As the November election season draw near, AOL is launching a specialized advertising politics hub, to allow campaigns, organizations, and companies to target certain constituencies online. The hub allows these parties to tap into AOL’s Ad Desk for Politics and Display University to easily purchase display advertising online.
The new hub includes ‘Display University,’ a platform to help political marketers build campaigns. The site provides educational materials for politicos interested in advertising online, including how to structure and online ad campaign, how to use display ads to help fundraise, and more. The ‘Ad Desk for Politics’ is essentially a ‘how-to’ guide for political targeting in Ad Desk, AOL’s display advertising platform. AOL is also rolling out new ad targeting options such as congressional district targeting, in addition to the current suite of geographic, demographic and behavioral targeting options.
AOL has even created a specialized Political and Issue Advocacy team to focus on helping political marketers tap into the power of online advertising. The company even nabbed a former Googler, Rena Shapiro, who helped create the search giant’s political ad team in 2007.
It’s wise for AOL to try to take a piece of this growing market. As mid-term elections draw near, political advertising online should pick up significantly. And AOL definitely needs some help in the ad revenue department. And we should get a better sense of the state of AOL’s ad business when the company reports earnings in a few weeks.