As we start to ease into fall, the 2020 presidential election is rapidly approaching. The pressure is on for political advertisers to find last minute ways to get candidates’ messages in front of the right voters. And while there’s no silver bullet to accomplish this, we do know the next best thing: OTT/CTV advertising.

Consumers Streaming Media at Home is Still Pivotal

As we discussed in a previous post, the COVID-19 pandemic has positioned OTT/CTV advertising as the most effective way to reach homebound consumers with ads. Over the past several months we’ve seen the amount of time consumers spend viewing streaming media skyrocket. Nielsen predicted in March that COVID-19 could lead to a 60% increase in the amount of video content watched in the U.S.

And even now, with economic reopening efforts progressing (albeit in stops and starts), continued surges in COVID-19 around the country suggest that time spent at home will not be significantly decreasing in the near future. This means that in the time leading up to the election, OTT/CTV advertising will continue to be the best way to reach voters where they continue to be found—at home, viewing media on various OTT/CTV devices.

Not only that, we can expect to see COVID-19 drive significantly higher numbers of absentee ballots and early voting. This means advertisers will need to be able to reach voters now in their households, as well as try to reach voters that may be absentee. The flexibility and precision of OTT/CTV advertising make it a perfect targeting tactic for this election.

Tell Your Candidate’s Story with the Precision of Digital

In April, our CEO Frost Prioleau wrote an article discussing the role OTT/CTV would play in the 2020 election. He described how, traditionally, political advertisers have used linear TV to get storytelling-type ads in front of voters. However, this meant advertisers were saddled with linear TV’s significant limitations when it comes to audience targeting. Using the viewer demographics of specific shows was the standard method for reaching a desired audience.

OTT/CTV advertising changed the whole dynamic. With OTT/CTV, we can combine the emotional impact of linear with the precision audience targeting capabilities of digital.

This means that political advertisers can use addressable household-level targeting to reach voters household by household—serving political ads to the ones you want, and not wasting impressions on the ones you don’t.

OTT/CTV Advertising with Simpli.fi: Political Advertising’s Secret Weapon

By tapping into our unparalleled household-level targeting, political advertisers can curate their ideal audience based on over 500+ location and demographic variables that fit their ideal target market of voters and serve them OTT/CTV ads on the big screen in the living room and/or across other small screen devices within the household. Using Simpli.fi’s Addressable Audience Curation tool, political marketers can target voters in real-time using parameters such as political party affiliation, political donor contributions, and more.

What’s more, our team of experts have custom-curated industry-specific packages for buyers that already know which audience are important. With Simpli.fi’s News: National and Local Inventory Package, political advertisers can easily target those consuming streaming content on Fox News, CNN, NBC News, CNBC, Bloomberg, ABC News, Fox Business, Newsy, BBC, USA Today, and more.

Simpli.fi’s advertisers have access to our massive reach and can successfully reach 90% of all AVOD homes in the U.S., allowing you to build and execute campaigns using a single source for any market. Already have some linear buys running? Never fear. With the election quickly approaching, you can still reach those voters through linear TV buys as you normally would, and then achieve incremental reach with Simpli.fi’s OTT/CTV solution for homes you haven’t touched.

Our advertisers also get the ability to target each household with ease via all 210 designated TV markets across the U.S. regardless of the local MVPD. Simpli.fi’s OTT/CTV targeting has the reach and execution that you need to successfully drive voters to the polls during these last few weeks leading up the Election Day.

Additionally, since we can target voters all the way down to the household-level, gone are the concerns of in-market delivery. With Simpli.fi, we serve 100% in-market guaranteed. What’s not to love about that?

Attributing ROI Matters

With Simpli.fi’s OTT/CTV solution, not only can we get you in front of your ideal voters, we can also provide advanced metrics that would be unheard with Linear TV ads, such as:
 
CTV Device-Level Delivery and Performance Reporting: This lets advertisers target and report on the specific CTV device consumers are accessing, providing actionable data and insights on web enabled content consumption access points.

Combine your programmatic and social campaigns through Simpli.fi’s Real-Time Foot Traffic Attribution and Lift Reporting for Any Size Campaign: This type of reporting can be deployed on all campaigns, including OTT/CTV. Track polling location conversions to truly measure the success of your political advertising efforts.

Addressable Campaign Conversion Reporting at Zip+4 Level: With this reporting, political advertisers get actionable data and insights on campaign performance as granular as one side of a street or specific floors in multi-floor buildings.
 

This is the most potent advertising weapon available for the upcoming election. To begin using it, reach out to us at hi@simpli.fi.