• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, September 29, 2020

Independent TV voters are the most expensive ones to reach, while Republicans appear to be the most cost-effective voters to target via local TV advertising, according to a MediaPost analysis of data contained in a new report being released today by Nielsen and Advertising Analytics.

The report, "Stretching Political Dollars," was jointly produced by Nielsen and Advertising Analytics, and is based on public data compiled for political advertising buys made on local broadcast stations in four markets -- Minneapolis, Orlando, Phoenix and Tampa -- from October 2018, but the researchers say it is representative of the relative costs of political ad buys on local TV stations.

While the report includes average CPMs for Democrats, Independent voters and "high-frequency" voters, it only included average CPMs for the top 10 shows for Republicans in those local TV markets, so it's not exactly apples-to-apples. But assuming it is directionally accurate, it reveals that Republican voters are a relative bargain to target via local TV ad buys, even more so than so-called high-frequency voters, which the report doesn't actually define the composition of.

Conversely, the data reveals that Independents -- a voting segment most likely to include "swing" voters -- are the most expensive to target, followed by Democrats.

"A primary conclusion of this analysis is how efficient broadcast television advertising remains, even as digital platform media buying increases," is the main point, the report states, noting, "local broadcast continues to offers unique opportunities to achieve high reach at low cost. For example, a digital publisher with the same advertising parameters yielded a typical digital CPM of $32. There are plenty of TV programs that also offer CPMs at or below $32. So it is still true that TV offers many very efficient options, not only when comparing within the media but also when comparing to major digital platforms."