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The digital advertising landscape, particularly during election cycles, has long been a complex ecosystem where publishers often see a significant portion of potential revenue siphoned off by programmatic middlemen. This dynamic, which results in billions of dollars in lost ad revenue for publishers annually, is precisely what supply-side platform OpenX aims to disrupt with its newly launched curation and targeting solution. Developed in partnership with data provider Givsly, this innovative tool offers political campaigns a novel approach to reaching voters, moving beyond traditional party affiliation data to focus on shared values across premium connected television (CTV) and digital publisher inventory that permits political advertising.
The strategic alliance between OpenX and Givsly represents a significant development in the highly competitive and lucrative political advertising market. By leveraging Givsly’s extensive data, which is derived from over 500 non-profit organizations, the platform enables political advertisers to identify and engage with voters based on their core values and beliefs. This could include a wide spectrum of interests, such as support for women’s empowerment, environmental sustainability, or other social causes. This values-based approach offers a more nuanced and potentially effective way for campaigns to connect with their target audiences, especially in an era of increasing voter segmentation and a desire for more personalized messaging.
Launch partners for this new initiative include established media entities such as Newsweek, alongside prominent CTV platforms like Plex, Xumo, and Scripps. The inclusion of these diverse partners underscores the broad applicability and anticipated impact of the new solution across various digital channels. This collaborative effort signals a unified push towards a more direct and curated buying process, a trend that aligns with the escalating spending in the current high-stakes election cycle.
Record Political Ad Spend Fuels Demand for Precision Targeting
The timing of this launch is particularly salient, coinciding with projections of unprecedented political ad expenditure. Industry analytics firm AdImpact forecasts a staggering $10.8 billion in political ad spend for the current year, marking a substantial 20% increase from the 2022 midterm elections. This figure is remarkably close to the $11.1 billion spent during the 2024 presidential race, indicating a sustained and escalating investment in political advertising.
This massive influx of capital naturally intensifies the desire among publishers for greater control over pricing, brand safety, and the overall integrity of their ad inventory. Curated deals, such as the one pioneered by OpenX and Givsly, are seen as a critical mechanism to achieve these objectives. For political advertisers, these curated solutions offer the dual benefit of avoiding undesirable ad placements – thereby protecting their brand image and campaign messaging – and importantly, tapping into previously underserved or overlooked segments of potential swing voters.
Redefining Predictability in Political Programmatic Advertising
The introduction of curated deal structures is poised to bring much-needed predictability to a political programmatic advertising marketplace that has historically been characterized by its chaotic, "spray and pray" approach. Danielle Varvaro, Chief Revenue Officer at Newsweek, highlighted this critical shift, explaining that these curated deals help to reduce duplication within the supply chain and foster more stable pricing mechanisms.
"This initiative allows us to move away from simply chasing that short-term spike during election season and instead focus on building sustainable yield," Varvaro stated. She further emphasized that sell-side curation grants publishers enhanced agency in how they engage with the political ad market. "This means we can access incremental spend while rigorously upholding our governance, compliance, and brand integrity," she added.
The operational framework of the OpenX and Givsly solution is designed for sophisticated audience segmentation. Givsly aggregates data signals from hundreds of non-profit organizations to construct audiences centered around shared values. OpenX then employs its extensive identity graph to precisely match these Givsly-identified audiences across its network of publisher clients. These meticulously defined audience segments are then packaged into "deal IDs," which can be seamlessly activated through both direct and programmatic buying channels.
Amanda Forrester, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at OpenX, elaborated on the layered approach to targeting. "Givsly’s data serves as one enrichment layer," Forrester explained. "Buyers also have the capability to target specific geographic locations and ZIP codes, and to zero in on particular voting districts." She cautioned, however, that the over-reliance on combining values-based data with third-party audiences from other vendors could potentially constrain supply. Nonetheless, the integration of Givsly’s data empowers political campaigns to connect with voters whose values resonate with their candidate’s platform, even in the absence of direct party affiliation data. This is particularly advantageous for identifying and engaging new potential voters in ZIP codes where campaigns might already possess extensive party affiliation data, thereby fostering the activation of new voter blocs rather than merely reinforcing existing support bases.
Furthermore, the platform provides advertisers with localized reporting capabilities, offering granular insights into reach and frequency at the county, Designated Market Area (DMA), and ZIP code levels. This data allows for campaign optimization towards specific outcomes, such as driving traffic to campaign websites or voter registration pages.
The Imperative of Precision in Political Campaigns
This innovative solution is built upon two significant industry shifts that have empowered publishers to play a more active role in programmatic dealmaking. The first is the ascendance of sell-side curation over the past few years. This trend has been closely followed by the second: a growing emphasis on audience precision over sheer volume. Varvaro noted that political advertisers are no exception to this evolving landscape, expressing a comparable concern for driving measurable outcomes, a sentiment that has been evident in numerous negotiations for midterm ad buys conducted this year.
"Historically, political buying could be highly transactional, particularly within programmatic channels during peak seasons when buyers are aggressively competing for limited supply," Varvaro observed. However, she indicated a distinct shift in the current cycle, with political advertisers demonstrating a "much greater focus on curated access to that supply path, along with enhanced transparency and compliance."
For Newsweek, participation in OpenX’s curated political packages represents a strategic move to safeguard its supply chain during a period of heightened demand. It also serves to reinforce its positioning as a premium, centrist news publisher. While Newsweek has expressed openness to running political ads across its various digital properties, it has opted not to include political advertisements on CTV inventory managed by Adprime, its healthcare-focused demand-side platform acquired last June. This decision stems from the fact that Adprime’s inventory is not part of its partnership with OpenX.
Enabling Publisher Participation in the Political Arena
Despite the advancements, not all media companies are eager to embrace political advertising, citing ongoing polarization and legitimate brand safety concerns. Political buyers, in turn, maintain their own preferences regarding the publishers they choose to support. OpenX has proactively incorporated robust controls within its system to address these hesitations from both sides of the supply chain.
Through the OpenX Select curation platform, buyers are empowered to establish custom brand standards and develop "allow lists" of publishers. Forrester explained that because this curation is managed on the sell side, buyers can implement these lists across any demand-side platform without the need for reconfigurations for each individual platform.
On the publisher side, advertiser approval lists are provided to ensure that curated packages do not inadvertently cannibalize existing direct deals. Publishers also retain the ability to review ad creative to confirm alignment with their editorial values and can dictate the stringency of this review process. Some publishers opt to vet every political ad, while others prefer to whitelist trusted advertisers and bypass individual creative reviews.
OpenX emphasizes that participation in this program is entirely opt-in, and encouragingly, more than half of its publisher base has enabled political advertising. Even within this framework, participating publishers retain the discretion to block political ads from specific site subsections or domains. Consequently, political campaigns can only bid on inventory that has been explicitly approved by the publisher.
OpenX’s objective with these integrated controls is to encourage publishers who may have previously withdrawn from political advertising due to concerns about brand alignment, data governance, and privacy compliance to reconsider their stance. "If you can deliver a solution that has strong guardrails and protections, and that keeps content aligned with other quality publishers," Forrester articulated, "then people are more comfortable providing access." This approach aims to foster a more responsible and controlled environment for political advertising, benefiting both advertisers and publishers alike, and ultimately, aiming to redirect a significant portion of ad spend back to content creators.
Implications and Future Outlook
The launch of this sell-side curation tool by OpenX and Givsly signifies a potential paradigm shift in how political advertising is conducted online. By prioritizing values-based targeting and offering publishers greater control and transparency, the initiative addresses long-standing pain points in the digital ad ecosystem. The ability for campaigns to move beyond simplistic demographic or party affiliation data to connect with voters on a deeper, values-driven level could lead to more resonant and effective messaging.
For publishers, this development offers a pathway to re-engage with the lucrative political advertising market without compromising their brand integrity or brand safety. The promise of more stable pricing, reduced ad fraud, and a cleaner supply chain are significant incentives. As election cycles continue to be major revenue drivers for digital media, solutions that empower publishers to capture a larger share of this spend are crucial for their long-term sustainability.
The success of this initiative will likely depend on its widespread adoption by both publishers and political campaigns, as well as its ability to demonstrably deliver on its promises of increased efficiency and effectiveness. The increasing sophistication of targeting technologies, coupled with a growing demand for measurable outcomes, suggests that a more curated and values-driven approach to political advertising is not only timely but also represents the future direction of the industry. The substantial projected ad spend for upcoming election cycles underscores the immense financial stakes involved and the critical need for innovative solutions that benefit all stakeholders.
