Programmatic Becomes The Dominant Source Of Digital Political Media Buys

"In what appears to be a political media-buying first, the majority of digital buys made during the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections were bought programmatically. The finding, which comes from an analysis of buys made via Centro's Basis system, is anecdotal, but likely is indicative of underlying shifts taking place among political media-buying specialists and their campaign teams. Basis is a SaaS-based platform enabling agencies, clients and media specialists to buy digital media either direct of programmatically. Some users use it as a self-serve interface, while others use it as a managed service operated by Centro's experts, but the net of all the political media buys is that 60% were purchased programmatically, while only 16% were "direct" buys negotiated with publishers. Twenty-three percent were social and 1% search."

Read more in MediaPost.