Political ad spending in the U.S. 2018-2022

In 2022, political advertising spending in the United States amounted to 8.92 billion U.S. dollars. This indicated strong growth in ad spending compared to the previous midterms in 2018. That year, political advertising buys totaled around 3.96 billion U.S. dollars.

TV losing space to digital in political ad spend

Broadcast TV has been the largest recipient of political advertising spending in the United States. In the 2022 midterm elections, over 50 percent of the expenditure in ad buys might be devoted to the medium. But if TV remains king, its reign has been annually shrinking, while digital channels flourish. Between January 1 and August 1, 2022, nearly 700 million U.S. dollars were invested in political digital ads, distributed among campaigns on Google and Facebook and ads on connected TV (CTV).

Conquering voters’ attention remains challenging for advertisers

While the U.S. political advertising landscape shows no sign of cooling off, it has a long way to go to win voters attention. Over 75 percent of eligible voters surveyed in the United States in 2022 reported they tend to tune out or ignore political ads. Additionally, around 60 percent of respondents considered political advertising unethical, while nearly 65 percent declared that consumer data should not be available to political advertisers.