CA120: The digital transition

As the California Governor’s race enters the last several months, those millions of dollars that have been raised by candidates are starting to get spent – and in a state like California, that usually means ads on broadcast television – lots of it!

Increasingly, these ads are moving to digital – reaching those who have “pulled the plug” on traditional TV, are watching YouTube or other streaming services, or going to the web to get their political information.

To analyze this, I’ve created a new website that collects digital ads, broadcast television and radio ad buys.

On the digital side, you can watch the ads, see how much was spent to promote them, what geography was served and what age/gender groups were targeted.  This is only the digital within the YouTube, Google, Snapchat and Meta ecosystems that allow the spending to be tracked.  There is more digital outside of these which is not publicly available, but this segment does tell us a lot.

In the Broadcast TV and Radio sections you don’t see the ads themselves, but you can see all the complete buys, including what stations, dates, amounts spent, and even what TV programs and times were bought (for example, how much was being spent on the now-cancelled season opener of the Bachelorette.)

This tool will run through the cycle and allow us to see how campaigns are targeting their finite resources in order to break out in this torturously close gubernatorial election.  It will also work to track ads for other offices, statewide and legislative/congressional races where we can obtain the data.

And the discussion around spending on digital versus broadcast can be contentious.  According to one of the gubernatorial candidates who messaged me recently, “Broadcast TV is Dead.”

I can’t say who that was, but you could guess that it wasn’t Tom Steyer, who, according to the tool, has spent nearly $45 Million on broadcast TV alone, with another $700,000 on digital platforms that have transparency around political spending.

This Steyer strategy has attracted a lot of attention.  So far, he has already spent more on his campaign than the entire spending of the 2022 gubernatorial election, both primary and general, and spending by both parties.

According to polling by Capitol Weekly, it has paid off in one regard: voters have seen these ads. Based on a survey of 1,000 likely voters, 74% have seen a Tom Steyer ad.  In terms of creating saturation, his strategy seems to be working.

1. Some candidates have already begun communicating with voters using traditional ads on television, or digital ads on social media, YouTube and other streaming platforms. Which of the following candidates have you already seen ads from? (Select all that you have seen)

Not all campaigns can afford do a “flood the zone” strategy like Steyer can.

When money isn’t an issue, you can justify this despite the inefficiency of reaching far beyond your specific target of voters.  As an example, nearly as many Republicans as Democrats have seen his ads.  Compare that with Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, two candidates that have reached between 36-38% of Republican voters with their ads, and only 8% of Democrats.  They are clearly doing something different.

When you buy broadcast, you are spending for all eyeballs, not only all 40 million Californians, but also the roughly 1.5 million out-of-state tourists in the state on any given day who see that ad at a hotel in Disneyland or at a trade conference in downtown LA.  And even among the 23 million registered voters, this spending is hitting the 12 million likely voters just as much as the 11 million unlikely voters.

For a Democratic campaign, the ceiling on who they should be reaching is the 60% of those likely voters who are expected to vote for one of the Democrats, which comes in at just under 7 million. Arguably, the winning number for any of the Democratic candidates is just 20%, so around 2 million voters, which comes down to just 5% of the state population.

Purchasing broadcast TV is like buying a billboard, and that makes sense for Nike, as everyone buys shoes, but it’s likely not the best primary expenditure for a political campaign focused on just 5% of the population.

So far, he has already spent more on his campaign than the entire spending of the 2022 gubernatorial election, both primary and general, and spending by both parties.

The real value opportunity for campaigns is what is called “programmatic” advertising.  This is the digital ad or video placement that is directed to specific voters, based on cookies, their IP address, or some other means of directing the ad explicitly to the targeted voter.

This can include things like Facebook ads, which still allow a digital vendor to upload voter lists into the Facebook Ads platform.  Or ads that are done to voter files that are onboarded to a digital marketplace, where vendors can bid on placing ads before their targeted voters.

The great thing about direct voter file targeting is not only is every ad going to a likely voter, but you can more easily tailor messages to specific voters.  Unlike a Super Bowl ad that everyone sees the same thing – thus the message is more milquetoast – a digital ad can be cut so the renter gets one on rent control or investing in first-time home buyers and affordable housing, while the homeowner is directed one on the need to reform the insurance market or protect their home from fires.  A Democrat modeled to be an environmentalist can get that coveted Environmental Voters endorsement, while one modeled to be a Union member can get that Labor Federation endorsement.

The cost proposition for digital versus broadcast is also important to any campaign that has to worry about a budget.  For a digital campaign, you could be paying $20-60 per thousand impressions, while a Broadcast TV buy, when you break it down to how many targeted voters are seeing your ad, could cost $350 or more per thousand views.

Is it ever worthwhile to advertise in a lower targeted way?  The answer is probably yes.  For some voters you aren’t going to get them with a programmatic digital buy because they’re not easily reached by cookies, so going into YouTube and buying ads that are targeted to zip code and age/gender groups may be needed to capture more voters, and even purchases of some Broadcast TV may be necessary to ensure the campaign is front and center, and seen on the biggest stage.  But should that be the first or second or even third priority?  Probably not.

For the rest of the campaign we can track these buys on the CA120 website and please let me know if there are any other features you want to see.  Creating transparency around this part of the campaign cycle is really overdue, and it could help all campaigns make better spending decisions.