Last week, we dove into the spend, reach, and frequency distribution in the OH Senate race during the first two weeks of August. If you didn’t catch last week, I recommend starting there.
In all political ad campaigns, there are two key components:
Reach - How many voters did you reach and how efficiently did you reach them?
Cost - What did it cost to deliver the message to a voter who will help decide the election?
All the way back in Impressions to Ballots #8, we defined an effective cost per 1,000 views (eCPM) as the common metric to compare costs across mediums.
Simply put, we remove impressions not viewed by a human and any impressions served outside our audience.
This week, we’ll look at the estimated eCPMs in Ohio.
What was the eCPM on Broadcast?
Roughly 90% of the $28M spent over these two weeks went to broadcast, digital, and streaming channels.
We’ll focus on Broadcast first.
Our partner, Battleground Data, predicts that 5.7M individuals, or 53% of OH's adult population, have more than a 50% chance of voting in this upcoming midterm. We measured only the broadcast impressions delivered to those likely voters.
Broadcast is purchased at the market level, and markets do not always fall evenly into state boundaries. We also removed all impressions served outside the state.
Republicans maintained a 12% lower eCPM than the Democrats on a similar amount of ad spend.
What was the eCPM by advertiser?
As we showed last week, the largest spenders were the Brown and Husted campaigns, along with one outside group on each side. Each advertiser had a different eCPM.
In both categories, the Republicans won on eCPM. One Nation was 61% lower than Duty and Honor. Similarly, Husted was 45% lower than Brown.
What drove the difference?
Lowest Unit Rate
Campaigns buy television advertising at a federally regulated rate. Those regulations do not apply to outside groups, so campaigns will almost always pay less than PACs for the same inventory.
This is why we’ve recommended that campaigns concentrate more of their spending on TV, while PACs focus on digital and streaming, where both sides buy at parity.
Note: Last week, a federal court ruled that coordinated committee-campaign buys are not subject to the lowest unit rate. If the ruling stands, it will reduce the Republican spending advantage.
How were the ads bought?
Republicans bought ad spots at a lower rate than their Democratic counterparts. Multiple factors lead to a lower cost per spot in aggregate: market weighting, daypart mix, program selection, early reservations, preemption allowances, etc.
What about Digital/Streaming?
Digital and streaming are not subject to the lowest unit rate, but most inventory can be targeted at the individual or household level. This greatly increases the efficiency of the buys.
YouTube is the exception. First-party targeting is not allowed, but geographic and demographic targeting remain available.
Here is a sample of what an apples-to-apples comparison looks like across media after accounting for off-target delivery and viewability rates on digital and streaming.
What does this mean for political advertisers?
Not all media are equal. Compare channels based on how many voters they reach and what it costs to reach them.
Lowest unit rate matters. Campaigns should take advantage of lower TV rates. Outside groups should measure campaign TV reach and use digital to fill the gaps.
Buy what your voters watch. Program-level data can help you find lower-cost TV inventory that still reaches the right voters.