Three audience categories to activate in political campaign marketing

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:

1. Democrat
2. Republican
3. Independent/Other
4. 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:

1. Political Unregistered Liberal Leaning
2. Political Unregistered Conservative Leaning
3. Committed Democrats
4. Moderate Democrats
5. Political Leaning Liberals
6. Liberal Leaning Independents
7. Conservative Leaning Independent
8. Political Leaning Conservatives
9. Moderate Republicans
10. 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:

1. Behavioral Greens
2. Think Greens
3. Potential Greens
4. 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:

1. Affiliation Switcher Counties
2. Battleground Counties
3. House Battleground Districts
4. Democrat Counties
5. Republican Counties
6. 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:

1. Military households may engage with veteran-related initiatives
2. Families with children may respond to education funding measures
3. 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.

1. Military – Active
2. 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.

1. Contributes to Political Charities
2. 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.

1. Financial FLA Friendly > In Market Auto Loan
2. Geo-Indexed > Household Income: $50,000-$74,999
3. Geo-Indexed > Education: Bachelor Degree
4. Presence of Children > Ages: 10-12
5. Marital status > Single
6. Ages > 19-24
7. Moms, Parents, Families > Mothers with infant child(ren) (0-3 yrs old)
8. Financial FLA Friendly¹> Income > $1,000-$24,999
9. 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.

1. Engagement Channel Preference > Email Engagement
2. Engagement Channel Preference > Streaming TV
3. Social Media > Snapchat
4. Purchase Transactions > Ad Responders > Digital
5. 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.

1. Mosaic – Singles and Starters > O55 – Family Troopers
2. Mosaic – Cultural Connections > P56 – Mid-scale Medley
3. 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.

1. Management/Business and Financial Operations
2. Sales
3. Farming/Fish/Forestry
4. At-Home: Retired/Empty Nesters
5. 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.

1. Psychographic/Attitudes > Work Centered
2. Psychographic/Attitudes > Family Centered
3. 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:

• Basis
• FreeWheel
• Magnite
• Nexxen
• The Trade Desk
• Viant
• Microsoft Advertisingand more

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.