The Trade Desk and Comscore’s programmatic targeting division, Proximic, announced a deal to deliver new AI-powered audience targeting solutions for political advertisers, aiming to allow them to better reach voters down to the local level through connected TV during the 2023-2024 U.S. election cycle.

Essentially, the companies are introducing new audience segments that will help political advertisers target streaming TV viewers exposed to competitor candidates’ ads; suppress their exposure to linear TV ads to drive digital and CTV incrementally; and adjust the frequency in which audiences are viewing ads across other channels. Advertisers can build these audience segments with third-party cookies or without any user-tracking cookies or IDs, thanks to AI.

They will allow “advertisers to reach political audiences in a privacy-centric manner,” said Rachel Gantz, managing director of Proximic by Comscore. “Media buyers will now have the ability to extend reach and drive incrementality over linear, to effectively compete in this hyper-competitive race.”

Overall, marketers have been hesitant to fully embrace the shift of viewers to streaming platforms over linear TV.

The companies hope the solutions will drive more political ad dollars into streaming TV.  They are initially exclusive to media buyer clients of The Trade Desk and come as political advertising spending is projected to top a record $11 billion this election cycle.

“As more political advertisers look for ways for greater reach with [the] right audiences, digital advertising becomes a critically important component to media campaigns,” said Kevin Fisher, general manager of business development for The Trade Desk. “The open internet provides opportunities for political advertisers to apply more data to better understand what messages resonate with audiences.”

Comscore announced its new Political TV Ad Exposure targeting as a more effective way to drive cross-channel reach last week. They capture TV ad exposure down to the local level and enable the creation of custom segments for presidential, senate, house and gubernatorial elections.

One political marketing strategist said they would be looking into these new solutions to see if they truly are going to make targeting “more effective or efficient. I’m always looking to have a discerning eye to this stuff. AI is the hot new buzzword of the year, so a lot of people are slapping it onto existing products to make them seem new and exciting,” the person said.