Political Ads Miss As Much As 40% Of Voters Due To Traditional Buying Strategies

Amidst the growth of connected TV and digital media platforms, traditional, linear TV-focused political advertising continues to underdeliver large segments of voters, according to a survey conducted by MiQ, a programmatic media company.

In a survey of “hundreds” of political advertisers, MiQ said, “both Republican and Democratic advertisers missed between 25% and 40% of potential voters through their existing strategies, more than enough of a gap to make a huge difference in races with little to no margin for error.”

The company says 20% of TV households consume more than 70% of political advertising -- when analyzing election results of linear TV-centric political advertising campaigns from 2020 and 2021 senatorial, gubernatorial and congressional races.

Political advertising costs are also rising.

“Not only do TV buys begin to reach a point of diminishing returns more quickly than in the past, but campaigns that dial up on GRPs [gross rating points] in search of incremental reach points end up wreaking havoc on their overall costs.”

In an analysis of incremental reach over a three-month period -- August to November 2021 in three key markets -- MiQ says says campaign cost from the first to the third month to reach new households 10 to 12 times higher.

MiQ also points to linear TV viewers disparity versus connected TV viewers -- that close to 75% of linear TV viewers in the U.S. are above the age of 50, while 18- to-34-year-old viewers account for just 9.8% of overall linear viewership. At the same time the latter accounts for 54% of the connected TV (CTV) audience.

MiQ's methodology comes from analysis of 16 million American households using the company’s TV integrations, which consists of AdImpact’s political advertising library and data partnerships with the leading smart TV manufacturers.

 

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1 comment about "Political Ads Miss As Much As 40% Of Voters Due To Traditional Buying Strategies".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, June 7, 2022 at 12:17 p.m.

    Wayne, there are a lot of strange numbers cited in this report, which is based, I assume, on data from an ACR panel. For example, 20% of the adult population accounts for about 50-55% of all TV viewing---per sources like Nielsen, MRI/Simmons, etc. yet this source claims that 20% of "the homes"--ACR set homes?--- accounts for more than 70% of political ad exposures. Pretty hard to believe. Later in the piece they claim that only 9.8% of the average minute---I assume---"linear TV" audience consists of 18-34s---which appears to be based on Nielsen viewer data as ACR panels have no way to determine who is watching. In fact, Nielsen has recently reported about the same percentage, however, it was also stated  that 18-34s represent 54% of the connected CTV audience. Yet when Nielsen has broken out its findings by individual  streaming services----including Netflix, HULU, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Roku, Tubi and YouTube, the highest percentage for 18-34 audience comp was 33% for HULU and Netflix fell about 7 points lower while some dropped as low as 13%.So what services are corraling those 18-34s---or is this information coming from the ACR panel which might be accepting set usage as representing millennial "viewing". 

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