Pew: Presidential Campaign Advertising on the Internet

Pew reports that online advertising represents merely a blip in campaign spending this year, contradicting many predictions that this would be the breakout year for the internet in campaign budgets. The Bush and Kerry campaigns, along with their various surrogates, spent less than $3 million, or less than one percent of all media purchases. Most of that went to fundraising efforts - which have reportedly proven very effective - rather than persuasion advertising.

Kerry has been fundraising online on sites with metropolitan audiences. The Bush campaign did launch a persuasion campaign in May that comprised most of the measly $419,000 budget. That campaign targeted women in battleground states.

The media plan for Kerry appeared as though it could have been a campaign for new subscriptions to the New York Review of Books:
- SFGate.com
- Newsweek.com
- Village Voice.com
- Reuters.com
- LA Weekly Media.com

Bush's media plan had a more diverse set of targets, both regionally and demographically:
- KPTV (FOX, Portland, OR)
- Parents.com
- KNVA-TV.com (WB, Austin, TX)
- El Nuevo Herald.com (Miami, FL)
- KPHO CBS 5 News.com (CBS Phoenix, AZ)

The full Pew report can be found here.

Additional Coverage:
- Kerry Online Ads Sell Debate Win

- Bush Internet PR Team to Launch Attack Tonight

- Online Political Ad Redux

- Kerry Online Campaign Goes Dark

- Popular Bush/Kerry Satire More Popular than Real Things

- Bush Team Resurrects Online Anti-Bush Hitler Ad

- Presidential Online Efforts Heat Up

- Reps Burying Dems in Online Ads

- Bush Breaks Big Online Campaign

- Kerry Beats Bush on Amazon

- Liberals Split on Role of Online Media

- Net Illiterate Candidates Suddenly Love Blog$

- Democrats Turn to Net to Say 'Ralph Don't Run'

- CBS Defends Refusal to Run MoveOn Commercial

- Senator and Porn Star-cum-Politician Both Sell Access Online

- Dean's Cutting Edge Cuts Both Ways