At A Glance
Political advertising spend is increasing across digital, connected TV (CTV), and programmatic channels as the election cycle progresses. Experian’s political audiences help political campaigns reach voters using party affiliation, issue-based personas, and ballot initiative relevance. These segments support geographic accuracy, message alignment, and cross-channel activation across major platforms.In this article…
Political advertising trends shaping campaign strategy
Political advertising is entering a high-growth cycle as the 2024 election season ramps up. Political ad spending is expected to surpass $10 billion; with Kamala Harris entering the race, spending priorities have moved, especially in key states like Ohio, where the Senate race alone has already seen $300 million in ad spending.
CTV is capturing a growing share of that investment. CTV’s share of political ad spending is projected to increase from 2.7% in 2020 to 12.8% this year. The Harris campaign, leading the charge, allocating $200 million for digital ads, with a significant portion committed to streaming platforms.
With more money flowing into more channels, effective audience targeting has become crucial in political marketing. The ability to reach voters based on behavior, geography, and media habits can influence perception, guide engagement, and impact election outcomes.
Three political campaign marketing audience categories
This article outlines three political audience segments that can help political campaigns and advocacy organizations align messaging with voter priorities, behaviors, and geography.
More than 240 politically relevant Experian Audiences are available across TV, demand-side, and supply-side platforms. These audiences support campaign planning and activation across three core categories:
- Political affiliations
- Political personas
- Relevant ballot initiative audiences
Let’s break down each category and which audiences you can use in your political campaign marketing to target voters this upcoming election season.
Our political affiliation audiences help your campaigns connect with voters based on likely party alignment or registration status. These audiences are built using voter registration data combined with Experian’s modeling techniques, allowing campaigns to reach voters at scale. These audiences are often used as a foundation, then layered with geography or issue-based attributes to refine reach.
Here are four audience segments that you can activate to target voters based on their predicted party affiliation:
- Democrat
- Republican
- Independent/Other
- Unregistered
How to use these audiences
A campaign organizer or media strategist can activate Independent/Other to reach persuadable voters who are not strongly tied to a party, particularly in competitive districts.
Our political persona audiences’ model political affiliation and ideological leaning, helping your campaigns understand where voters are likely to fall across the political spectrum – including committed party members, moderates, and those who lean without formal affiliation.
Here are 10 audience segments that you can activate to target voters based on their viewpoints on key political issues:
- Political Unregistered Liberal Leaning
- Political Unregistered Conservative Leaning
- Committed Democrats
- Moderate Democrats
- Political Leaning Liberals
- Liberal Leaning Independents
- Conservative Leaning Independent
- Political Leaning Conservatives
- Moderate Republicans
- Committed Republicans
How to use these audiences
A campaign organizer, policy director, or media planner can activate Liberal Leaning Independents to reach voters whose issue positions influence voting behavior more than party labels.
Issue-based audience layers that complement political personas
Political personas identify how voters think. Issue-based audiences help identify what motivates them. Campaigns often layer these audiences with political personas to align issue messaging with voter priorities.
Environmental issue alignment using GreenAware audiences
To reach voters who believe the environment is a key political issue, you can layer in our GreenAware audiences with our Political Personas audiences:
- Behavioral Greens
- Think Greens
- Potential Greens
- True Browns
Geographic and voting-pattern layers
To reach voters based on their regional voting patterns, you can use our new battleground counties and district audiences:
- Affiliation Switcher Counties
- Battleground Counties
- House Battleground Districts
- Democrat Counties
- Republican Counties
- Independent Counties
Ballot initiatives often hinge on everyday experiences, family structure, and local priorities. Experian Audiences help your campaigns reflect those realities in your outreach.
Local and national ballot initiative support
Consumer behaviors are often great predictors of local and national ballot initiatives. These behaviors help campaigns anticipate which issues are most likely to resonate within specific communities and households.
For example:
- Military households may engage with veteran-related initiatives
- Families with children may respond to education funding measures
- Environmentally engaged voters may support sustainability proposals
Experian offers consumer behavior and interest audiences that help campaigns align outreach, message framing, and issue emphasis with the everyday experiences that shape ballot initiative support.
- Military – Active
- Presence of Children > Ages: 0-18
How to use these audiences
A ballot initiative campaign manager or field organizer can activate audiences such as Military – Active or Presence of Children: Ages: 0–18 to align outreach with voters whose daily experiences connect directly to the ballot initiative.
Charitable causes
Charitable and advocacy causes often rely on donor participation and sustained financial support. Audience categories supporting charitable cause outreach and fundraising include lifestyle attributes, charitable giving behavior, household composition, and donation patterns.
- Contributes to Political Charities
- Discretionary Spend – Donations > $1,000-$1,999
How to use these audiences
A fundraising director or advocacy lead can activate Contributes to Political Charities to reach voters with a demonstrated history of political giving.
Demographic and financial context
Demographic and financial context, such as age, income, education, and household structure, influences how voters interpret ballot language, policy framing, and issue relevance. These factors shape how messages are received across different communities and life stages.
Demographic and financial audiences help campaigns apply this context by aligning message tone, framing, and emphasis with voter circumstances. When paired with geo-targeting, these audiences help reduce wasted spend and support delivery of relevant messages within the appropriate geographic boundaries.
- Financial FLA Friendly > In Market Auto Loan
- Geo-Indexed > Household Income: $50,000-$74,999
- Geo-Indexed > Education: Bachelor Degree
- Presence of Children > Ages: 10-12
- Marital status > Single
- Ages > 19-24
- Moms, Parents, Families > Mothers with infant child(ren) (0-3 yrs old)
- Financial FLA Friendly1> Income > $1,000-$24,999
- Financial FLA Friendly > In Market New Mortgage
How to use these audiences
A campaign communications or policy team can activate our demographic and financial audiences such as Geo-Indexed: Household Income: $50,000–$74,999 to adjust tone and framing of ballot language.
Media consumption and channel preferences
Understanding how voters consume media supports more effective channel planning. Media engagement audiences reflect preferences for streaming TV, email, digital video, and social platforms, helping campaigns match message format to viewing habits.
- Engagement Channel Preference > Email Engagement
- Engagement Channel Preference > Streaming TV
- Social Media > Snapchat
- Purchase Transactions > Ad Responders > Digital
- Television (TV) > Ad Avoiders/Ad Acceptors > Ad Acceptors
How to use these audiences
A media planner or digital strategist can activate Engagement Channel Preference > Streaming TV to match ballot initiative messaging with how voters prefer to consume media.
Mosaic® USA
Our Mosaic audiences are proprietary persona-based audience solution that combines hundreds of demographic and behavioral data points to classify all U.S. households into groups and types, creating a holistic view of voters and their interests.
- Mosaic – Singles and Starters > O55 – Family Troopers
- Mosaic – Cultural Connections > P56 – Mid-scale Medley
- Mosaic – Singles and Starters > O52 – Urban Ambition
How to use these audiences
A campaign strategy or insights team can activate Mosaic – Singles and Starters > O55 – Family Troopers to understand voters through a combined demographic and behavioral lens.
Occupation
Occupation provides important context for how voters evaluate ballot measures, policy proposals, and issue messaging. A voter’s work environment, industry, or employment status can influence how measures are perceived, particularly when policies affect jobs, education, agriculture, retirement, or economic conditions.
Occupation-based audiences help campaigns align messaging with professional context by tailoring language, examples, and issue framing to industries and work environments that are directly affected by specific measures.
- Management/Business and Financial Operations
- Sales
- Farming/Fish/Forestry
- At-Home: Retired/Empty Nesters
- Education
How to use these audiences
A policy advocate or outreach coordinator can activate Education or Farming/Fish/Forestry to tailor messaging around measures that affect specific industries or work environments.
Personal views
Understand consumers personal views around family, their social and work life.
- Psychographic/Attitudes > Work Centered
- Psychographic/Attitudes > Family Centered
- Psychographic/Attitudes > Social Isolation
How to use these audiences
A campaign organizer or messaging strategist can activate Psychographic/Attitudes > Family Centered to reach voters whose personal priorities influence how they interpret ballot measures.
What separates Experian’s syndicated audiences
Our syndicated audiences give you an advantage across channels, offering both scale and accuracy:
- Experian’s 3,500+ syndicated audiences can be sent to 200+ leading social platforms, such as Meta and Pinterest, TV, and programmatic advertising platforms, and activated directly within Audigent, a part of Experian, with private marketplaces (PMPs)./li>
- Reach consumers based on who they are, where they live, and their household makeup. Experian ranked #1 in accuracy by Truthset for key demographic attributes.
- Access to unique audiences through Experian’s Partner Audiences available on Experian’s data marketplace, within Audigent, a part of Experian, for activation in PMPs, and directly on platforms like DirectTV, DV360, Magnite, OpenAP, and The Trade Desk.
You can activate our syndicated audiences on-the-shelf of most major platforms. For a full list, download our syndicated audiences guide.
Where can you activate Experian Audiences?
Experian Audiences can be activated on 200+ leading social platforms, such as Meta and Pinterest, TV, and programmatic advertising platforms, and activated directly within Audigent, a part of Experian, with private marketplaces (PMPs), or found directly on over 30 platforms, including:
Need a custom audience? Reach out to our audience team, and we can help you build and activate an Experian audience on the platform of your choice.
You can activate political audiences across most major platforms, either directly or through Audigent PMPs, including select partner audiences shown below. For campaigns with specialized needs, our team can also support custom audience development and partner data collaboration.
Want to activate an Experian Audience on Meta, Pinterest, Snap, TikTok or on a platform not listed above? Contact us today.
Matching political messages with verified voter audiences
Political campaigns face pressure to reduce waste and prevent mismatched targeting, as recent election cycles show millions of dollars spent reaching voters who were not eligible or relevant to specific races.
Experian offers more than 240 politically relevant audiences, built on voter registration data and validated modeling, supporting responsible audience selection and geographic alignment. Our audience team reviews and maintains these segments to support relevance, scale, and compliance.
You can activate our political audiences on-the-shelf of most major platforms. Can’t find the audience you’re looking for or need a custom audience? Connect with our audience team for more information. Additionally, work with Experian’s network of data providers to build audiences and send to an Audigent PMP for activation.
Connect with our audience team
FAQs
Experian Audiences are pre-built, privacy-compliant consumer segments that help marketers target based on verified demographic, financial, and behavioral data. This includes more than 240 politically relevant audiences designed for flexibility across channels and can be activated on 200+ platforms, including major social, CTV, and programmatic partners.
Experian ranks #1 in demographic accuracy according to Truthset, and marketers can choose from 3,500+ syndicated audiences that capture signals such as income, spending behavior, household structure, financial attitudes, and ability to pay. These same audiences are also available through partnerships on platforms like DirecTV, Dish, Magnite, OpenAP, and The Trade Desk.
For a deeper look at our audience catalog, explore our syndicated audience guide.
Three political audience segments that can help political campaigns and advocacy organizations align messaging with voter priorities, behaviors, and geography.
More than 240 politically relevant Experian Audiences are available across TV, demand-side, and supply-side platforms. These audiences support campaign planning and activation across three core categories:
– Political affiliations
– Political personas
– Relevant ballot initiative audiences
Political campaigns, advocacy groups, ballot initiative committees, and public affairs organizations use Experian’s political audiences to align their outreach with voter registration data, modeled attributes, and geographic boundaries.
Experian’s political affiliation audiences use voter registration records combined with Experian modeling to scale reach beyond file-based targeting and support activation across media platforms. In addition, Experian offers political persona audiences, which are built using modeled signals that reflect ideological leaning and issue orientation rather than formal party registration. Political personas help campaigns understand voting mindset and policy priorities across the political spectrum, including voters who lean without formal party affiliation.
Experian Audiences can be activated on 200+ leading social platforms, such as Meta and Pinterest, TV, and programmatic advertising platforms, and activated directly within Audigent, a part of Experian, with private marketplaces (PMPs), or found directly on over 30 platforms.
Experian’s political personas focus on issue orientation and voting mindset, while Experian’s party affiliation audiences focus on voter registration status. Political persona audiences support messaging tied to policy topics, economic priorities, and social issues, while party affiliation audiences are commonly used to align outreach with registered party status and base mobilization strategies.
Footnote
- “Fair Lending Friendly” indicates data fields that Experian has made available without use of certain demographic attributes that may increase the likelihood of discriminatory practices prohibited by the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) and Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”). These excluded attributes include, but may not be limited to, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, disability, handicap, family status, ancestry, sexual orientation, unfavorable military discharge, and gender. Experian’s provision of Fair Lending Friendly indicators does not constitute legal advice or otherwise assures your compliance with the FHA, ECOA, or any other applicable laws. Clients should seek legal advice with respect to your use of data in connection with lending decisions or application and compliance with applicable laws.
Latest posts
Tapad, part of Experian, integrates with AcuityAds' current offering will complement cross-channel capabilities for brands and agencies in the U.S. and Canada NEW YORK, Jan. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, a global leader in digital identity resolution, has partnered with AcuityAds, a technology leader that provides targeted digital media solutions for advertisers to connect intelligently with audiences. The partnership will enhance AcuityAds' existing cross-device solution, especially with respect to its cross-channel Connected TV offering. Tapad's global, privacy-safe digital cross-device solution, The Tapad Graph, will compliment AcuityAds' own cross-device data set for enhanced marketing capabilities across their Demand Side Platform (DSP). For AcuityAds, this provides customers with unduplicated reach across desktop, tablet, mobile and CTV devices – while augmenting their video offering. Tom Woods, Vice President of Products at AcuityAds commented, "With increasing marketing complexities, consumer device usage and new data regulations, our decision regarding the partnership was an important one. The Tapad Graph's privacy-safe identifiers for consumer notice and choice, as well as the ability to opt-out at any point, were critical factors in our decision who to partner with." Chris Feo, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Partnerships at Tapad added: "Our integration with AcuityAds' DSP should not only help marketers within North America optimize current cross-device campaign initiatives and performance, but also increase reach across additional digital screens long term. We are excited to expand our partnership with AcuityAds." To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution capabilities, visit our identity page. About Tapad Tapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph and its related solutions provide a transparent, privacy-safe approach connecting brands to consumers through their devices globally. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its product innovation, workplace culture, and talent, and has earned numerous awards including One World Identity's 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award. Headquartered in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore, and Tokyo. About AcuityAds AcuityAds is a leading technology company that provides marketers a powerful and holistic solution for digital advertising across all ad formats and screens to amplify reach and Share of Attention® throughout the customer journey. Via its unique, data-driven insights, real-time analytics and industry-leading activation platform based on proprietary Artificial Intelligence technology, AcuityAds leverages an integrated ecosystem of partners for data, inventory, brand safety and fraud prevention, offering unparalleled, trusted solutions that the most demanding marketers require to be successful in the digital era. AcuityAds is headquartered in Toronto with offices throughout the U.S., Europe and Latin America. For more information, visit AcuityAds.com. Disclaimer in regards to Forward-looking Statements Certain statements included herein constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management at this time, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, AcuityAds does not intend, and undertakes no obligation, to update any forward-looking statements to reflect, in particular, new information or future events. Contact us today
Tapad, a part of Experian and the future of cookies Earlier this week, Google announced plans to create “.. a path towards making third-party cookies obsolete”; which will result in the phasing out of support for third-party cookies in its Chrome browser within two years. While there has been much discussion and debate on the future of the third-party cookie, an announcement from Google has been anticipated for some time. As many have said this week, the use of cookies and other identifiers has and will continue to evolve. What will never change is the value exchange between publishers and consumers that is enabled by relevant advertising. Notably, the need for independent companies to develop solutions that enable this value exchange has never been greater to ensure that publishers, consumers, and advertisers derive the most value from their relationship. We are well-positioned for the future From the start, Tapad, a part of Experian has led with a consumer-first, privacy-centric approach to technology as the use and proliferation of devices and global privacy regulations continue to evolve. Over the past two years, Tapad, a part of Experian has gone through a technical overhaul. Calling on almost ten years of expertise in identity resolution, we have created a modern platform that is flexible in terms of identity input as well as output. Anticipated change in the identity landscape was the driver behind our architecture decisions and what enables us to be responsive to a dynamic market. Consumer behavior and device use continue to change, bringing additional digital IDs into the equation – namely across the mobile and CTV environments. Our technology, however, is not tied to any specific type of identifier, but rather is focused on associating disparate identifiers at the individual and household level. Where do we go from here? Google’s announcement has been characterized as a conversation starter, but we see it more as a call to action. With a timeline set, there is a need to converge on one or more solutions that can scale across the web. In a post cookie world, publishers and advertisers will continue to require ways to create fair marketplaces across platforms and devices. Further, the platforms that currently power the programmatic advertising ecosystem will need to be able to invest and differentiate to bring value to their customers. Scaled privacy-safe identity solutions will be needed not only for classic targeting, attribution, measurement, and frequency capping use cases but also to carry consumer preferences and consent. Tapad, a part of Experian will continue to play a leading role here. However, we are not going to do this alone. As solutions around Google’s Chrome browser evolve, we will continue to take a leadership position and will work with Google, key industry groups, partners and customers to meet current and future needs for an independent identity solution at scale. In the meantime, we will continue to support an independent ecosystem where consumers come first and privacy standards are a priority. It’s business as usual…for now. There will not be any changes to our graph products or services as a result of Google’s announcement in the near term. Any changes related to the Chrome third-party cookie will evolve and will no doubt be subject to significant industry participation and feed-back, indeed at the invitation of Google. We will proactively communicate any changes and product updates during this time period. We look forward to the opportunities resulting from these changes and ushering in a new era of identity resolution in digital advertising. Contact us today
Tapad's integration with Knorex's XPO™ platform will complement cross-channel optimization capabilities for brands and agencies in the U.S. and APAC markets NEW YORK and SINGAPORE, Dec. 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, part of Experian and a global leader in digital identity resolution, has partnered with Knorex, a leading provider of digital performance marketing. Knorex's self-service online advertising platform, Knorex XPO™, enables marketers to advertise globally in real-time across different media channels, formats, platforms and devices. Tapad's global, privacy-safe digital cross-device solution, The Tapad Graph, will compliment Knorex XPO™'s own device data set for enhanced marketing capabilities. For Knorex, the integration enables their brand direct and agency customers to gain a more accurate understanding of consumers across devices to reduce campaign inefficiencies and duplication, and to effectively manage frequency capping and attribution. Abhishek Kumar, VP of Engineering at Knorex commented, "Today's digital consumer is raising the bar for marketers. With increasing marketing complexities and consumer device usage, this integration enables marketers to understand the consumer decision journey with heightened ease. Our combined offering will empower agencies in the APAC and US markets, providing an improved marketing solution that will help to streamline their efforts." Abhay Doshi, Head of APAC at Tapad added: "The Tapad Graph, when integrated with the Knorex XPO platform, should not only help U.S. and APAC marketers optimize campaign performance through cross device marketing – but also increase the opportunity for brands to reach out to their target customers within a desired time." To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution capabilities, visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/consumer-sync. About TapadTapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph and its related solutions provide a transparent, privacy-safe approach connecting brands to consumers through their devices globally. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its product innovation, workplace culture, and talent, and has earned numerous awards including One World Identity's 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award. Headquartered in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore, and Tokyo. About KnorexKnorex provides programmatic advertising products and technologies to advertising buyers worldwide. With its cloud-based online advertising platform, Knorex XPO™ enables ad buyers to self-serve and advertise real-time across the globe regardless of the media channels (social, search, OTT/CTV, video, web/mobile etc.), ad formats (display, native, search, social, video etc) and devices (desktop, laptop, smartphones and tablets) to deliver personalized marketing messages to the target audience in an automated way, powered by machine learning/AI. Underpinned by a multi-layered data-driven approach, XPO simplifies the execution and optimization of marketing campaigns, while delivering measurable and attributable performance. Contact us today