For Democratic campaigns working to break through crowded feeds and increasingly fragmented media habits, digital ad performance metrics offer critical insight into whether your message is reaching the right voters at the right time. These numbers do more than describe performance. They reveal where your strategy is working, where it needs improvement, and how efficiently your budget is being used.
As campaigns prepare for a pivotal 2026, here are five metrics every team should watch closely (and why they matter).
1. Match Rate
Your match rate shows how many voter file records can be successfully matched to digital identifiers. A strong match rate gives you confidence that your targeting is accurate, scalable, and actually reaching the voters who matter.
That is why DSPolitical built a meta-onboarder directly into Deploy that matches deterministically across multiple privacy-safe identifiers, like RampIDs, UID2.0, MAIDs, and authenticated set-top box data, instead of relying on invasive signals. By using several trusted onboarders, enforcing minimum audience sizes, and following strict data handling practices, we are able to maintain ethical, privacy-compliant standards while still delivering independently verified match rates of 90%+. The result is that offline voter data becomes real, reachable audiences, so more of your budget goes toward delivering messages to the right voters, and less is wasted on impressions that never connect.
2. Unique Reach
A strong match rate is the starting point, but matching voters to digital identifiers is only one part of the equation. Campaigns still need to be able to consistently find those voters and deliver ads at scale across today’s fragmented media landscape.
That’s where unique reach comes in. DSPolitical operates across multiple demand-side platforms (DSPs) and premium inventory sources, giving campaigns broader access to supply and stronger buying power. This makes it more likely that matched voters are actually found across CTV, premium video, and digital ad placements—allowing campaigns to reach more unique voters, rather than repeatedly serving ads to the same people.
Unique reach is only valuable when it’s efficient. DSPolitical automatically removes Already Voted/Early Voted (AVEV) audiences and concentrates delivery on voters who are still persuadable. This means campaigns aren’t spending limited resources on individuals who have already made their decision. Through our close partnerships with leading voter data providers, we can identify long-term voting patterns and prioritize voters who are actually open to shifting. That means we avoid allocating spend to individuals who have only voted red, for example, and are highly unlikely to change their minds.
By designing delivery to maximize exposure across persuadable voters, campaigns have the ability to maintain stronger unique reach throughout the cycle. This approach is especially valuable in a high-volume year like 2026, when capturing voter attention will be competitive, and every impression needs to advance real persuasion or mobilization goals.
3. Frequency
Frequency helps you understand how often a voter sees your ad. Too low, and your message won’t stick. Too high, and you risk serving impressions that do not add persuasion value, or worse, create backlash. The ideal range varies by tactic and objective, but monitoring frequency enables campaigns to make informed mid-flight optimizations and maintain message effectiveness throughout the cycle.
Rather than relying on fixed thresholds, campaigns should treat frequency as a dynamic signal. Repeated exposure is typically necessary for a message to break through, but the point at which additional impressions stop adding value depends on creative quality, audience size, and timing within the campaign. Monitoring performance indicators alongside frequency helps campaigns identify when increased exposure is still productive versus when signs of fatigue suggest it’s time to scale back. When paired with creative rotation and testing, thoughtful frequency management ensures impressions continue to contribute value rather than diminishing impact.
4. Completion Rate
For video ads, completion rate is best understood as a signal of creative freshness rather than persuasive impact. According to KPI Depot, many campaigns use roughly 70 percent as a general benchmark for acceptable performance, with rates above 80 percent indicating strong delivery conditions. However, completion rate alone does not predict whether an ad is changing minds. In fact, high engagement or completion does not necessarily correlate with message effectiveness, and in some cases, ads with very high engagement can perform worse on persuasion metrics.
Where completion rate is most useful is in identifying creative burn-in and fatigue. When completion rates begin to decline or fluctuate unexpectedly, it often indicates that audiences are seeing the same message too frequently or that the creative is losing its ability to hold attention in a given placement. Completion rates in the 60 to 80 percent range may signal the need for refreshed creative or messaging, while sustained drops below that range typically suggest more significant creative or placement changes are required.
When monitored over time, completion rate becomes a practical feedback loop for managing creative rotation, helping campaigns avoid overexposure and keep messaging effective throughout the cycle.
5. Inventory Quality Metrics
Inventory quality is a foundational indicator of media health, because even strong performance elsewhere can be undermined if ads are delivered in low-quality or fraudulent environments. Rather than relying on a single number, inventory quality is best evaluated through a set of related metrics, including brand-safe impression rate and invalid traffic (IVT) levels.
Monitoring these metrics helps campaigns understand whether impressions are reaching real people in trusted environments—or being lost to placements that inflate delivery without meaningful exposure. High brand-safe impression rates and low IVT levels indicate cleaner delivery and more reliable media performance overall.
DSPolitical supports strong results across these inventory quality metrics through a proactive buying approach that uses global allow lists and pre-bid verification to restrict delivery to trusted inventory before ads are served. By addressing quality at the supply level, campaigns can reduce waste, protect brand credibility, and ensure that downstream metrics like reach, frequency, and completion rate reflect real voter exposure.
For a deeper look at how DSPolitical builds cleaner and more efficient supply paths, explore our Supply Path Optimization case study here. It walks through the approach behind our SPO initiative and the results it delivered across voter reach and frequency.
Why These Metrics Matter
At a fundamental level, these metrics tell the story behind real voter impact. By monitoring what the data shows, campaigns can maximize their budgets, strengthen voter trust, and stay competitive in a fast-moving digital landscape. In a year as consequential as 2026, understanding and acting on these metrics will be a meaningful advantage for any campaign looking to break through.
Ready to strengthen your digital strategy for 2026? Connect with our team below to get started.