Dive Brief:
- Making use of martech is nothing new for political campaigns, but 2016 looks to be shaping up as a cycle where ad tech becomes a major component of ad buys.
- The reasoning behind this trend is potential voters are more connected than ever online and particularly via smartphones.
- Companies ranging from ad tech firms to Facebook are ramping up political campaign inroads.
Dive Insight:
Political campaigns want to reach potential voters however they can, be it knocking door-to-door, sending direct mail, crafting digital campaigns, or utilizing martech tools more often employed by B2B enterprise marketers. The 2016 election won’t be an exception to this trend, and it looks like ad tech is going to come out a big winner. Because of the rapidly growing trend of smartphone use across demographic groups, political campaigns are expected to make use of ad tech for campaign ad buys.
Ad tech firms such as Rocket Fuel and digital ad platforms such as Facebook are already reaching out to political campaigns in preparation for the trend. Chris Choi, head of media at Blue State Digital, pointed out to The Wall Street Journal that buying digital means campaigns aren’t spending that money elsewhere and it’s important for digital firms to “make the case why buying digital is more efficient, more targeted and more measurable.”
Digital ads will still be competing with the standard medium for political ads, television, which is expected grab $4.4 billion in spending over this election cycle.