This article is part of our Confessions series, where we trade anonymity for candor to take a candid look at the people, processes, and issues within the industry. More from the series →
With the 2024 presidential election in full swing, ad buyers will have to contend with more political ad dollars coming into the market. The flow of political ad dollars isn’t the only problem for ad sellers and buyers.
With the rise of political advertising, one performance marketing ad buyer believes platforms are becoming more sensitive and potentially scrutinizing ads on the platform more stringently.
With this perspective, a year has come in which some platforms have detailed further safety measures put in place TO manage the upcoming elections specifying content moderation and guidelines on what is and is not allowed for political advertisers.
That’s led to more ad rejections, according to the buyer, who spoke with Digiday for our latest Confessions series, in which we replace anonymity with candor, to learn about rejections and how to prepare election advertising for clients.
For clarity, this conversation has been edited and condensed.
Are you having some issues with ad rejections on platforms? Tell us what’s going on.
We’re seeing more rejections on ads. Meta is becoming much more sensitive. Obviously they have their policies and we believe we’re within the bounds of the policies (but we’re seeing more rejections). They definitely seem to be taking a much harder stance on anything that I would consider a little more sensitive. We’re seeing it in a number of brands that have sensitive products. So the categories where that, we’re seeing an increase in rejections has been like anything weight loss oriented, sustainability oriented. We have a customer (whose product) is actually helping people stop (doing something) but their system thinks that’s (a problem). So things that are a little more sensitive, we’re just seeing an increase in rejections.
How long has this been going on? What happens when there is a refusal?
There’s definitely been an increase in the last month, month and a half. So that’s the biggest thing. We’ve actually had some accounts suspended. (What we’ve seen is) they’ve rejected some ads that have been running for quite some time. Then, the next thing we know, the entire account has been rejected or suspended. Getting an account suspended is actually a pretty painful process. So that’s been a little bit difficult.
Do you have any ideas why this might be happening?
(It’s speculation, but) I know that things like sustainability can be perceived as a political topic. We’ve seen that in previous years, especially during election season. It gets scrutinized a little more and then, like in the post-election, it gets a little easier again. It seems like as we get closer to the election, anything that could be something more sensitive, just has the system seeming to be more severe.
As you deal with waste, what impact does it have on your customers? Are you shifting your ad spend elsewhere?
Yeah, we basically shift ad spend to other channels. And then, unfortunately, it’s a painful process to reset or repair (the ad accounts) (on Meta). It’s unpredictable and how long it takes. So, as a result, we tend to hedge our bets and put the dollars into other platforms while we get through the tough times. Sometimes it shifts more to (paid search on) Google. Sometimes it shifts more to, it shifts more to TikTok. It’s an account-by-account evaluation.
Are there any other changes you’re making for clients to help them navigate the political advertising landscape that’s becoming increasingly prominent on platforms as we get closer to the election?
We have been providing guidance to our clients to make some changes in media buying. We believe there will be a decline in performance as we get closer to the election dates. So we are shifting media dollars a little bit to help us prepare. We are basically (planning to shift them to) late October, early November, easing (ad spend) a little bit and then ramping it up again in November. We are basically going to hedge (our bets) a little bit on dollars in the last week of October, the first week of November and then the first few days after the election.
It seems like a normal course of business for an election. Is there anything different this year?
The only thing that makes us a little bit different this year is that Black Friday is a lot later (it’s November 29th this year, Cyber Monday is December 2nd). So we have the opportunity to do a little bit of fluctuation versus, like, last year we started scaling very early for Black Friday, Cyber Monday. So I would say that’s the big difference from previous years. It’s a very strange holiday season from that perspective. And then Hanukkah is actually after Christmas this year. So that’s changed our buying pattern a little bit. What we’ve done is we’ve advised customers to start scaling basically after the election versus starting (in early) November. That way you can have a little bit of leeway and it’s a little bit different than what we’ve done in previous years.