Political Ads

As we move into the heart of the 2024 election cycle, more people will be dedicating time and resources to creating digital political advertising plans. The Campaign Workshop has been actively involved in digital political ads for over a decade, and each year we have seen a growing emphasis on the importance and effectiveness of digital advertising within political campaigns. 
Why spend money on digital political advertising now?

Choosing the right political advertising for your political campaign can make the difference between winning and losing. Which political advertising medium a campaign chooses depends largely on their strategic objectives, targets, and, of course, budget.

Twitter announced that they will stop allowing political ads to run on its platform which has the potential to have further implications across the industry. Will other companies follow suit? Facebook has received a lot of flak lately from both the public and the government centered around political ads.

Deno Seder is an expert in political advertising and crafting advocacy and political videos. He has worked with candidates across all levels of government, for various advocacy groups, and on ballot measure campaigns. From creating video ads urging voters not to cast a ballot for Donald Trump to aiding in the effort to ban Greyhound dog racing in Florida, Deno has a wide array of experiences in the political space.

If you’re running political ads for your independent expenditure campaign, you already have to make extra sure that everything you’re doing and saying is legal. All of your content will likely need to be reviewed by lawyers, especially if it could be controversial. But one area that’s relatively new to this kind of review is making sure your digital ad accounts and/or pages have been verified to run political ads in the US.

Digital political ad transparency has been an elusive thing. In a world of fake news, hacked sites and independent expenditures from groups you have never heard of, actionable information on digital spending is important. For years, you have been able to find out what opponents are spending on television and radio. Now, digital publishers a re starting to focus on  digital ad transparency. They are making it easier to see what folks are doing with paid digital political ads.

Here at The Campaign Workshop, we always stress the value of storytelling with strong visuals in political and advocacy advertising. In other words, using photos or footage of authentic people looking straight into a camera and speaking candidly about things they’ve experienced, makes communications materials more compelling. There’s far more potential to persuade folks through testimonials than there is through wonky policy white papers – the question is, why?

Political campaigns have a number of options when it comes to political advertising. Which political advertising medium a campaign chooses depends largely on their strategic objectives, targets, and, of course, budget. Below is a very general overview of the most common modern candidate campaign communication mediums and their pros and cons.

Last week we released our first ebook: Political Direct Mail In The Digital Age. The book explains why with all the technology we have, political direct mail in the digital age is still relevant. We explain how you should decide on direct mail and targeted communications strategies for political and advocacy campaigns. We also discuss the cost of direct mail, micro-targeting strategies and how to use direct mail for GOTV.