Centro, a Chicago and Toronto-based programmatic ad buying firm, says that political ad buyers are worried about a range of issues

With the Friday announcement that it was cancelling contracts with political ad buyers, Adobe – a venerable Silicon Valley company – is sending a clear signal: Political ads are too hot to handle. The Adobe news broke at the end of a week that saw The Big Tech Four on

With the state primaries schedule slow down it’s time to survey the digital ad environment for fall. Like almost everything else, it’s changing. Again. The ability to use user data to target mobile devices and desktop computers is under new fire. And the one platform campaigns have used as a go-to

Thinking differently about how to run your campaigns? It could be time to change up your digital ad game as part of that process.  Two online publishing trends are coming together in a way that should encourage political campaigns to think differently about the tried-and-true method of reaching voters with

It took a pandemic to completely destroy the false perception that digital events or online behavior was somehow distinct from other day-to-day activity. No longer can a campaign say that ‘digital’ is different from mail, telephone calling or television. Increasing use of online tools – for doctors’ visits, business meetings

Are you getting that sneaky feeling that maybe – just maybe – the online political ad market is getting more unsettled? That this year – oh, why THIS year – is the one where the changes come fast and furious without warning?  Reluctantly, Spot-On agrees. From our point-of-view there are

Changes in election and privacy laws aren’t the only adjustments that digital ad buyers should worry about going in to 2020. The folks who make web browsers have stepped in with changes in how ad trackers can follow consumers . These adjustments are going to affect political ad targeting –

Seems that the tried and true method of reaching voters online – the use of purported targeting using voter registration information – is under fire. And it’s not just one or two little attacks; the hangover from the 2016 election is turning out to be longer than expected. So concerns

Targeting Alert: Just in time for the 2020 Election, a key buying tool in online advertising – tracking the behavior of Internet users – is coming under increasing fire. Political folks don’t spend a lot of time thinking about targeting other than by voter registration information. But voter targeting is