PUBLISHERSPLAYBOOKUNLOCK THE FULL REVENUE POTENTIAL
OF POLITICAL ADVERTISINGINTRODUCTION
Are you ready to capitalize on the vast revenue potentialof political advertising?
Poised to become the fastest growing sector in advertising, political ad spending is expected to reach $12Bn+in the US 2024 presidential elections, as per the 2024 eMarketer Political Ad Spending Report. As a publisher,
maximizing revenue streams requires more than strategic foresight—it demands actionable insights that canbe immediately implemented. That is why we have created a consultative playbook specifically designed to help
publishers optimize monetization strategies throughout the campaign season with ten best practices:

KEY THEMES & BEST PRACTICES
1. DEFINE YOUR AD POLICIES & GUIDELINES
Establish clear guidelines on acceptable ad content to maintainbrand integrity and preserve your desired user experience. By having
a clear stance on what you will allow on your platform, you can workwith your demand partners to align with your policies and help
prevent, identify, and manage violations. This is critical to ensure youtap into this revenue stream and still have confidence in what yourvisitors see. For instance, leading news and media platforms havestrict policies against running misleading or inflammatory politicalads, ensuring clarity, credibility, and reliability. After speaking withseveral publishers, we found that most define their policies along
these lines:

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Ultimate Payor/
Beneficiary
Party-Affiliation
Location Dynamics
Hot Election Issues

a. Type of Payor/Beneficiary: Paid for By Candidate, Paid for By
Third Party
b. Type of Party-Affiliation: Democratic, Republican or
Independent / Non-Partisanc. Target Location: Federal Elections, State Elections
d. Prime Election Issues: Climate Change, Guns, Immigration,Health Care, and more

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parameters in your bid requests. This will make your inventory morebuyable for political advertisers seeking specific audience segments
and geos. Buyers will be setting up campaigns and targeting thatwill be laser-focused on delivering a message to locally targeted
audiences. For instance, a regional news website could provide
targeted ad placements which would appeal to political campaigns
aiming to reach voters in crucial swing states.

3. UPDATE AD REQUEST PARAMETERS
Fine-tune ad request parameters to streamline the ad serving
process, optimize inventory monetization, and increase campaign
effectiveness. By adjusting parameters in the bid request, you canenable the maximum amount of information (ex. demographics,interests, browsing behavior) to enhance ad relevance andperformance. This can lead to higher CPMs, bid rates, win rates,
and ROI for advertisers. This can significantly boost your revenue
potential from political advertisers.

4. REVISIT BLOCKLISTSIP Addresses
Lat/Long Parameters
Swing States Clusters

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Age & GenderParameters
Content Object Signals
Contextual AdParameters

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Revisiting blocklists is an essential strategy for publishers looking
to unlock the full revenue potential of political advertising. This
will allow publishers to access the maximum amount of demandavailable and is the fastest and least resource intensive approach
to political revenue. Your decision to enable the entire category (ornot) will determine if you will have a reactive or pro-active approach
to policing political ads. If you want to fully realize political demand,
contact your demand partners to ensure you are unblocking IAB
11-4 for Politics and IAB-11, which is the parent category, Law,
Government and Politics. If unblocking is not an option, speak withyour demand partners to determine what types of tools they have toenable creative approval, whitelist specific advertisers, or facilitate
more controlled spend with any other means. By doing this, theusers can still hear directly from their candidates, which can help tofuel the democratic process.

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KEY TAKEAWAYSUnblock IAB 11-4 forPolitics
Unblock IAB 11 for Law,Govt & Politics
Ad Creative & Category
Management Options

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5. ENABLE PROGRAMMATIC DEMAND
Many publishers are focused on allowing only political spending
via PMPs, 1:1 deals, or IOs to maintain better control over creativesand pricing. This omits a large percentage of the overall politicalspend that is expected to flow via the open exchange, however.
Opening political spending to the open exchange can help
publishers capture spending from buyers that are looking to scale
beyond PMPs. While buyers will be focused on hyper-targeting for
certain campaigns, especially local ones, there are many buyers
with campaigns that are looking for scale that can be achieved via
open exchange buying. For instance, partnering with demand-side
platforms (DSPs) and ad networks enables publishers to access
additional ad demand and maximize revenue potential frompolitical advertisers.

6. PARTICIPATE IN AUCTION PACKAGES
To drive incremental revenue, collaborate with partners like
PubMatic wto get included in auction packages tailored to specificaudience segments, driving incremental revenue. Demand partners
are setting these up with DSPs, agencies, PACs (Political AdvocacyCommittees), and other buyers focused on political budgets. These
auction packages are being created around different segments suchas Democratic, Republican, or Independents, battleground states,and more. By leveraging auction packages targeting audiencesinterested in political news and analysis, you can drive incremental
publisher revenue during the election season.

7. IMPLEMENT DYNAMIC FLOORING
Test different floors for political ads to capture increased eCPMs
and develop a revenue-maximizing strategy. Political campaigns
are expected to have varying bid floors so publishers can create
different placements with different tiers of floors; these can bemonitored and modified as the political season ramps up todetermine the best revenue-driving strategy. We also expect
non-political advertisers to modify their bid floors to be able tocompete with political budgets, which will contribute to fluid eCPMmovements.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS
Private Marketplace
Deals
Auction Packages
Open Exchange

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Liberal Voter Packages
Conservative Voter
Packages
CTV Auction Packages
Swing State Packages

KEY TAKEAWAYS
Test Different Floors
Non-PoliticalAdvertisers Bids
Higher eCPMs

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8. ENSURE AD QUALITY & STAY VIGILANT AGAINSTDEEPFAKE AI
In conjunction with creating your political ad guidelines, partnerwith demand partners who can guarantee ad quality and provide
tools and resources for you to stay in control. Speak to yourpartners, SSPs, and DSPs to determine what safeguards theyare using to ensure that you can monetize political ad spendingin a safe and responsible way. There are also different technicalsolutions for you to use on your sites. For example, AI-driven content
moderation tools help publishers detect and remove ads containing
hate speech, violence, or misinformation before they are served tousers, ensuring a safe and positive user experience. By taking theseproactive measures, publishers can play a crucial role in maintaining
the integrity of the digital advertising ecosystem. Publishers
should remain especially vigilant against emerging threats suchas deepfake AI, implementing safeguards to detect and mitigate
deceptive content. Example: Leveraging AI-powered detection tools
and manual review processes helps publishers identify and remove
deep fake videos or manipulated content from their platforms.

9. EMBRACE TRANSPARENCY
Prioritize transparency in ad buyer relationships and campaign
reporting to build trust and credibility. For instance, advertisers
who comply with the “political ad” tag (as part of the Digital Ads
Alliance political transparency program) breed confidence andtransparency with publishers and users about who is running andpaying for the ads. Publishers can foster trust with advertisers byproviding transparent reporting on ad performance metrics such as
impressions, clicks, and conversions. For example, providing detailed
campaign analytics and insights enables advertisers to assess theeffectiveness of their political ad campaigns and optimize theircampaigns in real time.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS
Brand-safety Tools
Deepfake Ad Policy
AI detection tools

KEY TAKEAWAYSDAA Political Tags
Provide Performance
ReportingUpdate Media Kits

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Develop protocols to promptly address instances of incorrect orinappropriate ads appearing on the platform, ensuring a seamlessuser experience. Publishers can establish either a dedicated support
team or a playbook to handle ad-related inquiries and complaints toresolve issues quickly. It is important to remember that political ads
can elicit an emotional response from users, even if an ad may not
be considered problematic. Having clear policies will help you decide
how to best address user complaints, and having a system in place
will help you trouble-shoot quickly.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
24x7 Customer Support
Process to Report Ads
Takedown Collaboration
Dashboards

CONCLUSION
Empowering Publishers for Success
The US 2024 election presents an historically ripe opportunity for publishers to capitalize on political adspending, but success requires meticulous planning and execution. By adhering to ad policies, embracingtransparency, optimizing monetization strategies, and prioritizing user experience, publishers can meaningfully
fuel the democratic process in a mutually beneficial way.
So, think political; think PubMatic!

Get in touch with PubMatic’s best-in-class team to learn more about how they can help you strategicallymonetize your political ads in a safe and scaled way.

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About PubMatic
PubMatic (Nasdaq: PUBM) is an independent technology company maximizing customer value by delivering digitaladvertising’s supply chain of the future. PubMatic’s sell-side platform empowers the world’s leading digital content
creators across the open internet to control access to their inventory and increase monetization by enablingmarketers to drive return on investment and reach addressable audiences across ad formats and devices. Since
2006, our infrastructure-driven approach has allowed for the efficient processing and utilization of data in realtime. By delivering scalable and flexible programmatic innovation, we improve outcomes for our customers whilechampioning a vibrant and transparent digital advertising supply chain.
PubMatic is a registered trademark of PubMatic, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

PUBMATIC CONTACTS
Press Contact:

Political team Contact:
DANIEL GUTIERREZ
Director, Client Services Integrations
daniel.gutierrez@pubmatic.com

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. A LPLA RIGHUNP PC LYTHO TPST IRMEISZEARTVI EODN

PUNIT SHAH
Associate Director, Product Marketing
punit.shah@pubmatic.com

BROADSHEET COMMUNICATIONS
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