How to Pinpoint and Reach the Right Voters for Your 2022 Political Ad Campaign

Digital channels are becoming a mainstream target of political advertising for this year’s midterm elections. But this strategic shift is only meaningful to campaigns if that strategy can be executed through meaningful engagement and cost-effective persuasion techniques that influence voters and increase turnout at the ballot box.

Therein lies the challenge for political campaigns: successful digital advertising is often a product of trial and error. But political advertising doesn’t have the luxury of patiently testing and optimizing ad campaign strategies. Political campaigns need fast results that stretch advertising dollars to maximize voter reach throughout the cycle.

To achieve those optimal results, campaigns need quick access to reliable voter data that can fuel targeted ads across multiple digital channels. Ad performance optimization also requires a fast, cost-effective approach to identifying less competitive ad inventories that help you reach a relative audience at the high volume needed to influence voter turnout and election results. Simply put, it’s maximizing engagement while reducing cost.

Read on to find out how Cox Media’s ad solutions and services can help your campaign achieve these lofty goals.

Harness the Precision of Addressable Advertising

Whether running a local, statewide or national campaign, political ad strategies are focused on specific geographic areas.

Geographic precision is crucial to running cost-effective digital campaigns. Cox Media’s digital advertising solutions offer a number of micro-targeting capabilities to narrow ad delivery to new or existing voters in specific regions. Cable TV ads can be delivered to specific Designated Market Areas (DMA) or ZIP codes, while geofencing can draw a border around your targeted voting region and deliver connected TV (CTV), display and other mobile advertisements to voters exclusively within these boundaries.

Addressable households, geofencing and other location-based targeting can be further enhanced through behavioral, contextual, demographic and other forms of audience targeting that is offered through Cox Media, helping these political campaigns better define target audiences within these geographical constraints, with tailored messaging to new or undecided voters, and likely supporters (located in these communities.

Enhance Political Data Through Simpli.fi List Integration

Quality voter data can have a measurable impact on the ROI of political ad campaigns. Platforms like Simpli.fi have become highly sought ad integrations because of the demonstrated quality of their first-party voter data.

According to Simpli.fi, the company’s voter address lists have a match rate of greater than 90 percent, well above the industry average range of 40 to 60 percent. Thanks to accurate voter data and the ability to quickly turnaround address list requests, Simpli.fi is now a trusted partner supporting Cox Media’s political ad campaigns.

At Cox Media, we integrate Simpli.fi’s voter address lists with our subscriber data and other forms of audience data. These expanded, proprietary data sets specific only to Cox Media are used to enhance addressable campaigns launched across digital video. Political campaigns are heavily reliant on the voter file, and access to first-party data that can supplement their own proprietary voter data. Strategic integration of precise, insightful datasets can lay the foundation for engaging campaigns that deliver your desired outcomes.

Leverage Long-Tail Networks for Cost-Efficient Advertising at Scale

A key difference between political campaigns and more traditional business campaigns is that, while businesses typically prioritize revenue generation and campaign ROI, political ad campaigns must quickly perform at scale if they’re expected to influence election outcomes.

Depending on a campaign’s political strategy, ad spends are also targeted to reach and influence swing voters. But new and swing voters represent more costly ad investments, due to competition over these same audiences and bidding on inventory.

To discover cost-effective ad inventories in this competitive climate, political campaigns should work with a digital advertising partner that can conduct broad testing of available ad inventories and identify long-tail ad spaces that reach a relevant audience in aggregate—but at a far lower cost than more mainstream, competitive opportunities.

Faced with the constraints of time and advertising budgets in an evolving digital world, political campaigns must pivot their political strategy by investing in precisely targeted ad campaigns that improve ad reach while lowering the per-voter cost of this reach. A digital advertising partner, such as Cox Media, is often an invaluable resource for political campaigns, combining access to proprietary data and solutions with extensive experience in maximizing ROI.

Check out our library of other political advertising resources and contact Cox Media today to see how we can help.