Vote for more impactful campaigns

In a world of red and blue, we aim to be truly purple, and with potential record-breaking political ad spend expected this election cycle, advertisers have a massive opportunity to reach potential voters, especially on TV. Yahoo DSP provides the expertise and guidance political advertisers need to maximize their ad spend effectively.

Danny Dikovsky

Senior Director, Independent Agency Sales and Strategy, Yahoo

Jeffrey Rich

Sr. Account Director, Independent Agencies, Yahoo

Molly Smathers

Account Director, Independent Agency, Government and Politics, Yahoo

Political ad spend is projected to hit nearly $11 billion this political season, according to AdImpact. Nearly half of this will be dedicated to broadcast television, whereas only 14% will go to streaming.¹ However, this spending ratio doesn’t reflect Americans' viewing habits. According to Nielsen, only 22% of Americans watch broadcast TV, while 41% are tuned into streaming.²

With more Americans turning to streaming platforms for news, sports, and entertainment, there is a significant opportunity to diversify reach and expand audience engagement in less crowded spaces, allowing your message to stand out and influence hearts and minds.

Pivoting to streaming can be a daunting initiative for advertisers, but powerful solutions and expertise are available to help fully capitalize on this opportunity. Political advertisers can be guided through the often-confusing landscape of CTV, helping them set up campaigns seamlessly and reach their audiences more effectively and efficiently. Check out some best practices that you can activate with the Yahoo DSP today:

Improve planning with political audience insights
Gaining richer insights into audiences can help set your campaigns up for greater success. The Yahoo DSP's Audience Insights tool leverages proprietary Yahoo data such as mail, search and content consumption from 205 million U.S. logged-in users³ and provides an interactive way to visualize political affinities and behaviors across various attributes. This includes comparing audiences down to the US congressional district level and across factors such as partisan leanings, party-switcher affinity, news consumption, ideology, and more. You can then apply the targeting suggestions to an existing campaign.

Capture audiences at the optimal moment
With the fast-approaching presidential election, speed is crucial. Reaching audiences immediately after debates or other politically significant events is essential. Our partnerships with AdImpact, Comscore, and Samba TV provide rich, insightful political-based TV viewership data, enabling you to target audiences at the ideal time, from federal campaigns down to statewide and local elections.
Scale voter targeting precision
Voter file data is the gold standard for reaching persuadable and turnout audiences, but without an extensive identity graph, political advertisers may struggle to maximize reach. With Yahoo ConnectID, our persistent identifier deterministically derived from 205 million US logged-in users, we can deliver your message more effectively to your target audience, whether through display, online video, or via CTV across 108 million households.⁴
Align your campaign with premium supply
When reaching potential voters, it’s crucial to deliver your political messages within premium content environments to effectively convey your message and influence decisions. Yahoo DSP is your one-stop shop for top-tier inventory. With Yahoo Backstage, you gain direct access not only to Yahoo-owned and operated inventory but also access to the largest MFA-free CTV source, comprising 40+ premium CTV publishers through our direct integration with the three primary CTV ad servers.⁵
Ensure incremental reach
Despite shifting viewing habits to streaming, many audiences are still consuming content on linear. The most effective way to boost efficiency is to ensure you’re not reaching the same audience on CTV that you’re already targeting on linear TV. Our state-of-the-art Unified TV Report, soon to be powered by currency-grade data from VideoAmp, provides detailed insights on campaign delivery, reach and frequency, and allows you to understand the overlap with linear TV. You can then use Unified TV Audiences, which commingles ACR (automatic content recognition) and set-top box data to provide a comprehensive view of audiences to suppress linear audiences and expand your incremental CTV reach.

This election cycle will be as competitive for advertisers as it is for candidates, coinciding with a pivotal moment in TV evolution that could make campaign execution and optimization challenging. Yahoo DSP offers the tools and expertise to help advertisers maximize their CTV spend and effectively reach audiences where they are this election season. Reach out to your Yahoo DSP account team today to learn more.

¹AdImpact, 2024 Political Projections Report, Jun, 2024
²Nielsen, The Gauge™, Aug, 2024
³⁻⁵Yahoo Internal Data, 2024

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This piece was developed by the Yahoo political team, whose goal is to empower political advertisers of all sizes and party affiliations to leverage the power of advertising to reach their constituents and make an impact. With the political season in full swing and the massive shift to CTV, their focus is to ensure that their political advertisers invest their video dollars in the most efficient and effective way possible. With their expertise and the Yahoo DSP toolset, they are well-equipped to support all political advertisers in achieving their goals.