Political Advertising on found.ee

If you want to run ads for candidates or any political issues, please read this first.

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Written by Team found.ee
Updated over a week ago

Note: We welcome political advertising, subject to certain requirements.

If you want to run political ads, please reach out to info@thefoundgroup.com first. We need to configure your account and collect additional information. Because of the intensive work needed to ensure compliance with Federal election laws, we have a minimum spend of $5,000 per campaign.

Failure to follow this process could result in having your campaign stopped without refund or your account suspended.

We want to ensure at all times that our Political Advertising Policy is closely aligned with developments in the legal, regulatory, and self-regulatory landscapes.

· found.ee prohibits all political advertising in respect of federal elections in Canada.

· found.ee requires that all political advertisements run on our platform include disclaimers indicating the buyer of the ad and whether it has been authorized by the candidate in question. In addition, found.ee prohibits the serving of political ads on our platform in respect of which the end advertiser is located in a country other than the country in which the relevant election is taking place.

· found.ee prohibits the purchase of political ads in respect of any country’s election by foreign buyers or those buying on behalf of foreign advertisers.

Noncompliance with our found.ee Data or Political Advertising Policies may result in suspension or termination of your account. We encourage you to read the full policies at the links above. If you have any questions about these changes, please reach out to your found.ee representative to discuss. Thank you for your cooperation.

found.ee permits political advertising (advertising relating to elections, ballot initiatives, or political candidates) in the United States, but requires that such advertising comply with applicable law. We also require that you certify certain information about the ads and the political organization that purchased them for certain political advertising on the state or local level, as legally required.

States Requiring Political Record-Keeping and/or Reporting

California, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and Washington. Please fill out this questionnaire.

When a Political Creative Is Not Allowed to Serve

Your creative will not be allowed to serve if:

  • You have declared that an insertion order contains political advertising at the state or local level, but you have not disclosed the required political information on the insertion order, or you have not uploaded a registration form for the states that require it.

  • An audit detects that a creative is political, but the required political information has not been disclosed to found.ee.

If your creative is blocked from serving by a creative audit, you will be emailed a notification that the creative does not comply with found.ee's policies and has been blocked until all issues are resolved. In most cases, you can resolve this issue by simply providing the proper disclosures and information at the Advertiser and Insertion Order level.


Political Creative Auditing

The process for auditing US political creatives is very similar to the process for auditing non-political creatives on found.ee's platform. This is the typical audit process for US political creatives:

  1. An initial review is conducted in which the US political creative is routed to our US audit team.

  2. Auditors set the Brand Category to “Politics” and review the US political creative to determine if it is in-scope or out-of-scope under our US political advertising policy. Auditors use our Creative Service API to determine whether a political creative is in-scope. A creative is only considered in-scope if it is related to an election, ballot initiative, or political candidate in the United States.

  3. If the creative is in-scope, then the necessary information that is required by law must be provided in the Political Advertising section on the Create New Insertion Order screen or Edit Insertion Order screen for it to serve for that insertion order.

Information Collection Details

As required by law, found.ee collects certain information about political ad buyers during insertion order setup. You can read a list of the full information found.ee collects in the "Political Advertising" section of the "Create a Campaign" section (You do not see this then your account has not yet been activated and approved for political advertising) in the UI documentation. Much of this information is straightforward, but we offer the following extended explanations for some of the specific information we collect, and why.

Information Explanation

Buyer Details: Some State and Local governments require that the buyer information for political advertisements is provided in addition to the Political Organization details.

FEC ID: Political organizations must report separately to the Federal Election Commission, which assigns this ID; however, found.ee is also required to collect this information for reporting purposes. Independent Expenditure Committee

Laws in New York and New Jersey require advertisers to state if funded by an Independent Expenditure Committee. You need to disclose if your buyer is a political committee that makes only independent expenditures; that is, it spends money on political communications that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate and does not coordinate with a candidate, a candidate’s authorized committee, or an agent of the candidate.

Subject of the Ads:

Some state laws require the subject of political advertisement to be tracked. The subject is most commonly either a political candidate or a electoral ballot measure outcome. If multiple candidates are referenced in the advertisement, you should list all candidates mentioned that would benefit from the political advertisement.Payment Method:

This field does not affect how found.ee bills or charges you. It refers to how the political organization pays you. Some state laws require this information to be collected.

Treasurer Name: To run political ads, you must identify the Treasurer of the political organization. In the case where an official Treasurer does not exist, you are still required to identify the individual whose role most closely corresponds to Treasurer, as defined by the Federal Election Commission.Registration Form

New York and New Jersey require this form to be submitted when advertisements are funded by an Independent Expenditure.

Accuracy Acknowledgement:

This acknowledgment guarantees that you, not found.ee, are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of your legally required political advertising disclosures.


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