Romney’s Online Advertising Ramps Up as Obama Ads Tick Down in July
One of the truisms of Election 2012 has been the Obama campaign’s outsized lead vs. Romney in most facets of the digital battleground, whether in the number of social media fans and followers, online fundraising or online advertising. Which is why a developing trend in July showing a significant jump in the Romney campaign’s display advertising coinciding with a pullback from the Obama campaign indicates we just may see a true battleground materialize.
During the first five months of 2012, Obama ads overwhelmed Romney ads by a factor of 20-60x as they delivered 800 million+ impressions a month. By June, Obama ads had reached a peak of 1.2 billion impressions. In that same month, however, the Romney campaign began to make its move with its first month delivering more than 100 million impressions (174 million to be specific). But July saw a significant narrowing of the gap as the Obama campaign pulled back to 921 million ads while Romney doubled its previous month total to 350 million impressions.
True, the Obama campaign still maintains a sizeable lead in the display advertising department, but after several months of running at 20-60x Romney it boasted just a 2.6x margin in July. With the Romney war chest continuing to build, we can expect to see Romney’s ad numbers grow and continue to narrow the gap in the critical final months leading up to the election.