President Trump’s reelection campaign has made a seven-figure digital ad buy ahead of this week’s Republican National Convention, targeting platforms like YouTube, Google, Facebook and Hulu.
The YouTube ads began running on the video-sharing platform’s masthead at 12:01 a.m. Monday and are set to run throughout the four-day convention, Axios reported. The campaign plans to run ads touting the president’s record on the economy and is also likely to rotate in convention footage, campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told the news outlet.
The president’s campaign has also bought online advertising in battleground states for streaming services such as Hulu, Axios noted.
The campaign spent more than $10 million on digital advertising during the Democratic National Convention last week and expects to spend a similar amount during the Republican convention, Murtaugh said. The final price may differ due to the performance-based nature of some of the ads.
Murtaugh added that the Trump campaign will also make a separate ad buy for national cable in early-voting TV markets.
The campaign had already purchased the YouTube masthead nationwide for Election Day on Nov. 3.
“In the past, campaigns, PACS and political groups have run various types of ads leading up to Election Day,” an official for the company told Bloomberg in February. “All advertisers follow the same process and are welcome to purchase the masthead space as long as their ads comply with our policies.”
Meanwhile, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign is set to spend $280 million in paid television and digital advertising in states Trump won in 2016. Ads will run Texas, Ohio, Iowa and Georgia, where polling has ranged from a neck-and-neck race to a slight lead for the former vice president.
“We’re really building a strategy that allows for that expanded map and to be on offense,” said Biden’s campaign manager, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon.