• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, June 9, 2016

Political advertising has become pervasive across media platforms. The importance of being active throughout the media landscape cannot be understated in the 2016 presidential cycle.

Fluent, the email marketing and customer acquisition firm, conducted an online survey addressing the omnichannel marketing effectiveness of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The survey was conducted on May 31 and June 4 among 5,000+ respondents of voting age.

The findings: Hillary Clinton is more visible across all advertising media than Donald Trump.

While this is not a surprise, Donald Trump has increased his advertising presence across platforms, a clear sign that he and his team are focused on taking advantage of a large variety of channels as we approach the general election.

This is a big shift from the earned media and lean paid advertising strategy used throughout the primary cycle.

The RNC is likely involved in this ramp up, as the committee has made large ad buys recently, including a $150 million buy on digital video.

The survey looked at a large range of media advertising, including: television, Facebook, print, radio, online video and display, email, direct mail, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.

Overall, the Clinton campaign looks to have the most sophisticated and accurate targeting abilities, with 73% of Democratic respondents saying that they have seen an ad for Hillary Clinton on television. This compares to 44% of Republican respondents who have seen a television ad for Donald Trump.

In fact, more Democrats saw a Trump television ad than Republicans did (49% to 44%), possibly pointing to poor targeting on the Trump campaign’s part. Targeting on Facebook was more precise for Donald Trump, reaching Republicans more often than Democrats.

Radio ads in support of the presumptive Republican nominee also seemed well placed, when compared to other media. Trump was able to reach 31% of Republican respondents on radio.

Independents were reached more effectively over all media by Clinton ads than Trump ads.

Going forward, each candidate will tweak their ad buys as data reveals how the general electorate is reacting to political ads on a wide variety of platforms.