More than $1.5 billion has been spent on digital marketing this election cycle, reflecting the changing landscape of political advertising.
Digital marketing has evolved since Barack Obama used it in 2008 to build mailing lists for donations to fund television ads.
“What’s changed is there’s way more video, and just more of it in general,” said Benjamin Clarke, co-founder of Bully Pulpit Interactive and a digital marketer for the Democratic Party.
Now, it's all about rapid response.
“It’s the speed of news, right?” said Clarke. “There’s no way we can wait a week to cut an ad. Something has to happen in the moment to be effective, and so you see video teams and online teams getting things done within hours after breaking news.”
He said the presidential campaigns are targeting their closing arguments to appeal to large groups of people, and there's been a massive investment in early voting and how to vote safely amid the COVID-19 pandemic.