This Election Season, Buyers Can Curate Deals Based On Voter Values

Why It Matters

The platform gives publishers sustainable revenue while offering advertisers precise, values‑aligned reach, reshaping the chaotic programmatic political ad market.

Key Takeaways

• OpenX launches values‑based political ad curation platform.
• Givsly supplies nonprofit‑derived audience signals for targeting.
• Political spend projected $10.8B, up 20% YoY.
• Publishers gain brand safety and pricing control.
• Buyers can combine values data with geo targeting.

Pulse Analysis

Election cycles have become the most lucrative period for programmatic advertising, yet the traditional "spray and pray" approach leaves publishers vulnerable to brand‑safety breaches and volatile pricing. In 2024, political ad spend is expected to hit $10.8 billion, a 20 percent jump from the 2022 midterms, underscoring the urgency for more controlled buying mechanisms. Sell‑side curation, which has matured over recent years, offers a way to lock in premium inventory, reduce duplicate supply paths, and deliver predictable CPMs, thereby turning a short‑term spike into sustainable yield for publishers.

OpenX’s new platform leverages Givsly’s nonprofit‑derived audience signals—over 500 causes ranging from women’s empowerment to climate action—to build values‑based segments. These segments are matched against OpenX’s identity graph, creating look‑alike audiences that can be activated via direct or programmatic deals. Advertisers gain the ability to reach voters whose motivations align with campaign messages, even in geographies where party data is saturated, while still applying geo‑targeting filters for precise district‑level reach. Integrated reporting at county, DMA and ZIP‑code levels further enables optimization toward clicks, registrations, or other conversion goals.

For publishers, the OpenXSelect curation layer introduces granular brand‑standard controls, allowing them to approve or block specific advertisers and creative, and to whitelist trusted partners. This opt‑in model, already adopted by more than half of OpenX’s inventory, aims to coax back outlets that have retreated from political ads due to polarization concerns. As compliance, privacy and brand integrity become non‑negotiable, values‑driven curation could become the industry standard, reshaping how political campaigns allocate budgets and how media companies monetize high‑stakes election traffic.