Dive Brief:
- While previous reports have shown that Hillary Clinton is vastly outspending Donald Trump on advertising, the latest campaign filings show the Trump campaign is spending more than Clinton on online advertising, Bloomberg reports.
- According to filings, Donald Trump's presidential campaign spent $8.4 million on online advertising in July, while Clinton's campaign only spent $132,500.
- Those numbers do not include spending by outside groups: Super-PAC Priorities USA Action says it plans to spend $35 million on digital ads in favor of Clinton, while another group says it is spending $1 million, also in favor of Clinton.
Dive Insight:
The two major presidential campaigns this year boast very different marketing strategies: While Hillary Clinton has gone the traditional route of buying a lot of TV airtime, Donald Trump has spent very little on linear TV ads. In fact, a recent analysis by NBC News and Advertising Analytics found that Clinton is outspending Trump on TV advertising $52 million to $0.
Those numbers did not include the online advertising figures from July, which show Trump is greatly outspending Clinton directly on that channel. Bloomberg suggests the online advertising effort may be intended to raise outside money after Trump primarily relied on his own funds to bankroll his campaign during primary season.
Throughout the entire campaign cycle dating all the way back to the earliest days of the primaries, the Trump campaign has been fairly unconventional in dealing with public turmoil in leadership positions, lacking a lack of get-out-the-vote ground game in a number of key states, and a late rollout of linear TV ads. Clinton has a much more typical campaign structure that has coordinated ad buys across various media and channels by the campaign and outside groups.
