FreeWheel Integrates Tunnl Audiences to Accelerate Political and Public Affairs Targeting Across CTV for 2026 Campaigns

FreeWheel, the leading global technology platform for the streaming advertising ecosystem, announced a direct integration with Tunnl, giving political and issues-based advertisers streamlined access to Tunnl’s syndicated audiences within FreeWheel buying workflows across premium CTV.

“As campaigns and issues-focused organizations head toward the 2026 midterms, speed and flexibility are key,” said Michelle Eule, Executive Director, Data and Measurement Partnerships at FreeWheel. “Audience strategy can shift day to day and activation needs to keep pace. With Tunnl now available on-platform, our buyers can more quickly find and activate audiences built for political and adjacent use cases, spanning topics such as issues, advocacy, policy and reputation.”

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With 2026 political ad spending projected to reach $10.8 billion overall, CTV is expected to hit $2.5 billion, becoming a must-buy channel for campaigns and advocacy organizations. At the same time, voters are increasingly issue-led: 65% say they vote based on issues, not party, and 75% prefer political ads focused on issues—raising the bar for accurate, relevant targeting and credible environments for messaging.ⁱ

By adding Tunnl’s political and issues-based voter segments to its growing roster of directly integrated political data partners, FreeWheel is giving political buyers a more centralized way to reach key voter audiences with speed and precision on CTV. Highlights of this integration include:

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• Issue-driven scale: Tunnl supplies 3,500+ syndicated, issue-driven segments designed to help reach swim voters, primary voters, and policy influencers.
• Precision at platform scale: FreeWheel delivers a ~90% match rate against eligible FreeWheel CTV inventory to help reduce waste and improve addressability.ⁱⁱ

“Making Tunnl’s marketplace audiences available within FreeWheel’s buying workflows empowers political and public affairs teams to streamline the process for activation,” said Jeff Teng, SVP of Partnerships at Tunnl. “This is the type of direct workflow that allows teams to focus on message relevance and campaign strategy, not the mechanics for delivery. When every second counts in campaign season, this partnership turns time-consuming processes into rapid execution against behavior-based audiences.”

As campaigns brace for a competitive election cycle, political advertisers cannot afford wasted impressions, slow workflows or unreliable targeting. FreeWheel delivers the scale, accuracy and speed required to win on CTV—combining premium inventory access with advanced data, identity and activation tools built specifically for fast-moving political strategies. And with 49% of potential voters saying they take action after seeing a political ad, reaching the right audiences in trusted premium video environments is increasingly tied to measurable outcomes.