News & Cases

The rules have changed. Forward-looking campaigns are already adapting. After Meta, Microsoft, and Google stepped away from EU political ads, publishers and advertisers need a compliant platform and new strategy to reach voters effectively. From October 2025, political advertising in the EU plays by new rules. The Political Advertising Regulation (PAR, Regulation (EU) 2024/900) fundamentally changed what is and is not allowed when parties advertise online. ¹ Meta and Microsoft suspended all EU political advertising in October 2025. Google had already stepped back. For anyone who built their digital campaigns around these platforms: they've shut down political advertising in the EU entirely. The message is simple. The model they use is no longer compliant with political ad regulations. The advertisers and publishers that recognized this early are already adapting. The ones that have not are running out of time. What the law actually says The PAR rests on two pillars: mandatory transparency and strict restrictions on targeting. ² For more information, visit our other blog: New EU-regulation enforces transparency for political advertisement. The targeting restrictions go even further. The use of sensitive personal data, including political opinions, ethnicity, and religion, is prohibited. For any other personal data, like location or demographics, explicit and specific consent is required, making large-scale personal targeting practically unworkable. Publishers and advertisers need a new playbook. There is a compliant alternative. Opt Out enables political parties to advertise in full compliance with the PAR, using our own proprietary technology. The Data Protection Authority has already acted: approximately 40 political parties received a formal warning letter ahead of the 2026 municipal elections. ⁵ Opt Out campaigns are fully compliant by design. No personal data. No warnings. No risk. We place ads contextually within relevant editorial environments across the most trusted publishers in the Netherlands: DPG Media, NPO, RPO, NRC, FD and BNR. Privacy-first ad delivery is not a workaround. It is Opt Out's own technology, and it outperforms personal targeting where it matters most: relevance. Personal targeting finds the right person regardless of what they are reading. Contextual targeting finds the right person at the right moment, when they are already engaged with a topic that matters to them. A campaign about housing policy appears alongside journalism about housing. A healthcare campaign reaches people already reading about healthcare. The context creates relevance that no personal profile can replicate, without a single personal data point. This is especially powerful for the 2026 regional and municipal elections. IP-based location targeting is no longer compliant under the PAR. Opt Out fills that gap. Our contextual technology automatically serves ads within the right municipality, based on page content, not personal data. The right message, in the right region, at the right moment. One click on the ⓘ button makes everything visible: who placed the ad, who funded it, and what was spent. Real campaigns, real results. One of the first parties to adapt to this new reality is the VVD. Working together with their media agency Media Reverse, the party used Opt Out's advertising technology during the national elections, anticipating the stricter regulatory environment created by the PAR. Our direct integration with premium publishers delivered strong campaign quality metrics, including viewability consistently above 80% and click-through rates that reflect a conscious but highly interested audience. Building on those results, the VVD and Media Reverse expanded the strategy for the 2026 municipal elections. Using Opt Out's contextual technology, dynamic advertisements are automatically generated per municipality. Each ad features the local VVD candidate viewpoints or slogans and is served within relevant editorial content about local issues, without using a single piece of personal data. The Political Advertising Regulation fundamentally changes how campaigns can operate in the EU. With Opt Out we have a solution that allows our political clients to remain visible while fully respecting the new rules. The contextual approach delivers strong engagement within trusted editorial environments, without relying on personal data. For campaigns that want to stay compliant and effective, this model simply works." Says Michael van der Wal, Online Media Consultant at Media Reverse While local targeting presents challenges due to its reliance on editorial content, the campaign results, staying within benchmark, demonstrate how political parties can maintain visibility and effectiveness in a regulatory environment where personal targeting is no longer feasible.