Barack Obama’s campaign could account for at least half of all 2008 online political ad spending – FEC reports analyzed by ClickZ News

  • $8 million through October to Google, Yahoo, Facebook, news Web sites, ad networks, and in-game ad firm Massive
  • Google collected $3.5 million from Obama for America
  • Yahoo remains distant second with $673,000
  • The campaign spent over half a million dollars on social networking sites
  • Facebook took in over $467,000
  • Time Warner (most likely CNN.com): over $337,000 by October
  • Politico: $146,000
  • WashingtonPost.com: $100,000
  • The Weather Channel Interactive: over $108,000
  • NBA.com: about $21,000 in September
“The ability to target ads locally is important to any political candidate using any medium, but Obama’s campaign took local targeting to a new level. Before several state primaries, and then again before the general election, the campaign customized online ad creative for residents of different states. During the primaries, display ads with tailored messages showed up on news sites in Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and others. Later in the year, a variety of state-specific ads appeared, telling people to “Register to Vote for Barack Obama and Other
 Candidates For Change,” and providing the last day they could register in their state in order to vote.
Borrell Associates predicts spending online by 2008 political advertisers to hit $17.7 million.
IceRocket reports over 5,500 posts about “barack Obama” a day in average, with a very impressive surge during election week.