Presidential Campaign Online Spending Sliver of Total

The 2008 Presidential elections by McCain and Obama spent $866M of the total $1B raised. How much went to online advertising?

According to ClickZ, a total of $7.97 million was spent on Web ads in '08 through October by the Obama campaign alone. That's right, of the $573M Obama spent on his campaign, only a paltry 1.5% went to online advertising. Think about what is included in "online advertising" -- Google, Yahoo, Facebook, news Web sites, ad networks, and in-game ad firm Massive.

In other words, 98.5% of Obama's expenditures went to "other things". One of these things -- the $2M prime-time infomercial. I wonder how the expense for these "eyes" compare with the ones found with his online audience -- the one that is receiving much credit for pushing Obama to a win?

The Winners of Obama's Presidential Campaign Online Spending

Hands down, Google scored the king's ransom with 59% of all spending. Compare this to Yahoo's $618,000, or 12%. These aren't terribly surprising as they roughly reflect the current search engine market share.

Facebook has scored the lion's share, taking in over $467K -- 80% of which was spent in September alone. Compare this to MySpace's measly $12K. Obama's spending on social media, however, is rather new. In July, social networking sites scored under 4 percent of Obama's online ad budget.

Also interesting was the focus on traditional media outlets (even if online). The Obama campaign also spent $337K to Time Warner sites, $138K to BET.com, $145K to Politico, $100K to the Washington Post.

Regardless of the winners, online advertising has made a clear case for ROI for future elections. And so Sherpa's own Matthew Krivanek asks on LinkedIn "From a social media marketing perspective, what can we learn about this election's online campaigns?"