--- title: "Political Buyer's Guide" canonical: "https://hub.freewheel.tv/space/BC/703102993/Political%20Buyer's%20Guide" format: markdown --- --- # Overview FreeWheel Buyer Cloud includes distinct features for buyers serving political ads. Below is guidance for solving unique-to-political problems, including completing required compliance documentation, sourcing deals, and ensuring creatives serve as smoothly as possible. > ⚠️ The information in this guide is only applicable to political campaigns running in the United States. --- # Required Political Disclosure Forms Prior to running political campaign ads in the United States, you must submit any required political compliance documentation for the states where the campaign will run. If this documentation is not submitted, your campaign will not serve. You can submit political compliance forms directly through the UI during advertiser creation. The form link will appear when the advertiser category is set to a political category. To submit political compliance documentation through the UI, do the following: 1. Start the advertiser creation process. For the complete walkthrough, see [Create an Advertiser](https://freewheel-knowledge-hub.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BC/pages/114524520). 2. Set your **Advertiser Category **to* Law, Gov’t & Politics*,* *or *Politics*, which makes the **Political Compliance Required** section appear. 3. Select **Complete the Political Compliance Smartsheet** to be taken to a political compliance form. 4. Complete the form to submit the compliance documentation for the states where your campaign will run. You will receive an email when your campaign has been approved. > ℹ️ Political compliance forms are only accessible through the UI; if you are using APIs to create political campaigns, reach out to your account manager to submit compliance documents. --- # Political Segment Enablement Buyer Cloud has direct integrations with political data providers that are ready to activate. With integrated political data partners, you can access political segments without onboarding or pushing audience segments. ## Data Partners ### Direct Data Partner Integrations Segments from the following data partners are available through Blockgraph: - L2 - Tunnl - Resonate The above segments are available for all users: - Customers using a custom Buyer Cloud configuration must contact their account manager to enable these segments. - Customers using a standard Buyer Cloud configuration can access these segments automatically. After the segments are enabled, you can find them in line item targeting in the **Segments **tab > **Blockgraph **folder. ### Additional Data Partners The following partners are also available for sending and receiving third-party data: - TargetSmart - RevOptimal - Semcasting - Data Trust To access these segments, please reach out to your account manager. > ℹ️ Note that Data Trust segments are available for political use only, and Democrat and Democrat-aligned organizations are not permitted to use Data Trust segments. ## Best Practices If you are using a cookie-based audience, make sure segment extension is turned on in line item targeting. Segment extension matches other devices linked to that user, increasing your available inventory and reach. --- # Deal Sourcing and Serving ## Access Curated Political Deals Access ready-to-activate CTV deals with premium publishers through Deal Marketplace. Find the Deal Marketplace in the UI by navigating to **Trafficking **> **Deals **> **Deal Marketplace**, and click the filter button to the left of the search bar to filter by deals that allow political advertising. For more information on using the Deal Marketplace, see the [Deals](https://freewheel-knowledge-hub.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BC/pages/113639582) documentation. ## Find Deals through the FreeWheel Inventory Desk In addition to readily available deals, FreeWheel can source and create deals to meet your campaign’s needs. To get started, contact the FreeWheel Inventory Desk at [inventorydesk@freewheel.com](mailto:inventorydesk@freewheel.com). ## Recommended Deals The following table contains deal desk deals that are available for political advertising: | **Deal Name** | **SSP** | **Deal ID** | **CPM Bid Guidance** | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Political - Beeswax - AMC | FreeWheel | stv/AMC-PRG-00975 | $23-$26 | | Buyer Cloud - Political MPE -  FRNDLY | FreeWheel | stv/FRN-BUY-00002 | $16.00 | | Beeswax-AO-RON-PoliticalAdvertiser - Samsung | FreeWheel | stv/SAM-BEE-00009 | $16.50 | | Political Approved RON_Freewheel_CTV_APP | FreeWheel | stv/FWM-USD-04063 | $11.00 | | Xumo_Political | FreeWheel | stv/XUM-BEE-00027 | $20.00 | > ℹ️ To view the complete list of FreeWheel curated deals, go to the Deal Marketplace in the UI. --- # Creative Uploads and Approvals ## Creative Pre-Approval Creatives intended to serve on FreeWheel programmatic (PG) or private marketplace (PMP) deals can be pre-approved by FreeWheel’s creative pre-approval process. For a creative to be eligible for pre-approval: - The creative must be uploaded and set to active. - The creative must be associated with an active line item. - The associated line item targets a FreeWheel PG or PMP deal (via the FreeWheel Deal ID and seat mapping). For more details and troubleshooting for creative pre-approvals, see [Creative Pre-Approval Process](https://freewheel-knowledge-hub.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BC/pages/672235525). ## Bulk Upload Creatives Upload multiple creatives at once by using the bulk upload feature with a zip file of images or a spreadsheet of ad tags. For a walkthrough on bulk uploading creatives, see [Creative Bulk Upload](https://freewheel-knowledge-hub.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BC/pages/114688430). To track the upload status and any upload errors, see [Bulk Status](https://freewheel-knowledge-hub.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BC/pages/113836345). ## Swap Out Creatives When editing creative-line item associations, you can use the bulk edit functionality to replace creatives across multiple line items at once. To bulk edit creative associations: 1. Go to **Trafficking **> **Line Items**. 2. Select the checkboxes to the left of the line items that you wish to swap creatives for. This will make the action bar appear at the bottom of the screen. > ℹ️ All selected line items must be the same type. For example, you cannot edit video line items and banner line items at the same time. 3. On the action bar, select **Bulk Edit **> **Creative Association** to open the Bulk Edit Creative Association page. 4. Select an edit option: - **Add to Existing**: Associate new creatives with the line items while retaining the current associated creatives. - **Remove All Values**: Remove all associated creatives from the line items. - **Replace All Values**: Associate new creatives to the line items, and remove the current associated creatives. 5. In the bottom half of the page, if you selected **Add to Existing** or **Replace All Values**, select **Add Creative Associations**, choose the new creatives to associate, and select **Add Selected**. 6. Select **Save & Close **at the bottom right of the screen to save your bulk edits. ## Ensure Creatives are Approved by Premium Publishers Premium publishers have varying processes for approving your political creatives. To ensure your creatives undergo a smooth creative approval process, follow these best practices: 1. **Reach out to your publisher representative:** Contact the publisher’s representative for the inventory you are targeting to confirm your creatives meet their standards and are approved quickly. 2. **Use the FreeWheel inventory desk:** For publishers that work with FreeWheel, contact the inventory desk team at [inventorydesk@freewheel.com](mailto:inventorydesk@freewheel.com) to configure pre-approvals for your creatives. 3. **Target multiple deals at once:** If you are purchasing curated deals through the Deals page, apply to multiple deals with the same creative to increase chances that your creatives will be approved. If you are targeting bundle deals, you should also target multiple one-on-one deals, as a rejection from one publisher in the bundle deal means your creative will not serve on any inventory in the bundle deal. --- # Congressional and Legislative District Support Congressional, State House, and State Senate districts are available to use with the following features: - Line item targeting: Configure line items' geo-targeting settings so line items only bid on requests from certain districts. - Bid and delivery modifiers: Set a bid modifier to increase or decrease bids based on a user’s district, or use delivery modifiers to divide budget between specific districts. - Reporting: View how your campaign is doing at the political district level in the Political Performance dashboard or the Geo report. ## Access Political Districts Political districts are made up of collections of ZIP+4 codes to achieve the precision necessary to recreate districts. To target and report with political districts, you must have ZIP+4 codes enabled for your account: - Customers with standard Buyer Cloud configurations: You automatically have access to ZIP+4 codes. - Customers with custom Buyer Cloud configurations: To use ZIP+4 codes, contact your account manager to enable them. > ℹ️ Note that when ZIP+4 codes are enabled, you may see the same IP address resolved to different locations in reporting. > ℹ️ > ℹ️ To provide ZIP+4 codes for targeting, Buyer Cloud augments bid requests with data from Digital Envoy.​ MaxMind provides all other geo dimensions. As a result, in rare cases, MaxMind and Digital Envoy may resolve the same IP to different locations. --- # Line Item Troubleshooting ## Troubleshoot with Bid Decision Flow If your line item is not serving, check the bid drop reasons for your line item using **Bid Decision Flow**. Find it within a line item, under **Analytics **> **Bid Decision Flow**. If your line item is active but not bidding or winning, Bid Decision Flow will show where in the bid decisioning process the line item stops bidding. For more details, see [Bid Decision Flow](https://freewheel-knowledge-hub.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BC/pages/114295199). ## Troubleshoot at the Creative Level After verifying a creative is not serving, check that it meets all of the following criteria: - The creative is set to *Active*. - The creative is associated with at least one active line item. - The creative has not been rejected by required vendors. - If Confiant or FreeWheel have rejected your creative, you will need to resubmit it. Note that creatives are allowed to serve when the approval status for either of these is *Pending****.*** The approval statuses for Google, Confiant, and Xandr are available in the **Summary **tab of a creative, under **Approval Status**. - The creative flight dates and creative-line item association dates are within the campaign dates and line item flight dates. The most restrictive of these dates are used to determine whether a creative can serve. > ℹ️ If you need creative approval from a publisher that isn’t shown in the UI, contact the publisher to see whether they blocked or rejected your creative. --- # Reporting ## Political Performance Dashboard Use the Political Performance Dashboard to monitor and compare performance between your creatives. The Political Performance Dashboard reports on spend, impressions, CPM, and reach, divided by congressional and legislative districts, inventory sources, creatives, and campaigns. You can also break down information by audience demographics, including age, gender, income, and homeownership status. To start using the Political Performance Dashboard, contact your account manager to enable it. ## Supply Transparency Dashboard The Supply Transparency Dashboard provides context on the network and content where your ads ran, and gives insight into the authenticity and performance of different inventory sources. With this dashboard, you can monitor placements and inventory that don’t meet candidate or PAC standards, allowing course-correction in the middle of a campaign. The Supply Transparency Dashboard is automatically enabled for your account. For detailed explanations of the charts in this dashboard, see [Supply Transparency Dashboard](https://freewheel-knowledge-hub.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BC/pages/114262364). ## Geography Report The Geography report shows how campaigns and line items are performing across different geographic regions. Use the geography report to break down measures by political districts to see where delivery and performance are strongest and weakest to optimize targeting. For more details on using reports, see [Reporting](https://freewheel-knowledge-hub.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BC/pages/115343463). To view all available fields in the geography report, see the [Analytics Data Dictionary](https://freewheel-knowledge-hub.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BC/pages/113869064). --- # Create a Support Ticket If you have a question that was not answered here, contact our support team. See [Submitting a Support Request](https://freewheel-hub.refined.site/space/RCS/114786711/Client+Support+and+Notifications#Submitting-a-Support-Request) for details on creating a support ticket.