The Obama reelection campaign was savvy in 2008,
with its use of targeted ads based on website text or content. We pretty
much dubbed them the first real social media election. That was then. Things
have moved on with advertisers having far more intrusive capability
than they did even four years ago, perhaps making these the real social media elections.
[It’s actually the 5th election cycle where the Internet has
played a major role].
Your data is all over the web; the things you
like, your special interests, your connections, all this data can be used to
create a profile that makes it easier for advertisers to figure out how to
pitch you. In politics it’s about getting voters to know more about the
candidates’ positions, track record and whereabouts. It’s also about
donations.
We now know that the percentage of Democrat
dollars coming from small donations is higher than it was fours ago. And it has
everything to do with cost effective and targeted digital marketing and
advertising.
We now have the technology to target commercials to specific segments of
users as they surf the web. From an advertisers perspective ‘tag and track’ is
a wonderful thing. It means results from [now run of mill] A/B tests can be
implemented with greater confidence and ROI can be measured more effectively. If the Target Corporation can tell when a person is pregnant before anyone else knows [really Andrew Pole?], then just imagine what a political campaign is able to do before you’ve figured out who you’re voting for. Enter search.
SEO is key for both campaigns with keyword
phrases and real-time bidding getting a lot of attention. Go ahead, do a search
on “Buffet rule” and see what happens. Then visit the Obama homepage and see
what happens after you leave. Obama for America has spent over $26.9 M on
digital ads. Romney has dropped just over $7.6M. Eyeballs. Mindshare. Votes.
A new study is out that shows overwhelming
discontent with the idea of political campaigns tailoring ads to their
interests. And, with calls on Congress to enact legislation to regulate data
brokers, the rules that permit micro-targeting could change and become stricter. And, it remains to be seen whether
this apparent disconnect between voters and politicians on the campaign trail
will have any major impact on the actual turnout or result.
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