Obama's online ad spend: Google wins big, Microsoft and Facebook get little

Jordan Golson — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:29:16 -0700

Barack Obama may promise "change we can believe in" on the campaign trail, but for Internet advertising companies, it's business as usual. Data compiled by ClickZ News claims that Google has captured the lion's share of the Obama campaign's Internet ad spend -- not unlike the general online advertising market, where Google grabs as much as 69 percent of total spend.

ClickZ says that according to Federal Election Commission data it looked at, the Obama campaign sent just over $3 million -- nearly 59 percent of online expenditures -- to Google, with number two Yahoo grabbing just over $600,000 in revenue. All-in-all, the campaign spent nearly $5.2 million for online ads between January and July this year.

Other significant players getting campaign ads included upstart news site Politico, which got just under $100,000; CNN.com and Microsoft got around $215,000 each; and social network Facebook received around $112,000.

Of course, these numbers are a drop in the bucket in comparison to Obama's total fundraising -- Obama for America has raised more than $390 million over the course of the campaign. It seems that even with the Internet playing a huge role in fundraising and grassroots organizing, the bulk of campaign advertising remains on more traditional platforms.

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Obama's online ad spend: Google wins big, Microsoft and Facebook get little