Midterm Elections 2022: Political Ad Marketers Shift Away from Facebook, Fall Back to Broadcast TV

A number of political advertisers are reportedly spending less on Facebook for the 2022 midterm elections, despite political parties using the Meta-ran social network in previous elections.

Political Advertisers Snub Facebook

During the 2022 midterm elections, all 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats will be contested in a series of elections that will primarily take place on November 8. The outcome will determine the composition of the 118th United States Congress.

With historically high consumer prices, gas prices, and interest rates, these elections have higher stakes than ever. Groups are now taking the campaign to various online media to steer more voters to come out and vote.

A CNBC report tells us that the Democratic Governors Association aimed to take advantage of the app's widespread use and capacity to deliver hyper-targeted advertisements to potential voters by allocating roughly 75% of its advertising budget to Facebook for the 2020 elections. But spending has shifted away from Facebook just days before this year's Election Day.

Facebook was a favorite of political campaigns a decade ago because it could convert clicks into donations and email lists of likely voters. However, according to Bloomberg, a dozen executives from advertising agencies and digital strategists claim that the platform now only provides a small portion of the return it once did because of a stagnant user base and policy changes that have made it more difficult to target particular demographics of voters.

According to Laura Carlson of the Democratic Governors Association, Facebook has become a much less effective platform overall over the last two years.

Carlson added that Facebook is now a less effective tool for getting political messages across to the intended audience as a result of Apple's changes to iOS made last year, which restricted the targeting options for advertisers.

The other half of the Democratic Governors Association's $10 million budget is being directed toward things like conventional email and text campaigns as well as more recent platforms like connected TV and streaming services.

Also according to CNBC, even though many experts anticipated that it would increase over time, streaming platforms only represented a small portion of all political advertising spending two years ago. Since so many people turned to streaming services while stranded at home, and cord-cutting content increased, the pandemic accelerated that trend.

Broadcast and Cable TV Works

Kantar estimates that political ad spending will reach $7.8 billion this election season, with substantial growth across digital platforms. This year, the growth in broadcast and connected TV advertising is expected to be $3.8 billion and 1.2 billion, respectively.

Political advertisements can focus on specific voter segments based on geography, household demographics, and behavior thanks to broadcast and connected TV's superior targeting capabilities. Advertising can reach specific audiences in distinct markets without sacrificing scale, even though the fragmented connected TV landscape continues to be a very real challenge.

It will be interesting to see how this shake-up plays out with only a few days until Election Day.