Political season is upon us and it’s the year of the presidential election. Digital ad spending this political cycle will reach $2.46 billion, making up 28.1% of the total political spending in the 2024 cycle versus 14.1% in the 2020 cycle.
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With 17.5% of the digital ad spending filtering toward social media, Facebook (Meta) will soon be flooded with political ads. Political advertisers have expansive budgets and can pay top dollar to secure prime ad space on platforms, causing advertising costs to rise for all businesses, making it more competitive for businesses with smaller ad budgets to secure platform space.
However, there are methods to save money, continue to have paid ads running on Facebook and see a return on investment during the political storm.
Schedule posts in advance
The approval process of launching an ad campaign on the platform will take up to 72 hours, so scheduling at least one to two weeks ahead of time is ideal compared to the non-political season. Even if the business has been running campaign ads for months, your ads will decrease in delivery or results due to the increased cost of advertising.
Scheduling posts in advance also helps maintain a consistent and cohesive brand voice that can better engage and build trust with the audience.
No lead generating form ads
Take a step away from running lead generating form ads as the cost will skyrocket during political season. The business should run cheaper campaigns on Facebook that are based around engagement, brand awareness or a video due to the type of user the platform tends to target. Putting money toward this will help gather the reach needed to find types of users to go after while running campaigns.
Utilize video campaigning
Video ad campaigning is a business’ best friend during the influx of ad costs. The key is to build a video about the psychology of the specific audience its targeting using extreme emotions. The video will gather as many views as possible and, in turn, the business will be able to build out a custom audience based off the data received from users watching the video campaign.
With consistent engagement and user data from the video, businesses can put themselves in the driver seat of selecting their audience instead of being reliant on what Facebook populates as audience off the campaign.
These tips can be utilized for more than just political season as Facebook has extreme ad influxes during major holidays and events such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Fourth of July, Halloween and Black Friday.
Overall, the increase in digital ad spending by political campaigns can have a significant impact on the overall advertising landscape, making it more challenging for businesses to compete and succeed in the digital advertising space. It is important for businesses to carefully consider their advertising strategies and allocate their budgets effectively to maximize their ROI in
this competitive environment.
Author: Andre Stacy is the COO of Fanntastic Media, a full-service digital marketing agency in the heart of Phoenix, specializing in organic and paid media services.
