Tight Digital Political Ad Inventory Now a Selling Point

Look at the ad to the right — it appeared on Epolitics.com this morning. The message ain’t subtle: political online ad space is drying up, so you’d better go with a company that’s got battleground inventory already in the bank. The banner links through to a “contact us” page with the following text:

Contact CampaignGrid for Guaranteed Pre-Election Online Video and Display Inventory Across the US, Including Battleground States.

Online video and display inventory is running out. Rates will skyrocket. If you wait, your voters will be online but your ads won’t.

Note that this ad comes hot on the heels of a Politico story confirming the earlier Epolitics.com predictions of tight inventory, and also note that CampaignGrid isn’t the only vendor making the same pitch. DSPolitical tweeted the other day, “@DSPolitical has over $10 Million in online video reserved for the Fall, b/c we saw this train coming. #timetobuy,” for instance.

A caveat! I’m also hearing from online advertising folks that battleground-state BANNER inventory is still available and should be through the fall — it’s pre-roll video (the online ad form most-similar to traditional TV advertising) that’s running out. I also haven’t heard about problems buying Google or Facebook advertising — yet.

But with hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into the campaigns and “independent” groups, TV space is scarce, and the money has to go somewhere. Perhaps in this process, traditional political consultants will suddenly realize that this internet thingie might actually have some promise as a persuasive tool….

 

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Written by
Colin Delany
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