In order to run a political candidate digital advertising product, The Trade Desk requires the below information.
The Trade Desk believes that online advertising should help to power an open marketplace of ideas, including political advertising. Our goal is to best enable candidates to address the substantive issues that voters care about while protecting user privacy, curbing malicious activity, and preventing inappropriate use of targeting and data. This policy applies to any advertisement for a political candidate, ballot measure, or other election issues.
Required information for a political product (see below for additional details):
- Candidate name:
- Is the ad for a federal, state, or local election?
- If for a state election, what state is this ad for?
- The paying entity that is paying for the ad:
- The physical address of the paying entity:
- The name of an executive at the paying entity:
- Title of the executive (i.e. Treasurer):
- Federal Election Commission ID:
- Employer Identification Number (EIN) for the political organization that is paying for the ad (if the advertiser does not have an FEC ID, we can use this EIN instead):
Additional details for the above requirements
Is the candidate running for a federal, state, or local election?
- Federal elections include candidates running for federal office, including: the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. State elections include candidates running for state or local office, including but not limited to, governor, state senator, mayor, freeholder, sheriff, etc.
- This is the entity that is ultimately paying for the political advertisement's display.
- This is how users can contact the paying entity. Please enter the mailing address of the advertiser's CEO, executive committee, board of directors, or treasurer for the entity that is ultimately paying for the advertisement.
- Please enter the name of the advertiser's CEO, executive committee, board of directors, or treasurer for the entity that is ultimately paying for the advertisement.
- Please enter the role or official title of the advertiser's CEO, executive committee, board of directors, or treasurer for the entity that is ultimately paying for the advertisement. For example, "Secretary-Treasurer."
Federal Election Commission ID:
- The Trade Desk only authorizes political advertisers to run advertising on their platform if they are registered with the Federal Election Commission or the state government equivalent of the FEC.
Additional Political Product Information
- The Trade Desk does not allow political advertising for state or local ballot measures and candidates in the State of Washington.
- Political advertisers may use only data segments comprised solely of users residing in the US.
- Clients running political advertising campaigns are subject to approval by The Trade Desk and must agree to The Trade Desk’s US Political Advertising terms and conditions.
- For US federal elections, a valid Federal Election Commission ID (FEC ID).
- For US state or local elections, a valid Employer Identification Number (EIN)
- The advertiser’s address must match the address used in the FEC submission.
- The Trade Desk prohibits microtargeting for political advertising. Specifically, the size of an advertiser’s final audience, after applying all targeting qualifiers and refinements, must be larger than 5,000 targeted users for all elections.
- The Trade Desk also prohibits the use of Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO), a tactic where an ad creative is customized based on data available at the time of ad serving, or similar creative swapping techniques, for political advertising campaigns.
- Political advertisers must abide by the guidelines of our inventory partners. In addition, our inventory partners may have discretion regarding what ads run on their sites, apps, and channels
- Third-party ad serving is restricted to ad servers The Trade Desk has pre-approved for political advertising campaigns.
Advertisers are responsible for including a “Paid for by” disclosure directly in all political ads, regardless of the ad format, along with any other disclosures required by law.
- The Trade Desk follows the self-regulatory guidelines of the DAA, including its Self-Regulatory Principles for Political Advertising. The Trade Desk facilitates the ability to place the DAA’s political icon on candidate political advertising creatives. This icon links to a disclosure page where the following information will be made available for public viewing:
- Name of the paying entity (the advertiser).
- Advertiser contact information.
- Name of the executive designated by the advertiser.
- Link to the DAA website page with access to state government and FEC databases.
- Any other information required by applicable federal or state law to be included in a disclaimer notice
- The Trade Desk will also include links to fact-checking organizations on the disclosure page to give users the opportunity to research any claims made in the ad.
Violence
Political advertising often involves the advocacy of one point-of-view, or policy position, over another. Candidates frequently produce ads that express disdain of or disagreement with the opponent’s policies or opinions. In doing so, those ads may include violent images or videos in an effort to make a point to voters about important issues like policy, public safety, or change. While such heated debates and imagery are part of an open democracy, the following restrictions apply:
- Ads may not incite, threaten, advocate, or call for acts of violence.
- Ads may not promote or glorify of acts of violence.
- No imagery of weapons being fired or being pointed at a person or animal.
- No imagery of an individual being beaten, punched, kicked, or attacked.
- No imagery of gratuitous human suffering.
Voter Suppression
Political advertisers often represent the opinion of a certain candidate or party. As a politically neutral technology platform, The Trade Desk does not aim to determine the accuracy of the opinions and claims made by politicians or groups in these ads. We do provide links to several independent fact-checking organizations directly to voters so they can verify these claims for themselves. The Trade Desk does, however, prohibit ads that are aimed primarily at suppressing voters or voting activity or delegitimizing the election process.
Election Language
The Trade Desk does not allow any ad content that questions the legitimacy of an ongoing US election, nor does it allow a declaration of premature victory when results are contested.