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The digital advertising landscape, particularly during election cycles, has long presented a complex challenge for publishers. A significant portion of billions in digital ad dollars is often siphoned off by programmatic middlemen, leaving publishers with reduced revenue and less control over ad placements. However, a new initiative spearheaded by supply-side platform OpenX, in collaboration with data provider Givsly, aims to fundamentally alter this dynamic by introducing a sophisticated sell-side curation and targeting solution specifically designed for political campaigns. This innovative approach promises to empower publishers, enhance advertiser precision, and bring a new level of predictability to the often-chaotic political advertising marketplace.
Launched on a recent Monday, the joint venture between OpenX and Givsly moves beyond traditional methods of targeting voters based solely on party affiliation. Instead, the tool leverages Givsly’s unique data, which is derived from signals from over 500 non-profit organizations, to identify and reach voters based on their shared values and beliefs. This includes a wide spectrum of causes, such as environmental sustainability, women’s empowerment, or community development, allowing political advertisers to connect with potential constituents on a more nuanced and deeply resonant level. The solution is being rolled out across premium Connected TV (CTV) and digital publisher inventory that permits political advertising. Early launch partners for this initiative include prominent media entities like Newsweek and CTV platforms such as Plex, Xumo, and Scripps, signaling a strong industry endorsement and potential for broad adoption.
Navigating a High-Spending Election Cycle with Enhanced Precision
The introduction of this curated buying solution arrives at a critical juncture, coinciding with what is projected to be another record-breaking election cycle in terms of political ad spend. Industry projections from AdImpact paint a vivid picture of the financial stakes involved. For the current year, political ad expenditure is estimated to reach a staggering $10.8 billion, marking a substantial 20% increase compared to the 2022 midterm elections. While this figure falls just shy of the $11.1 billion spent during the 2024 presidential race, it underscores the immense financial commitment political campaigns are making to reach voters through digital channels.
This substantial influx of capital highlights a persistent concern for publishers: the desire for greater control over pricing, brand safety, and the integrity of their advertising inventory. Curated deals, as envisioned by OpenX and Givsly, offer a compelling solution. For political advertisers, these curated packages not only help them avoid undesirable ad placements that could inadvertently damage their campaign’s image but also enable them to identify and engage previously untapped segments of potential swing voters. This precision targeting is crucial in an era where campaign messaging needs to be finely tuned to resonate with specific demographics and psychographics.
Introducing Predictability to Political Programmatic Advertising
Danielle Varvaro, Chief Revenue Officer at Newsweek, emphasizes the transformative potential of curated deal structures in what has historically been a fragmented and often unpredictable programmatic political advertising marketplace. "Curated deal structures introduce predictability into what’s historically been a chaotic ‘spray and pray’ programmatic political advertising marketplace," Varvaro stated. She further elaborated on the benefits, noting that this approach "helps reduce duplication in the supply path and supports more stable pricing."
This enhanced predictability allows publishers to move away from a short-term, opportunistic approach to ad revenue during peak election seasons. Instead, they can focus on cultivating "sustainable yield" over the long term. Varvaro explained that sell-side curation grants publishers greater agency in how they engage with the political ad market. This allows them to "access the incremental spend while maintaining our governance, our compliance, and our brand integrity." This is a significant shift from previous models where publishers often had limited visibility and control over the programmatic ad streams flowing through their platforms.
The Mechanics of Values-Based Targeting
The operational framework of this new solution is designed for both sophistication and accessibility. Givsly’s proprietary data acts as a foundational layer, identifying audiences based on shared values, cultivated from their extensive network of non-profit partnerships. OpenX then leverages its robust identity graph to match these Givsly-identified audiences with users across its network of publisher clients. These precisely defined audience segments are then packaged into "deal IDs," which can be activated for both direct and programmatic media buys.
Amanda Forrester, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at OpenX, highlighted that Givsly’s data represents one significant enrichment layer for advertisers. Beyond values-based targeting, buyers can further refine their reach by layering in specific geographic parameters, including ZIP codes and even individual voting districts. Forrester cautioned, however, that overly restrictive targeting, such as combining values-based data with numerous third-party audience segments from other vendors, could potentially constrain the available ad inventory.
Despite this nuance, the integration of Givsly’s values-based data offers political campaigns a powerful new avenue to connect with voters whose personal principles align with a candidate’s platform, even in the absence of traditional party affiliation data. This capability is particularly valuable for identifying and engaging new potential voters in ZIP codes where a campaign might already have extensive data on party registration but lacks insight into underlying voter values. This strategic advantage can help campaigns activate new segments of the electorate rather than solely reinforcing their existing supporter base.
Furthermore, the solution provides advertisers with granular, localized reporting on reach and frequency at the county, Designated Market Area (DMA), and ZIP code levels. This detailed reporting enables campaigns to optimize their advertising efforts towards specific outcomes, such as driving traffic to campaign websites or encouraging voter registration.
The Imperative for Audience Precision
The development and launch of this new offering are underpinned by two significant industry shifts that have empowered publishers to take a more proactive role in programmatic dealmaking. The first is the ascendancy of "sell-side curation" over the past few years, a trend that has coincided with the second major shift: an escalating emphasis on "audience precision over volume."
Varvaro from Newsweek points out that political advertisers are not immune to this broader industry trend. They are increasingly focused on achieving measurable outcomes, a demand that has become evident in numerous negotiations for midterm ad buys. "Historically, political buying could be highly transactional, particularly within the programmatic channels during peak seasons, when buyers are competing aggressively for limited supply," Varvaro explained. However, she notes a clear divergence in the current cycle: "Political advertisers are much more focused on curated access to that supply path, and also transparency and compliance."
For Newsweek, its participation in OpenX’s curated political packages serves a dual purpose. It acts as a safeguard for its supply chain during a period of intense demand, while simultaneously reinforcing its brand positioning as a premium, centrist news publisher. While Newsweek is amenable to running political ads across its digital properties, it has made a strategic decision to exclude its CTV inventory, particularly that which is sold through Adprime—a healthcare-focused Demand-Side Platform (DSP) acquired by Newsweek last June—from this particular partnership. This exclusion is due to Adprime’s supply not being integrated into the OpenX partnership.
Re-Engaging Publishers in the Political Advertising Arena
Despite the advancements in targeting and curation, not all media companies are uniformly enthusiastic about accepting political advertising. The prevailing climate of polarization and ongoing concerns about brand safety continue to be significant deterrents for some. Concurrently, political buyers often have their own preferences and criteria for the publishers they choose to support. OpenX has proactively addressed these hesitations on both sides of the supply chain by embedding robust controls within its system.
Through the OpenX Select curation platform, buyers are granted the ability to establish custom brand standards and create explicit "allow lists" of publishers. A key advantage of this sell-side curation model is that buyers can activate these pre-defined lists across any DSP without the need for repeated reconfiguration for each individual platform.
On the publisher side, controls are equally robust. Publishers receive advertiser approval lists, ensuring that the curated packages do not inadvertently compete with or devalue existing direct deals. They also retain the right to review ad creative to verify its alignment with their editorial values and brand guidelines. Furthermore, publishers can dictate the stringency of this creative review process, ranging from a comprehensive vetting of every political ad to a more streamlined approach of whitelisting trusted advertisers and bypassing individual reviews.
OpenX emphasizes that participation in political advertising through its platform is entirely opt-in. Currently, more than half of its publisher partners have enabled political advertising. Even for those participating, there remains flexibility to block political ads from appearing on specific site subsections or domains, allowing for granular control over content placement. Political campaigns, in turn, can only bid on inventory that has been explicitly approved by the publisher, ensuring a transparent and controlled environment.
The ultimate goal of these comprehensive controls, as articulated by Forrester, is to encourage publishers who have previously withdrawn from political advertising due to concerns about brand alignment, data governance, and privacy compliance to reconsider their positions. "If you can deliver a solution that has strong guardrails and protections, and that keeps content aligned with other quality publishers," Forrester stated, "then people are more comfortable providing access." This approach aims to rebuild trust and foster a more collaborative and controlled ecosystem for political advertising in the digital realm.
The implications of this initiative extend beyond mere revenue generation for publishers. By offering more precise targeting and greater control, OpenX and Givsly are facilitating a more sophisticated and values-driven approach to political advertising. This could lead to more effective campaigns for advertisers and a more transparent, brand-safe environment for publishers, ultimately benefiting the broader digital advertising ecosystem. As election cycles continue to escalate in digital spending, solutions like these are poised to play a pivotal role in shaping how political messages reach voters in the years to come.
