Obama's campaign spent over $16 million on online advertising
06 Jan 2009
Barack Obama's presidential campaign spent over $16 million on online advertising in 2008, while John McCain's camp spent around $3.6 million.
Google took in an estimated $7.5 million of Obama ad dollars in 2008, about 45 per cent of the campaign's digital ad spending, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
Some of that money went toward display and text ads in Google's AdSense network, and some was used for ads appearing in search results on Google's site.
The big names in online media, including several ad networks, collected the bulk of the campaign's online ad expenditures.
The second highest earner of Obama campaign dollars was Yahoo, which was paid $1.5 million in 2008 for display and search ads. Microsoft and AOL also collected ad money from the campaign.
AOL-owned Advertising.com took in nearly $1 million from the campaign in '08. Other networks that scored big were Pulse 360, Quigo, Collective Media, Pontiflex, and Undertone Networks.
Obama for America also grabbed headlines through its use of in-game advertising. The campaign bought $94,000 worth of ads -- mainly early voting ads -- in several online games through Microsoft's in-game ad network Massive.
Individual Web sites including CNN.com, Politico, Time, BET Digital, and The Weather Channel also were top earners of Obama's online ad dollars.
