2020 Political Ad Spend Could Hit $10 Billion, Digital Share Expected To Double

A new political advertising forecast estimates that $10 billion will be spent in the U.S. for the upcoming 2020 election season -- with digital media expected to pull in a near 30% share, double its take for the 2016 presidential election-year.

Digital media is expected to total $2.9 billion, according to the recently launched Tru Optik Political Data Cloud service. Tru Optik is an audience research/data-management platform (DMP) for OTT (over the top)/CTV (connected TV) platforms.

Tru Optik estimates the biggest piece of 2020 political advertising revenue will remain with linear TV advertising -- estimated to be $4.4 billion. Another $1.9 billion will split across analog radio, traditional print, telemarketing, out-of-home and direct mail.

Tru Optik says OTT /CTV platforms will see $500 million to $720 million, with $70 million to $90 million for streaming audio. The Tru Optik  platform helps political advertisers use both OTT and streaming audio to target specific voter groups.

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Political ad revenues for 2020 are expected to top the midterms of 2018 and the presidential election of 2016.

Borrell Associates said $9.8 billion was spent on the 2016 presidential election (up 4.6% from the 2012 presidential election) -- with $4.4 billion for  broadcast TV, $1.4 billion for digital; $1.35 billion for cable TV, $621 million for radio, and $301 million for direct mail.

Kantar Media/Campaign Media Analysis Group said that for the 2016 presidential election, local broadcast political ad revenue was $2.85 billion, with local cable at $850 million. Kantar says national TV buys that year totaled $122 million. That’s a total for linear TV of $3.8 billion.

Digital media -- mostly from Facebook and Google -- was $650 million in 2016 and $950 million for the midterm elections in 2018, Kantar says.

For the 2018 elections, Kantar said $5.25 billion was spent on advertising in local broadcast, local cable and digital -- 17% higher than in 2016.

1 comment about "2020 Political Ad Spend Could Hit $10 Billion, Digital Share Expected To Double".
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  1. Leo Kivijarv from PQ Media, June 19, 2019 at 12:49 p.m.

    PQ Media, which has published political media buying data since 2004, has a preliminary estimate for political media buying to reach $8.33 billion in 2020, as discussed last week on a Radio Advertising Bureau blog. 

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