Political advertising in presidential election years has become a substantial source of interest across all local broadcast, local cable, satellite, radio, digital and Over the Top Television (OTT) channels.

The Political Ads feature allows you to create a target audience based on the viewership of politically-based ads between programs on Linear TV during a specific period.

Politically-based ads can be defined based on viewership of ads that pertain to the ad context, or an ad sponsor (for example, Climate Power)

By creating a target audience based on Political Ads, you can gain a better understanding of the content that resonates with your audience, boosting their engagement with your ads.

Feature Availability

Political Ads is only supported in the U.S.

Create a political ad audience

The following procedures detail how to create a target audience for a political ad based on the viewers who may have been exposed to the ad.

To create a target audience using Political Ads tracking, you add a segment to an existing or new audience that contains information about the televisions exposed to political ads during a specific study period.

Access the Political Ads page

1. From the Audiences page, click Audience Builder on the left navigation pane. The Audiences home page displays.
2. Click +New Audience. A popup displaying audience types displays.
3. Click New Standard Audience. The country selection list displays.
4. Enter a name to identify an audience in the Name field. Ensure the name is descriptive so you can identify it in the future, for example, Pennsylvania Clean Energy Initiative Audience.
5. From the first section of the Include Segments area, click Add Segments. A window displays with the text "Select your audience country."
6. Select United States and click Apply.
7. Under the Samsung TV list in the left navigation pane, click Political Ads. The Political Ads home page displays.
   

Select a study period

Once you arrive at the Political Ads page, the first task you want to perform is to define a study period. A study period is an interval of time when the evaluation measures audience behavior.

When the Political Ads window displays, note at the top of the screen, a toggle between two radio buttons enables you to define a period you want to examine viewership of political ads. The default radio button is Study Period.

Define a period where the audience will be evaluated.

Select an election race

Many election race types are available for you to select. The following list gives some common examples of the types of available races for which you can build a target audience.

• Municipal races - City Council, Board of Supervisors, Alderman, Town Council, Town Supervisor, Mayor
• County races - Clerk of County Court, Country Commissioner, County Council, County Executive, Parish Council
• Statewide races - Governor, State Assembly, State Representative, State Senate, State Treasurer, Lieutenant Governor
• National races - U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, President
• Other Races - Board of Education, Public Service Commissioner
• Referendums - Ballot Measure

In the Election Race dropdown list, select the election contest type for which you want to evaluate the audience. Examples of an election contest type would be Board of Supervisors or U.S. Senate. The Audience Details list displays columns of information related to the contest type you selected.

• Ad Context - The category of political ads that defines the target audience. Examples include "Budget/Government Spending" or "Economy: Inflation".
• Ad Sponsor - The group or person funding the ad context item. An example of a group sponsor is "American Exceptionalism" An example of a person sponsor is "Tim Scott".
• Affiliation - One of the major U.S. political parties to which the ad sponsor is mapped. This designation is provided from Samsung's ACR partner. "No Affiliation" means the affiliation is unavailable from the partner.
• Ad Airing State - The states in the U.S. where the political ad was broadcast.

Find and select an ad context

Identify and select an ad context or multiple ad contexts you want to use as conditions for the targeted audience. You can do this in one of two ways.

• Manually - Find the ad context you want to select by browsing through pages using the greater than (>) and less than (<) navigation aids at the bottom right of the screen. Click the checkbox to the left of the ad contexts you want to select.

• Search (recommended) - Search the ad context database by typing a descriptive word in the Search keyword or apply filters field and then clicking Enter. Political ads displays all ad contexts related to the search value, for example, Economy: Inflation. Click the checkbox to the left of the ad contexts you want to select. To select all the returned ad contexts, click the checkbox to the left of the Ad Context column head.

• Select all ad contexts - Click the checkbox to the left of the Ad Context column head to select all available ad contexts.

Add the new Political Ad segment

1. Once you have selected the ad contexts for which you want to build a target audience, click Add Segments. The Include Segments section displays all contexts you selected.
2. To see the number of televisions exposed to the ad contexts you selected, first select ad contexts in which you are interested in examining. You can view two levels of data.

• Specific ad contexts - Click a specific ad context for which you want to display the number of exposed televisions. for example.
• All available ad contexts - Click the checkbox to the left of the Batch Actions list to select all available ad contexts.

Display the number of televisions exposed

Once you have selected the ad contexts on which you want to return data, click refresh in the upper right portion of the Audience breakdown pane at the right.

The number of exposed televisions to the ad contexts you selected appears in the far right column of the Add Segments list.

Note the details in the Audience breakdown right navigation pane. It displays the total number of television IDs Samsung DSP has detected and breakdown of exposed TVs per channel type under the Breakdown per channel header.

Refine an audience

You can refine an audience to obtain an engagement level of viewer sampling. To refine an audience, click Refine Audience. The Audience Refinement dialog box displays. This list indicates the level of engagement the audience has with the ads, either light, medium, or heavy. See Audience Refinement for more information.

Create the Political Ad target audience

Once you are satisfied with the findings, click Create Audience. If you successfully created a target audience, the following message appears: "The audience was successfully created."

View the Political Ads audience

Go to the Audiences page and click Audience Builder. The Audience list in the main Audience window appears, showing the new targeted audience in processing mode.

Note the process status in the Status column in the right pane. It will initially display an orange rectangle in the Status column with the Processing system status.

Once the Political Ad audience has been fully processed, the status will display a green rectangle with the Available system status. Your audience will be available in about two hours.

The Audience list indicates the standard audience information of Audience Type (Standard, Conversion, Refined, or Smart), Requester (the person who requested the audience), Audience Creation (the date and time of the audience creation), Status (Processing, Available, or Failed), Smart TV List ID (the ID number of the list), Smart TV List Last Updated, and Estimated Count.

Perform post-creation actions

Once your newly created Political Ad audience is available, you can perform three post-creation actions:

• Edit - Enables you to change the study period for the Political Ad target audience.
• Duplicate - Makes a copy of the Political Ad target audience.
• Archive - Uploads the Political Ad target audience to a storage area in a segment on the network cloud. Once the target audience is archived it no longer appears in the audience list.

Edit a political ad audience

Follow the steps below to create an audience:

1. In the Audience list click on the audience you want to edit.
2. In the Actions column of the Audience list, click the elipses (...). A popup menu displays.
3. In the popup menu, click Edit.
4. Change the study period associated with audience and click Update.
5. Click Update Audience. Samsung DSP displays the Audience list in the main Audience window showing the edited targeted audience for the ad contexts you selected in processing mode.

Duplicate a political ad audience

Follow the steps below to create a copy of an existing target audience for a political ad:

1. In Actions column of the Audience list, click the ellipses (...). A popup menu displays.
2. In the popup menu, click Duplicate. Samsung DSP displays a copy of the target audience page.
3. When you are satisfied with the content of the copy, click Duplicate Audience. If the duplication was successful, a message appears saying "You successfully duplicated the audience".

Once you have completed the duplication process, go to the Audience list and note the process status in the Audience status region in the right pane as described above. Your audience will be available in about two hours. Note that segment detail is updated every 24 hours.

Archive a political ad audience

Follow the steps below to archive an audience for a political ad:

1. In Actions column of the Audience list, click the ellipses (...). A popup menu displays.
2. In the popup menu, click Archive. Samsung DSP displays a message box indicating you are in the process of archiving an audience with the ID number of the audience. The message concludes by asking "Are you sure you want to proceed with archiving audience <audience_number>?"
3. Click Confirm. The audience is removed from the Audience list and is archived.

Restore a political ad audience from the archive

Follow the steps below to retrieve an audience:

1. Click in the Filter Items field at the upper right of the window. A popup menu displays.
2. In the popup menu, click State. Samsung DSP displays state options.
3. In the popup menu, click Archived. Samsung DSP displays the archived Audience list.
4. In the Actions column of the audience you want to retrieve, click the ellipses (...). A popup menu displays with one option, Restore.
5. Click Restore.
6. Samsung DSP displays a message box indicating you are in the process of restoring an audience with the ID number of the audience. The message concludes by asking "Are you sure you want to proceed?"
7. Click Confirm. The audience is removed from the archived Audience list and is restored to the active Audience list.
8. Click in the Filter Items field. A popup menu displays.
9. Click State. Samsung DSP displays state options.
10. Click Active. Samsung DSP displays the Audience list with the restored audience in the list.

Scheduling Reach and Frequency Reports for Political Ads

Schedule the Reach & Frequency Report for Self Serve Client Digital Remedy, for their Political Ads related campaigns in 2024. The solutions being considered will not be restricted to the DSP; other methods such as using a custom script to send scheduled Reach & Frequency reports to the client etc. will also be considered.