Political causes don’t need a presidential election to give campaign ads their all. According to an article from Basis Technologies, “Advertisers are willing to spend more per vote than in the past, establishing a precedent that will likely ripple into 2024 and push the U.S. into a stunning new norm: the $10 billion election.” And it’s becoming increasingly important to political causes to advertise on TV. Here’s what you need to know for your political client.

More Political Causes to Advertise on TV

TV is King

In 2022, TV ads were the most popular ad type among political ad spending. According to data from MediaPost, advertisers spent:

$4.73 billion on broadcast TV ads
$1.79 billion on cable TV ads
$1.09 billion on connected TV (CTV) ads

That’s a grand total of $7.61 billion to advertise on TV. That means TV ads made up 85.07% of total political ad spending in 2022. Digital and radio ads were left in the dust with $1.02 billion and $31 million in ad spending, respectively. Advertisers spend money where there are results. TV ads provide political causes with results. And, if your client isn’t placing their ads on TV, they’re giving their competitors a huge advantage since they’re left out of the space entirely.

CTV Ads are Becoming More Important

Basis Technologies says the first half of 2022 saw a 1,500% increase in political spending on connected TV devices compared to the first half of 2020. And it makes sense. More and more consumers are increasing their CTV viewing time, so no wonder it’s now an important component when political causes want to advertise on TV. Adding CTV ads to your client’s campaign will help them get the most out of their TV commercial efforts.

Social’s Popularity is Falling

According to another article by MediaPost, social media’s share of political ad spending has been steadily declining for years. Since 2018, social media’s share of political ad spending has fallen by 13%, from 23% in 2018 to only 10% in 2022.

Why is that? According to Basis Technologies, there’s “decreasing trust in social media among policy influencers.” Additionally, MediaPost says that many political marketers believe that their social ads have younger audiences, who are considered low-propensity voters. So, overall, digital’s share of political ad spending is being transferred to CTV ads, says MediaPost. Political advertisers would rather advertise on TV.

How Your Client Should Advertise on TV

If your client wants to advertise on TV, they’ll need to know the best places to put their ads. AudienceSCAN on AdMall by SalesFuel can provide the data you need to determine that. By looking up your client’s target audience’s profile, you can learn:

Where your client’s target audience gets the majority of their TV programming from
What types of shows they prefer to watch on TV
What sports they enjoy watching on TV
What percentage of that audience took action after seeing both traditional and streaming TV commercials within the last year
How much time these consumers spend watching TV on a typical day

AudienceSCAN has all this information and more on Every Election Voters, Frequent Voters, Political Campaign Contributors/Supporters, Political Candidate Researchers, Political Show Watchers and Political Talk Listeners, and more. With all the advertising information AudienceSCAN has to offer at your disposal, you’ll know exactly where to place your client’s political TV ads to make the most out of their decision to advertise on TV.

For more information on how to make your client’s political ads super effective, check out this previous SalesFuel blog post that covers linear TV ads, CTV ads and digital ads.

Photo by Element5 Digital