By Melissa Campanelli
July 10, 2008
As the presidential race heats up, how big of a role will the Internet play in influencing voters?
According to a May 2008 eMarketer report titled "Politics '08 Online: Push Meets Pull," senior analyst and the report's author Lisa E. Phillips said the Web will be big in terms of visibility and small in terms of spending.
The report found that political campaigns -- national as well as local -- are generating record advertising spending, including $50 million online this year. Still, that number is tiny and shows that just 1 percent to 2 percent of ad budgets will be spent online -- compared with up to 80 percent of budgets spent on broadcast television.
The survey also cites the following data:
- According to an August 2007 Yahoo report, there were 87 million voters online in 2007.
- According to a September 2007 Adweek and JWT report, 49 percent of U.S. adult Internet users ignore or actively avoid political ads.
- According to a May 2008 report from techPresident, a blog that covers how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the Web, Barack Obama had 810,622 Facebook friends as of May 6.
- According to a January 2008 report from The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 7 percent of U.S. adults get campaign information from social networking sites.
- According to a March 2008 report form The Annenberg Public Policy Center, 42 percent of U.S. adults have seen or heard presidential campaign information on the Internet.
