Politics and Elections Blog
Trends, tools and news from the Google Politics & Elections team
Case Study: Enroll America
Friday, March 7, 2014
The developing story about the Affordable Care Act is how Enroll America - and its use of technology - has been central to the upward trend in health insurance enrollees.
Enroll America’s goal is simple: maximize the number of Americans enrolling in affordable health coverage. Read the full case study
here
.
Digital Lessons Learned from 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
Posted by: Rob Saliterman (R Team), Evan Rowe (D Team) and Luke Rodehorst (IE Team) Google Politics and Elections Team
Last week, Google and CNN convened more than 300 campaign operatives and journalists to discuss how political campaigns broke new ground this year in using the internet to fundraise, persuade, and mobilize with unprecedented targeting and measurement. The event, “
Exploring the 2012 Digital Election
,” featured the Obama and Romney campaigns’ digital masterminds, but it’s important to also recognize the innovative strategies and tactics of down-ballot campaigns and issue advocacy groups.
Google’s “
Digital Compilation from the 2012 Campaign Cycle” booklet
contains eight case studies on how the internet has revolutionized politics.
Here are four key examples from groups that set a new standard in online political advertising:
1. Delivering Maverick PAC’s Message to the Right Audience
Maverick PAC, led by Co-Chairs George P. Bush and Jay Zeidman, is engaging next generation Republican leaders from business, politics and law to build a national network. To gain traction with a younger audience and maximize visibility, Maverick PAC turned to YouTube to tell their story. By partnering with Story Partners -- a DC public affairs firm -- they maximized the exposure to the target audiences.
Read the full case study here
.
2. Ami Bera went up early to avoid the noise and define the candidates
Dr. Ami Bera ran for Congress in 2010, losing a close race in the Sacramento suburbs. In 2012, with voters inundated with messages from dozens of candidates and ballot propositions, as well as statewide redistricting, guaranteed a tighter race. But in an area with many competitive races and proposition campaigns, the Bera campaign knew traditional media alone would be insufficient to communicate with voters effectively. So they turned to digital to extend the reach and frequency of their offline ads and reach key audiences efficiently.
Read the full case study here
.
3. Click-to-Call-Congress
As the U.S. Senate considered legislation critical to the clean coal industry this spring, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) sought ways to mobilize grassroots supporters of the legislation across the country to make their voices heard. Partnering with social media marketing firm New Media Strategies, ACCCE used numerous Google tools, including click-to-call mobile advertising, to connect constituents with their Senators.
Read the full case study here
.
4. Extending the Reach of TV with a complimentary online video strategy on YouTube
Priorities USA Action, the leading Super PAC in support of President Barack Obama, turned to online ads in order to outmaneuver their better-funded opponents: Republican Super PACs American Crossroads, Crossroads GPS, and Restore Our Future. Working closely with agency Global Strategy Group, Priorities developed an efficient and effective YouTube video and Google search strategy to re-elect the President of the United States.
Read the full case study here
.
In Raleigh, the Mayor-Elect Turned to the Web for the Win
Thursday, January 26, 2012
(From time to time we feature creative or interesting uses of our tools and ad platforms from campaigns and issue advocacy groups. These mentions and examples should not be construed as an endorsement. - Ed.)
Back in October of 2011, voters in Raleigh, North Carolina turned out and elected Nancy McFarlane as Mayor of Raleigh with 34,424 votes -- and 63,683 views on YouTube. Yep. Almost 2 video views for every vote.
As recently as 2008, online ads were largely the province of Presidential campaigns, with the Obama campaign in particular heralded for its success. In 2010,
we chronicled how even more campaigns caught on to the web
. Now in 2011 local candidates like McFarlane are taking advantage of new formats and targeting options on search, display, and online video to persuade voters, win the
“Zero Moment of Truth”
and drive turnout efforts.
Taken just last week,
our South Carolina poll with Public Opinion Strategies
further cements the notion that voters - of all types - are tuning in to web videos in big numbers. The data shows that more than one out of every three primary voters had watched a video online from a campaign - thus the idea of watching a web video on one's lunch break is the new 'prime time news'. It is plain to see that video on the web is not something that campaigns, up and down the ballot, can afford to ignore.
The Raleigh race - because it took place in an off-year - was expected to have low voter turnout. Sagar Sane, the campaign manager for Nancy McFarlane for Mayor decided that an added emphasis on online ads would allow the campaign to target likely voters and core demographics that they knew would be receptive to their message.
The first tool that the campaign utilized was
TrueView Video Ads
- a pre-roll video ad format that only became available to candidates in 2010. The McFarlane campaign was able to successfully target relevant content and audiences on YouTube--only paying when Raleigh-area voters actually chose to watch the ads, and making the format more effective and efficient for the race than broadcast or cable television could have been for the campaign.
But the campaign didn't stop with video. Beyond YouTube, they began to target sites, audiences, and specific content themes across the internet with the Google Display Network - utilizing display ads like the one pictured here above. That meant that when voters in Raleigh were reading online about local politics or looking for their polling place, they likely came across a relevant McFarlane ad. For a race that took just 34K votes to win, the McFarlane campaign ran a cost-effective digital campaign that received 3.8 million impressions on Google’ Display Network ads alone.
Google Search ads complemented this strategy, allowing the campaign to talk to voters as they researched the race and looked for information in the Raleigh area. When McFarlane won endorsements first from the outgoing mayor and then from the Raleigh News & Observer, the campaign was able to move quickly, spreading the word by bidding on local news searchers and linking directly to the endorsements, highlighting this important third-party validation.
With races all across the country heating up for the 2012 cycle, campaigns at every level are getting savvier about their online strategy. Like Nancy McFarlane, they’re utilizing new digital tactics to win the
‘Zero Moment of Truth’
--and win their elections.
Posted by: Andrew Roos, Google Politics & Elections Team
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