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2 Strategies to Grow Your Political Advertising Strategy for the 2022 Election

Buyers
4
minutes
Technical Level
November 18, 2023
4
minutes
September 29, 2022
Technical Level
Sam Vangelovski
Strategic Account Director
As election day quickly approaches, people are tuning in more acutely to the increased number of political messages across the traditional and digital ecosystem. Voters want to make informed decisions, but can easily feel overwhelmed with the bombardment of political commercials during the morning and evening rush.

The Billion Dollar Political Advertising Problem

To put this in perspective, a person is generally exposed to over 6,000 to 10,000 total ads each day, an astounding amount of messaging to comprehend. In this post, we cover the challenges in reaching voters with video ads online and on Connected TVs (CTV) and how advertisers representing candidates and causes can improve their campaign performance with QR codes and Dynamic Captions.

Distracted Viewing

For political advertisers, it has become increasingly challenging to cut through the advertisements clutter effectively. Furthermore, our research finds that 64% of adults are simultaneously using a second device while viewing a TV screen, making it even harder to capture the attention of TV viewers. It’s no surprise that the programmatic landscape closely mirrors that of traditional media with video in high demand, especially on CTV devices.

Read More: New Research: Understanding Consumer Behaviors During TV Commercial Breaks — Sharethrough

Media consumption patterns in the digital space have evolved greatly in the last two or so years. Political buyers have taken notice by expanding into new formats and ad units outside of the traditional social media and online video walled gardens. We have particularly seen an exponential increase in demand for outstream video and premium CTV supply.

Every Voter Matters

Sharethrough is helping these partners improve political ad performance by placing the voter at the center of everything we do to garner support for campaigns. First, the ads fit better into the publisher space due to our True Template Technology, which automatically analyzes the surrounding environment of the ad to match size, fonts, and colors of the space. Secondly, our industry-leading directness – or direct relationships – with premium sites help keep supply chain fees lower and maintain strict quality control standards of that supply. Together, these components allow for a better ad experience for the voter.

At Sharethrough, our core belief is that all advertising can be done better, ultimately becoming more effective. Not all ad impressions are built equal. Sharethrough’s goal is to improve attention and comprehension of ads to maximize behavior change. Political advertisers need to maximize attention and comprehension to generate candidate, or cause, consideration. Joined together, that core voter is more likely to cast their ballot and even possibly change their vote.

Read More: How Ad Tech Can Benefit From Human-Centric Design — Sharethrough

Driving behavior change requires the viewers’ attention and ability to comprehend the ad message.

What’s the approach?

2 Strategies to Take Your Political Advertising Strategy to the Next Level

1. From Cord Cutting to Code Scanning

Simply put, keep the eyes of voters glued  to the screen with a better user experience. Considering 10 years of human cognition studies, Sharethrough has developed ad enhancements to address user awareness and attention across our entire portfolio of products. For intents and purposes, we’ll discuss the CTV and outstream video formats.

Video accounts for nearly 73% of demand from political partners.

Connected TV may be synonymous with cord-cutters, but most traditional TV set-top box households will also have access to one or more OTT/CTV devices. Ad units are similar and differentiation is murky, but awareness and comprehension of an ad can differ greatly. A highly effective solution is adding a feature such as sports ticker or countdown overlay to maintain attention on the screen. Furthermore, these units can be enhanced with a QR Code with the ability to report on scans back to the candidate along with a logo campaign or cause logo that the voter can identify with. Our research finds that these enhancements alone increase CTV user attention by over 12%.

Read More: Introducing Dynamic QR Codes for CTV Ads — Sharethrough

Viewers can easily take action on CTV campaigns with the help of QR codes.

2. Captions That Capture

As voters stay up to date on politics and news, most websites are designed as feeds where users scroll through content and browse headlines. Our research finds that 72% of users are more likely to watch a mobile video if it has captions enabled. On desktop, 49% of users keep their computer on mute while a video plays. How much of your media efficacy is lost if the dialogue is silent? The solution here is our Dynamic Video Captions, which are human-verified captions that effectively read as headlines and drive greater comprehension

Read More: Sharethrough Introduces Dynamic Video Captions (So You Can Keep it on Mute)

Dynamic Captions are also more accessible for the hearing impaired.

The bottom line is, voters are overexposed to ads and multitasking, which means that attention spans are lower than ever. While digesting breakfast may be the preferred morning routine of most, we know that voters will take a pause from the morning chaos to view and digest, or comprehend, those critical political messages as well.

To learn more about how to improve the performance of your political ad campaigns, contact us today.

To view the free infographic, fill the form below.

As election day quickly approaches, people are tuning in more acutely to the increased number of political messages across the traditional and digital ecosystem. Voters want to make informed decisions, but can easily feel overwhelmed with the bombardment of political commercials during the morning and evening rush.

The Billion Dollar Political Advertising Problem

To put this in perspective, a person is generally exposed to over 6,000 to 10,000 total ads each day, an astounding amount of messaging to comprehend. In this post, we cover the challenges in reaching voters with video ads online and on Connected TVs (CTV) and how advertisers representing candidates and causes can improve their campaign performance with QR codes and Dynamic Captions.

Distracted Viewing

For political advertisers, it has become increasingly challenging to cut through the advertisements clutter effectively. Furthermore, our research finds that 64% of adults are simultaneously using a second device while viewing a TV screen, making it even harder to capture the attention of TV viewers. It’s no surprise that the programmatic landscape closely mirrors that of traditional media with video in high demand, especially on CTV devices.

Read More: New Research: Understanding Consumer Behaviors During TV Commercial Breaks — Sharethrough

Media consumption patterns in the digital space have evolved greatly in the last two or so years. Political buyers have taken notice by expanding into new formats and ad units outside of the traditional social media and online video walled gardens. We have particularly seen an exponential increase in demand for outstream video and premium CTV supply.

Every Voter Matters

Sharethrough is helping these partners improve political ad performance by placing the voter at the center of everything we do to garner support for campaigns. First, the ads fit better into the publisher space due to our True Template Technology, which automatically analyzes the surrounding environment of the ad to match size, fonts, and colors of the space. Secondly, our industry-leading directness – or direct relationships – with premium sites help keep supply chain fees lower and maintain strict quality control standards of that supply. Together, these components allow for a better ad experience for the voter.

At Sharethrough, our core belief is that all advertising can be done better, ultimately becoming more effective. Not all ad impressions are built equal. Sharethrough’s goal is to improve attention and comprehension of ads to maximize behavior change. Political advertisers need to maximize attention and comprehension to generate candidate, or cause, consideration. Joined together, that core voter is more likely to cast their ballot and even possibly change their vote.

Read More: How Ad Tech Can Benefit From Human-Centric Design — Sharethrough

Driving behavior change requires the viewers’ attention and ability to comprehend the ad message.

What’s the approach?

2 Strategies to Take Your Political Advertising Strategy to the Next Level

1. From Cord Cutting to Code Scanning

Simply put, keep the eyes of voters glued  to the screen with a better user experience. Considering 10 years of human cognition studies, Sharethrough has developed ad enhancements to address user awareness and attention across our entire portfolio of products. For intents and purposes, we’ll discuss the CTV and outstream video formats.

Video accounts for nearly 73% of demand from political partners.

Connected TV may be synonymous with cord-cutters, but most traditional TV set-top box households will also have access to one or more OTT/CTV devices. Ad units are similar and differentiation is murky, but awareness and comprehension of an ad can differ greatly. A highly effective solution is adding a feature such as sports ticker or countdown overlay to maintain attention on the screen. Furthermore, these units can be enhanced with a QR Code with the ability to report on scans back to the candidate along with a logo campaign or cause logo that the voter can identify with. Our research finds that these enhancements alone increase CTV user attention by over 12%.

Read More: Introducing Dynamic QR Codes for CTV Ads — Sharethrough

Viewers can easily take action on CTV campaigns with the help of QR codes.

2. Captions That Capture

As voters stay up to date on politics and news, most websites are designed as feeds where users scroll through content and browse headlines. Our research finds that 72% of users are more likely to watch a mobile video if it has captions enabled. On desktop, 49% of users keep their computer on mute while a video plays. How much of your media efficacy is lost if the dialogue is silent? The solution here is our Dynamic Video Captions, which are human-verified captions that effectively read as headlines and drive greater comprehension

Read More: Sharethrough Introduces Dynamic Video Captions (So You Can Keep it on Mute)

Dynamic Captions are also more accessible for the hearing impaired.

The bottom line is, voters are overexposed to ads and multitasking, which means that attention spans are lower than ever. While digesting breakfast may be the preferred morning routine of most, we know that voters will take a pause from the morning chaos to view and digest, or comprehend, those critical political messages as well.

To learn more about how to improve the performance of your political ad campaigns, contact us today.

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About Behind Headlines: 180 Seconds in Ad Tech—

Behind Headlines: 180 Seconds in Ad Tech is a short 3-minute podcast exploring the news in the digital advertising industry. Ad tech is a fast-growing industry with many updates happening daily. As it can be hard for most to keep up with the latest news, the Sharethrough team wanted to create an audio series compiling notable mentions each week.

As election day quickly approaches, people are tuning in more acutely to the increased number of political messages across the traditional and digital ecosystem. Voters want to make informed decisions, but can easily feel overwhelmed with the bombardment of political commercials during the morning and evening rush.

The Billion Dollar Political Advertising Problem

To put this in perspective, a person is generally exposed to over 6,000 to 10,000 total ads each day, an astounding amount of messaging to comprehend. In this post, we cover the challenges in reaching voters with video ads online and on Connected TVs (CTV) and how advertisers representing candidates and causes can improve their campaign performance with QR codes and Dynamic Captions.

Distracted Viewing

For political advertisers, it has become increasingly challenging to cut through the advertisements clutter effectively. Furthermore, our research finds that 64% of adults are simultaneously using a second device while viewing a TV screen, making it even harder to capture the attention of TV viewers. It’s no surprise that the programmatic landscape closely mirrors that of traditional media with video in high demand, especially on CTV devices.

Read More: New Research: Understanding Consumer Behaviors During TV Commercial Breaks — Sharethrough

Media consumption patterns in the digital space have evolved greatly in the last two or so years. Political buyers have taken notice by expanding into new formats and ad units outside of the traditional social media and online video walled gardens. We have particularly seen an exponential increase in demand for outstream video and premium CTV supply.

Every Voter Matters

Sharethrough is helping these partners improve political ad performance by placing the voter at the center of everything we do to garner support for campaigns. First, the ads fit better into the publisher space due to our True Template Technology, which automatically analyzes the surrounding environment of the ad to match size, fonts, and colors of the space. Secondly, our industry-leading directness – or direct relationships – with premium sites help keep supply chain fees lower and maintain strict quality control standards of that supply. Together, these components allow for a better ad experience for the voter.

At Sharethrough, our core belief is that all advertising can be done better, ultimately becoming more effective. Not all ad impressions are built equal. Sharethrough’s goal is to improve attention and comprehension of ads to maximize behavior change. Political advertisers need to maximize attention and comprehension to generate candidate, or cause, consideration. Joined together, that core voter is more likely to cast their ballot and even possibly change their vote.

Read More: How Ad Tech Can Benefit From Human-Centric Design — Sharethrough

Driving behavior change requires the viewers’ attention and ability to comprehend the ad message.

What’s the approach?

2 Strategies to Take Your Political Advertising Strategy to the Next Level

1. From Cord Cutting to Code Scanning

Simply put, keep the eyes of voters glued  to the screen with a better user experience. Considering 10 years of human cognition studies, Sharethrough has developed ad enhancements to address user awareness and attention across our entire portfolio of products. For intents and purposes, we’ll discuss the CTV and outstream video formats.

Video accounts for nearly 73% of demand from political partners.

Connected TV may be synonymous with cord-cutters, but most traditional TV set-top box households will also have access to one or more OTT/CTV devices. Ad units are similar and differentiation is murky, but awareness and comprehension of an ad can differ greatly. A highly effective solution is adding a feature such as sports ticker or countdown overlay to maintain attention on the screen. Furthermore, these units can be enhanced with a QR Code with the ability to report on scans back to the candidate along with a logo campaign or cause logo that the voter can identify with. Our research finds that these enhancements alone increase CTV user attention by over 12%.

Read More: Introducing Dynamic QR Codes for CTV Ads — Sharethrough

Viewers can easily take action on CTV campaigns with the help of QR codes.

2. Captions That Capture

As voters stay up to date on politics and news, most websites are designed as feeds where users scroll through content and browse headlines. Our research finds that 72% of users are more likely to watch a mobile video if it has captions enabled. On desktop, 49% of users keep their computer on mute while a video plays. How much of your media efficacy is lost if the dialogue is silent? The solution here is our Dynamic Video Captions, which are human-verified captions that effectively read as headlines and drive greater comprehension

Read More: Sharethrough Introduces Dynamic Video Captions (So You Can Keep it on Mute)

Dynamic Captions are also more accessible for the hearing impaired.

The bottom line is, voters are overexposed to ads and multitasking, which means that attention spans are lower than ever. While digesting breakfast may be the preferred morning routine of most, we know that voters will take a pause from the morning chaos to view and digest, or comprehend, those critical political messages as well.

To learn more about how to improve the performance of your political ad campaigns, contact us today.

About Calibrate—

Founded in 2015, Calibrate is a yearly conference for new engineering managers hosted by seasoned engineering managers. The experience level of the speakers ranges from newcomers all the way through senior engineering leaders with over twenty years of experience in the field. Each speaker is greatly concerned about the craft of engineering management. Organized and hosted by Sharethrough, it was conducted yearly in September, from 2015-2019 in San Francisco, California.

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Sam Vangelovski
Strategic Account Director

About the Author

Located in Chicago, Sam leads political partnerships with agency and media consultants throughout the Midwest and South regions for Sharethrough. Father of two young boys and a wild puppy, he stays busy keeping up with the kids and following his favorite sports teams, the Bears and the Bulls.

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