Eight billion dollars. That’s the total estimate of political advertising spend this year given by Andy Slater, vice president of digital agency sales at Katz 360, during our morning session of day 2 at ILM East. Of $8 billion, Slater predicts that online ad spend will be between 3 percent and 5 percent. Slater has 18 years of experience in advertising sales, including 12 years in radio.

“We are a one-stop shop,” Slater said of Katz 360. The digital arm of Katz Media Group, Katz 360 aggregates its digital offerings. For example, it offered a Super Tuesday package for clients in relevant states with a combo of pre-roll video, display ads and email marketing they could send to Democrats, Republicans or Independents. Katz 360 clients include national television and radio broadcasters. “Most broadcasters today know they need a robust and mature digital offering not just for advertisers but for audiences as well,” Slater said. “Digital integration lets them drive traffic from on-air to the Web.”

Agencies and political action committees (PACs) are also more focused on audience targeting rather than site-specific targeting, Slater said. Audience targeting includes capturing a cookie of someone from his or her computer on a website and aligning that with offline data such as household income, place of residence, etc. PACs can further match that data with voting records and deliver a targeted message accordingly. “Online lets them have multiple strategies,” Slater said. He’s seen ad budgets break down spend with one-third in search and targeted display. The rest is used for email marketing, online video and audio.

Although we’ve seen early numbers from the presidential election primaries, the ad spend of local political candidates is less forthcoming. “We are waiting for it to kick in,” Slater said. “Everything else has to vet out until we get closer to the elections.”

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