Every major election cycle in the U.S. brings with it a volcanic eruption of media. With the presidential primaries popping off all around us, you don’t need to be reminded of the sheer urgency with which campaigns have been pushing out their messages. But just so you know, political advertising is going to get even crazier very soon, as heated campaigns on the state and local level jump into the fray.
All of this media attention, and the volume of campaign messaging coming through ad channels, makes the political programmatic advertising space a really interesting one to watch right now. To get a fuller sense of the nuances of political programmatic, and both the complexities and the benefits of playing in that space, I reached out to Eli Kaplan. As a Founding Partner of digital ad agency Rising Tide Interactive, Kaplan works closely with political campaigns, nonprofits and advocacy groups. He’s also the Chief Strategist for programmatic buying shop DSPolitical, which he described as a “sister company” to Rising Tide and a “joint venture” with data firm Catalyst. At OPS on June 7 in New York City, Kaplan will be talking about ad tech’s very compelling role in the 2016 election, but in the interim, AdMonsters wanted to take a minute to ask what Rising Tide and other political programmatic players have been working on and why it matters.