Ahead of the June 3 local elections, with full-scale campaigning set to begin on the 21st of next month, Naver has launched election-related ad products. Elections are a key catalyst driving internet and mobile ad spending.
According to the industry on the 21st, Naver recently rolled out an online ad product called the "Naver election ad package." The ads are sold via subscription. The first subscription window runs from the 27th of this month to the 4th of next month, with results announced on the 6th of next month. The second subscription window is first come, first served, from the 8th to the 18th of next month.
The ad packages are broadly divided into a "party ad package," which can widely promote a party's pledges to voters nationwide, and a "candidate ad package," which intensively delivers a candidate's pledges to voters in a constituency. The party ad package ranges from 1 billion won per package up to 5 billion won. The 5 billion won and 3 billion won options are limited to one unit per purchase, while the 1 billion won option allows up to two units. Multiple packages can be purchased at the same time.
The party ad package consists of: premium, which covers mobile main and PC main time-fixed placements, rolling ads, and brand search; mobile-focused, which covers mobile main time-fixed placements and mobile rolling ads; PC-focused, which covers PC main time-fixed placements and PC main rolling ads; and basic, which covers mobile and PC rolling ads. Ads are shown to visitors who are eligible voters aged 18 or older.
The candidate ad package is sold only for elections for metropolitan mayors and governors, superintendents of education, and basic local government heads, and is shown only within the candidate's electoral district to voters aged 18 or older. Ads are sold in 219 of the 229 districts. Depending on the district, packages are offered at 5 million won (a total of 640,000 impressions) and 2 million won (a total of 250,000 impressions). The 5 million won package covers 148 districts, and the 2 million won package covers 71 districts. There is no limit on the number of units that can be purchased.
Separately from the election ad packages, Naver also sells "brand search ads" for candidates for metropolitan mayors and governors and superintendents of education. These are "candidate-customized ad placements" located at the top of search results. For Seoul and Gyeonggi, brand search ads cost 25 million won for metropolitan mayors and governors and 15 million won for superintendents of education. In other regions, both metropolitan mayors and governors and superintendents of education cost 10 million won.
As the ad market has shifted to online and digital, candidates have increasingly used portal ads during elections. In April 2025, when President Lee Jae-myung was confirmed as the Democratic Party of Korea presidential candidate, the first election expense paid was a portal site ad down payment. The People Power Party paid portal ad costs before its presidential candidate was confirmed. In particular, Lee spent about 7.3 billion won on ads during the presidential election, of which about 5.4 billion won went to internet ads. He reportedly spent 3.3 billion won on Naver and 550 million won on Daum.
However, for this election, the portal Daum decided not to sell related ads. Daum said, "This year, considering several factors such as service operations and updates, we decided not to run election ads." Daum recently revived the real-time search term feature "Real-time Trend" and launched "Daum Community," which offers text short-form content at the top of the app's community tab. At the same time, as Kakao is in the process of selling the current Daum operating company AXZ to Upstage, multiple events are converging, and Daum is said to be skipping election ads this year.