US Political Advertising

AIDEM may update these political advertising guidelines from time to time based on changes in law, compliance requirements, and/or any specific restrictions or obligations imposed by inventory holders.

AIDEM permits political advertising (ad relating to elections, ballot initiatives, political candidates and ads intended to raise awareness on certain political or social issues) in the United States. Political advertising must comply with all applicable laws, including without limitation all federal election laws, US FEC regulations, and (where applicable) state or local laws and regulations, including obligations with respect to ensuring required disclosures regarding the source of the political advertising and maintaining certain archives and providing reporting. All such compliance is the sole responsibility of the advertiser.

Prohibited Advertising

Without AIDEM’s prior consent, AIDEM prohibits political advertising for candidate for state or local elections and/or ballot measures in the following states:

California
Washington, including federal candidate
Maryland
New York
Nevada
New Jersey
Virginia

AIDEM prohibits any political advertising in the United States if the advertiser is not located in the United States.

Creative Requirements

All political advertising must contain a clear and conspicuous “Paid for by” disclosure identifying who paid for the communication, whether it was authorized by a candidate or organization, and any additional information required by local regulations. Unauthorized candidate or third-party ads must also include contact information for the sponsoring organization within the ad or landing page content.

All political advertising must be categorized as “Politics”, “Political (Elections)”, or such other Political Category designated within the AIDEM platform. Ads categorized this way automatically display the DAA Political Ad icon where technically possible, will result in collection of data for compliance with the DAA’s Self-Regulatory Principles for Political Advertising and clicking the icon will show the supplied information to the user seeing the ad.

Advertiser Setup

Advertisers must provide the following information when uploading a “Political (Elections)” ad:

Name of the Political Advertiser
Political Advertiser Contact Info: A telephone number, physical address, Web address, or alternative and reliable contact information for the Political Advertiser
Name of the Political Advertiser’s chief executive officer, executive committee or board of directors or treasurer
Other Info: Any other information required by applicable federal or state law to be included in a disclaimer notice for the Political Advertiser, and any other info required under the DAA’s Self-Regulatory Principles for Political Advertising.

Data Providers

AIDEM provides access to Political Data Partners. To get access contact your AIDEM CS Manager.

Data Partner	Political Data Provider	Description	Restrictions
Liveramp	InfoGroup	Political campaigns (all types)	No restrictions and comes from the voter file.
Liveramp	Catalyst (L2 Political)	Political campaigns (all types). L2 hosts a non-partisan voter file comprised of voters in 38 states.	Yes, this provider requires whitelisting per campaign and advertiser (restrictions on who can use this data).
Liveramp	DataTrust	Political Republican campaigns or advocacy campaigns	Yes, this provider requires whitelisting per campaign and advertiser (restrictions on who can use this data).
Liveramp	TargetSmart	Political Democratic campaigns or advocacy campaigns. TargetSmart hosts the most complete and up to date democratic voter file in the US, covering all 50 states. Their data covers 230 million registered voters as well as the remaining 50 million unregistered voters. They have the best reputation across democratic organizations and will typically be requested by name as they are the preferred partner of the Democratic National Committee. Because their data is aggregated through various public records, there are state and national laws and restrictions around how voter file data can be used. All users of TargetSmart data must be democratic organizations and can only be used for political or educational campaigns (no commercial use).	Yes, this provider requires whitelisting per campaign and advertiser (restrictions on who can use this data).

Supply Requirements

Exchange	Open Auction	PMP	Restrictions
AIDEM SSP	Yes	Yes	No restrictions, though some publishers may block via the "bcat" field in the bid request.
Adcolony	Yes	Yes	No restrictions, though some publishers may block via the "bcat" field in the bid request.
Applovin	No	No	Do not allow political advertising.
Appnexus	Yes	Yes	No restrictions, though some publishers may block via the "bcat" field in the bid request.
DistrictM	Yes	Yes	No restrictions, though some publishers may block via the "bcat" field in the bid request.
Freewheel	Yes	Yes	Freewheel requires that all campaigns comply with the state-level guidelines that are currently in place and to not target ads to Maryland or Washington. In terms of the types of political ads, Freewheel can accept most candidate ads; however, they are still reviewing guidelines for advocacy ads.
Google Adx	Yes	Yes	Must adhere to Google's political Policy. Key takeaways: Regarding the new Election Ads Policy: The Election Ads policies outlined in the doc are specific to Google’s buying platforms: Google Ads, YouTube Reservation and Display & Video 360. Advertisers working with a third party network or DSP are subject to the policies of that network or DSP. If advertisers have questions on how a third party buyer is treating election advertisements, we encourage them to reach out to the Network or DSP directly. Note that Google does not share targeting data with third parties, inclusive of election advertising. What is relevant to 3P buyers is our Political Affiliation Policy: On January 6, 2020, we updated the Political affiliation in personalized ads policy to deprecate the country-specific United States policy, resulting in the global prohibition of political affiliation in personalized ads. This is an update to our Platform policies which includes Authorized Buyers.
Index Exchange	Yes	Yes	Index Exchange will categorize political ads under a specific content category of “Political” and one of three industry categories (“Non-profit/Political – Democratic”, “Non-profit/Political – Republican”, “Non-profit/Political”). These categories are then subject to publisher blocks as pubs can decide to block any or all of those categories. More information can be found at the below links for reference: Demand Quality Guidelines & Restricted Content Categories and Industry Categories. It’s worth noting that “Political” is a “restricted” content category and that means that “all election or political candidate advertisements will be evaluated and may be blocked based on regional guidelines.” If you’d like, you can submit creatives for preapproval to the Exchange Quality alias ([email protected]) and they can review the creatives for approval/feedback before you begin to submit bids.
Inmobi	Yes	Yes	Some restrictions on the bundles that are willing to run political ads on, so they usually set up always on political deals.
Mopub	No	No	Do not allow political advertising.
OpenX	Yes	Yes	OpenX proactively bans campaigns that they believe are engaging in false attacks on political candidates or that use hyperbolic or sensationalized content in a misleading manner. In order to run political campaigns, we will need to review and have our AdQuality team approve the creative as well as a landing page to ensure they are not making demonstrably false claims.
PilotX	Yes	Yes	No restrictions, though some publishers may block via the "bcat" field in the bid request.
Pubmatic	Yes	Yes	No restrictions, though some publishers may block via the "bcat" field in the bid request.
Pulsepoint	Yes	Yes	No restrictions, though some publishers may block via the "bcat" field in the bid request.
Rubicon	Yes	Yes	Must adhere to Rubicon's political advertising policy. Rubicon can customize auction packages for buyers around poltiical auction packages, and can also set up PMP's.
Sharethrough	Yes	Yes	No restrictions, though some publishers may block via the "bcat" field in the bid request.
Smaato	Yes	Yes	No restrictions, though some publishers may block via the "bcat" field in the bid request.
Spotx	Yes	Yes	Spotx enforces the following: - Some publishers block the political category, and Spotx passes the "bcat" field to indicate this - Some publishers have higher rates for political in the private market, and Spotx will be fully transparent when sharing pub lists here - Some publishers require the brand and creative for approval, so it is always good for BW customers to have both ready to share.
Triplelift	Yes	Yes	Creative consultation by TL required prior to campagin launch.
Telaria	Yes	Yes	Telaria has some publishers that will require creative and advertiser pre-approval. If more scale is needed outside of their open market inventory and always on deal (publishers with no restrictions), customers can reach out to Telaria with creative and adomain to get approved.
Unity	Yes	No	Unity only allows political ads that have been paid for by the candidate. Any third party or political party ads will be blocked.