Websites Lose Out on Election Advertisements

A number of websites are currently dealing with a pricing dispute, which means that even certain websites that support President Obama will now be blocking off advertisements from his election campaign due to the dispute, which is causing a lot of controversy and difficulty for a number of different political websites. The standoff that is taking place between the website is all due to a shift that took place with the political advertisements during this election season. There has been a whole lot of money put toward online advertisements. In fact, more money is being spent on line advertisements this year than ever before. Estimates show that at least $100 million has been spent on political advertisements online. Even so, a lot of this money is being put toward a number of advertising exchanges, including Google AdSense and Advertising.com, which is available through AOL.

With a lot of the money being put toward advertising exchanges, the direct buys, which are usually used as a source of revenue, especially when it comes to web publications, have simply been bypassed and overlooked. The reason that the ad exchanges have been used more frequently is because it allows the campaigns to target voters more efficiently. While this helps the campaigns target specific voters, these exchanges take a cut of the buy, which means the political websites receive much less than they normally would have. These political websites feel that such a trend is going to threaten the online publication ecosystem.

Ed Connors, the advertising director for Prospect.org, has said, “I can get 20 cents on the dollar anywhere. I don’t need Obama to get 20 cents on the dollar.” He also said, “We’re not going to put the Obama ads on the site on the cheap. If they want access to our niche audience, they’re going to have to pay full freight.” When asked for commentary, the Obama campaign chose not to comment. The fact of the matter is that the surge in spending for online advertisements has created an entirely new generation of consultants for the campaigns. These consultants have a better idea of how to use a number of tools to target specific voters while decreasing the amount of money that is spent on the websites.

In the meantime, some of the campaigns are still purchasing a few direct buys on websites that are all about politics and relate back to politic-oriented material. President Barack Obama has bought advertisements on several different websites, including The New Republic, Daily Kos, and the Nation.