Case Studies

Online Advertising Can Provide the Edge in Tight Races

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:06:00 GMT

Google, The California Group and CampaignGrid publish an innovative polling study which proves Online Advertising moves numbers and gets votes for Congressional races.

In the 2010 election cycle, 31 races in the House of Representatives were decided by 4 percent of the vote or less.

Using an online surge with a unique negative message, Grid’s ad campaign changed the minds of 4% of the electorate in the last 8 days of the Congressional Election in FL-11.

Most political campaigns cannot afford to spend money on techniques that do not provide high impact—yet in the final days of a tight race, campaigns can’t afford to overlook any medium that gives even the slightest advantage. A recent study that used telephone tracking polls to assess the effectiveness of a unique negative online message confirms that targeted digital advertising can deliver high-impact measurable results. Even on a tight budget, online advertising can change favorability ratings, increase a candidate’s percentage of the vote, and burn the message into the minds of voters.

The Details of how voter targeted Online Advertising moves numbers

George Gorton is a California-based political consultant whose clients range from governors Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California to presidents Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Nicky Barletta of Panama. Gorton was one of the pioneers during the 1980s in quantifying the impact and the amount of television ads needed to move voters in a political campaign.

Gorton and noted Republican pollster and strategist Steven Moore teamed with CampaignGrid and Google to conduct a similar study quantifying how to effectively use online ads to change voters’ opinions.

The team used data collected from 1,400 telephone interviews during the last eight days of the election to evaluate the impact of 14 million impressions of a unique online message by Republican challenger Mike Prendergast against Rep. Kathy Castor (D, FL-11). While reviewing these results, it’s important to remember that the outcomes of this survey are not based upon television, radio, direct mail and online advertising efforts working together toward an aligned message. The Republican in this race focused his advertising efforts solely in the online sphere and respondents interviewed are reacting only to an online message.

  The study found:

•   Online Advertising Changes Votes: Four percent of the electorate, whom, in a survey, could recall
    the unique online message, changed their vote over the course of the campaign in favor of
    Prendergast.
•   Online Advertising is Highly Targetable: Within the target audience—Republican men—the
    number of survey respondents who recalled the unique online message over the course of
    eight days jumped from 4% to 22%.
•   Online Advertising Has a Significant Impact at the Last Minute: The rate of increase among
    targeted Republican men who were able to recall the unique message was back-loaded. Those
    who could recall the message increased by seven percentage points over the first six days (and 9.3
    million impressions of the online advertising campaign) from 4% to 11%. That number doubled to
    22% over the final two days (and 5.3 million impressions of the campaign).

Download the Study to learn first-hand how online advertising is proven to have a dramatic impact on campaigns.

CampaignGrid New Media Campaign RIchard Burr for Senate 2010 Case Study

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 05:00:00 GMT

See how CampaignGrid helped Richard Burr get re-elected to the U.S. Senate and conducted innovative GOTV and Early Vote campaigns.

CampaignGrid New Media Campaign RIchard Burr for Senate 2010 Case Study

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CampaignGrid Sharron Angle for Senate 2010 - Online Fund Raising Case Study

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 05:00:00 GMT

See how much CampaignGrid helped Sharron Angle raise $14 million from 265k small donors across the country.

CampaignGrid Sharron Angle for Senate 2010 - Online Fund Raising Case Study

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CampaignGrid’s New Media Campaign helps Chris Christie win NJ Governor’s Race

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:00:00 GMT

On November 3, 2009, Chris Christie became the first Republican Governor of NJ in 12 years. A key to his election was a state of the art new media and advertising campaign engineered by CampaignGrid, a Fort Washington, PA based company. Grid runs the only online advertising platform in the United States dedicated to serving Candidates and Causes and since 2008 has worked on over 30 national races in which 87% of its clients have won their elections.

Background

Corzine, the incumbent NJ Governor, had a budget more than 3.5 times larger than Christie. This forced the campaign to be innovative and use online smartly to target messages and respond to the massive negative television advertising campaign that Corzine relied on to get re-elected. Making the environment even more difficult for the challenger was the fact that there are 700,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in NJ, coupled with NJ’s geography. Sandwiched between the New York and Philadelphia television markets, TV advertising is expensive, and more than half of the people watching the TV ads could not vote for Christie because they live in Pennsylvania or New York.

Online presented an opportunity to eliminate advertising waste and deliver a wide variety of messages including pre-roll, click to play, and in-stream video ads using Grid’s advertising platform. The goal at the beginning of the campaign was to raise awareness and build lists of supporters that could be mobilized for the get out and vote effort. By the week before the election, Grid had built an army of more than 100,000 people online for Get Out The Vote in three distinct categories: 1) The Republican Base, 2) Democrats who were disenfranchised with the Governor, and 3) Independents who make up the majority of the electorate in NJ.

To do this Grid ran close to 150 million targeted impressions to NJ voters. List building was done via email signups, on Twitter and Facebook, and by dropping re-marketing cookies to self identified supporters of the campaign who visited the campaign website. These cookies allowed Grid to find voters on thousands of sites the week before the election, and advertise to them for get out and vote, based on the issues they are interested in. The Campaign called this “Political Lojack.”, Grid calls this common sense. Advertising was placed on top sites such as Google, You Tube, Yahoo and Facebook, local New Jersey news sites, and thousands of long tail sites where NJ residents were reading about news, politics or spending time online surfing.

"Campaigns must spend their limited dollars wisely in today’s ever-changing paid media marketplace. Campaign Grid helped us spend our resources in an economical and highly-targeted way, helping us defeat a much better-funded incumbent governor,” says Mike Duhaime, Chris Christie’s chief adviser.

Results

Despite being outspent online, the Christie campaign was able to win online. Seen in this chart, Christie’s site visits increased consistently from July through election day, as the online advertising campaign was executed. While spending less, Grid was able to exceed Corzine’s traffic and make it grow consistently until election day.

Christiefornj.com versus joncorzine09.com

Audience Targeting using issues and geography:

Online allowed the Christie campaign to find and communicate with different audiences interested in issues important to NJ residents, such as property tax reduction, fighting corruption, mammograms, balancing the state budget, and preventing toll increases on the NJ turnpike and parkway. Once identified, just like direct mail, Grid’s technology can segment these lists in an automated fashion, and advertise to them across the web.

Real Time Polling

Issues targeting provides real time poling. While exit poling confirmed which issues were most important to NJ voters as seen in the NJN Monmonth University Exit Poll, the importance of interactive new media, is that via CampaignGrid’s analytics, the Campaign already knew the way voters were searching and click on banner ads.

How it Works & Examples:

Below are some examples of web targeting such as geographic, contextual, behavioral, social network targeting, and online remarketing. Along with the many new technologies and targeting tools, the campaign also used paid search extremely effectively. Search continues to be an important way to gauge real time public opinion by analyzing what residents of NJ search for and what messages they click on.

Geo-Targeting:

Using Geo-targeting, Grid only displayed ads to NJ residents to their homes and where they worked. Based on which part of the state they lived in, they were presented with the issues most important to their locale. For example, residents who lived or worked near the NJ Parkway and were incensed when the Governor proposed to raise tolls, were targeted with ads specific to this issue.

Growing use of Online Video to combat the high cost and waste of Television

Christie was the first campaign in the nation to use Google tv ads and in-stream video ads within television shows broadcast online. It distributed rapid response video messages on hundreds of sites. The Grid platform is on the leading edge of using video; creating inexpensive web ads posted on You Tube and distributed smartly using click to play video ads on hundreds of websites across the internet.

Rapid Response using online video

While the primary issues in this campaign were related to the economy, job loss, and high property taxes, the health care debate was also part of this campaign. The Corzine administration made mammogram testing an issue, by accusing Christie of not supporting this, and using their incumbent pulpit and massive ad budget to convince the women of NJ this was a true belief of Mr. Christie. The growth in Google searches confirmed that this was becoming a real issue for women voters, and based on this data, the campaign mounted an interactive response. They created a web and TV commercial, a banner campaign, and Grid used its targeting platform to find women and display the video ad.

Another example of rapid response to media articles can be seen below. Contextual targeting identified the news story and delivered a banner ad on fighting corruption.

List building Banners:

To sign people up to join the campaign, Grid employed a first of its kind, social media engagement banner, that allows viewers to sign up in the banner ads to follow the campaign on twitter, become a fan on facebook, or sign up for the email newsletters. This tool has provided a 200 percent lift on response versus static banners, and was responsible for signing up thousands of supporters.

During the 2010 cycle, we expect that many campaigns will use these techniques to replace what used to be done via phone banks and walks, and now will be done using display and video ads on hundreds of websites to prior site visitors.

To learn more about CampaignGrid and its sister company, WorldBenefactor, a leader in venture philanthropy and online advertising for non profits, click on our links, or call (215) 283 1005 and ask for Jeff Dittus or Rich Masterson.

2008 Election - Some Good News for the GOP Online

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:00:00 GMT

In this past 2008 election cycle, Campaigngrid (Grid) had the privilege to work on 26 national political campaigns. Grid created and implemented paid search and display advertising campaigns for 8 incumbent US Congressmen, one US Senate Candidate and one Gubernatorial candidate for the Republican Governors Association. We also executed 15 paid search campaigns for US Senate candidates on behalf of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

RESULTS
In a year dominated by the Presidential campaign and the success of the Obama internet strategy, the GOP had some good news of its own. 7 of our 8 incumbent Republican Congressional clients were re-elected, and the internet proved to be a key component of their successful campaigns.

The advertising done on the Campaigngrid ad network drove 90 percent or more of the traffic to all of our client's websites. We served more than 200 million ad impressions on thousands of long tail sites. Our solution proved that Congressional campaigns can re-coupe a large amount of its advertising expenditure from new online donors. In several cases online fund raising exceeded ad expenditures. Through this effort we amassed micro-targeting data relating to the best sites on the web to reach donors, volunteers and all three types of voters, republicans, democrats and swing voters.

Many campaigns successfully re-distributed television commercials online, using clever targeting and multiple types of site placements. Grid used Rich Media Video Ads and Pre-Roll Video ads as well as drove traffic from paid search and banner ads to YouTube. For each campaign, we generated thousands of YouTube views. Grid proved video messaging will be a key focal point of future campaigns.

Grid’s candidates were pleased that the Internet proved to be their most cost effective advertising medium, far surpassing direct mail and television. It was also the only advertising medium with complete transparency. The success or failure of ad campaigns was known in real time. Every Campaign had a dashboard where they could monitor the number of citizens who saw its ads, the number of click thrus from the ads and which sites or key words attracted these citizens. They also had a running tally of how many emails were captured and how much money was raised.

CAMPAIGNGRID'S ROLE

Our role in the Campaigns consisted of coordinating and driving all of its online advertising. To be successful we advised on website design and donation form structure and ensured analytics were deployed on all websites. Grid created issue based landing pages for all ad campaigns that featured videos on the issues from the Congressmen and all landing pages included email capture, volunteer sign up, and/or donor solicitation. Grid also designed social media pages on sites such as Facebook and YouTube, and made sure emails captured and donation information received integrated with the Campaign's database. In some cases, for our most progressive clients, we deployed Salesforce.com - a web based CRM solution that we customized for congressional campaigns (constituent relationship management).

The focus of the online advertising campaigns changed as the cycle progressed. Grid started each campaign by framing the candidates’ position on issues and experience. Grid targeted important coalitions, volunteers and donors in the early months. As time moved on, we focused on framing the competitor, finding more online donors, advertising offline fund raising events, and eventually voter registration and get out and vote. Every ad campaign focused on email list building and email proved to a very effective tool for fund raising.

One of our frustrations was discovered in our geographic targeted, issue-based paid search campaigns. We found ourselves competing against the Presidential candidates for key words and placement, as well as donors and email registrants. Instead of coordinating/ or co-oping the paid search ads, and thus sharing the republican supporters that responded to the advertising, we competed with the Presidential candidate and drove up the cost of the click thru's, diluting our effectiveness. In the next cycle, Grid hopes to help the GOP make sure this waste of money is not repeated.

All advertising campaigns were driven by very specific targeting rules, using the most advanced technologies available on thousands of sites on our proprietary ad network. Ad spends were allocated between paid search, display and video ads. Geographic targeting was employed across all campaigns. We delivered ads only within the voting districts of our candidates, as well as areas of the country where industries interested in financing our campaigns resided. Other tactics included contextual, behavioral, and site placement targeting.

The interactivity of the campaigns identified which issues were the most important to voters at different points in the cycle. This information was used to craft messages in the offline advertising such as direct mail, town hall phone calls and television. All of our campaigns advertised their web addresses in all of their offline media and on their yard signs.

According to Congressman Gerlach, "My on line advertising was perfectly targeted. I was able to communicate exactly the right message to exactly the right voters at exactly the right time, it was perfect.".....

Please have a look at the slide show above to see examples of the different targeting techniques we employed.

Campaigngrid's CEO Jeff Dittus featured on CSPAN

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:00:00 GMT

On April 13, 2009 at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's recent panel discussion around the 2008 Election and how online Political Advertising played an important role.

Click here to view television coverage on CSPAN

Campaigngrid was invited to discuss its work in this past 2008 election cycle on 26 national political campaigns. Grid created and implemented paid search and display advertising campaigns for 8 incumbent US Congressmen, one US Senate Candidate and one Gubernatorial candidate for the Republican Governors Association. Grid also executed 15 paid search campaigns for US Senate candidates on behalf of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Grid's win rate in the Congressional races was 87% and many candidates raised significant funds from their online advertising campaigns.
Participants:
* Kate Kaye, senior editor of News and Special Projects at ClickZ; * Jeff Dittus, CEO and co-founder of Campaign Grid; * Emily Williams, interactive account executive of MSHC Partners and a media buyer for the Obama campaign, and Colin Delany, Founder of ePolitics.com

Malaria No More and Twitter

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Colorectal Cancer Coalition

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:00:00 GMT

World Benefactor Client Case Study – Colorectal Cancer Coalition (“C3”)
In May 2008 World Benefactor began managing C3’s Google Grant. Previous to World Benefactor’s involvement, C3 was challenged with maximizing the use of their Google Grant due to time and resource constraints. Despite the best efforts by C3’s internal staff, they could rarely utilize more than 50% of their $10,000 per month Google Grant.

World Benefactor’s challenge was to increase the utilization of their Google Grant above an average of $150 per day, or $5300 per month spent by C3 and increase click thru rates, without increasing the cost per click.

With World Benefactor’s help, C3 is tracking to utilize $8,100 in July of the $10,000 in-kind grant available, an increase in Google Grant utilization of 55 percent. Below are overall highlights of the C3 program.

► 85% Increase in Click through Rate (CTR)
Click Through Rate (CTR): 3.67% in April to 6.77% in July

► 55% Increase in Google Grant Utilization
Google Grant Utilization: $5,217 in April to over $8,100 in July

► 43% increase in Total Clicks
Total Clicks: 8,345 in April to over 11,997 in June

► 34% Improvement in Average Position
Average Search Results Position: 4.3 in April to 3.2 in May

► Minimal increase in Cost per Click
The average CPC increased only slightly from $0.63 to $0.65

Note to C3 Case Study: World Benefactor was able to increase the Quality and Relevancy of C3’s Google AdWords program to obtain better CTR and Average Position without having to dramatically increase the average Cost per Click (CPC). This is important because keeping the CPC low will allow for more clicks within the current monthly Google Grant budget of $10,000, ultimately delivering more clicks… and best of all, more awareness of C3 and their mission.

About C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition – C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition is a non-profit, nonpartisan advocacy organization that fights colorectal cancer through research, empowerment and access. C3 pushes for research to improve screening, diagnosis, and treatment of colorectal cancer; for policy decisions that make the most effective colorectal cancer prevention and treatment available to all; and for increased awareness that colorectal cancer is preventable, treatable, and beatable.
Nationally headquartered near Washington D.C., C3 supports the work of research and grassroots advocates throughout the United States. You can learn more at http://fightcolorectalcancer.org/, or by calling 703-548-1225.

About World Benefactor - World Benefactor is a Social Business Enterprise dedicated to helping nonprofit organizations maximize the use of online marketing and communication solutions by providing affordable, professional services on an outsourced basis. Specifically, World Benefactor helps organizations implement and manage Constituent Relationship Management databases as well as manage Google advertising so nonprofit organizations can focus on their mission.

World Benefactor is a division of CampaignGrid, LLC and is based in Ft. Washington, PA in the suburbs of Philadelphia. You can learn more at www.worldbenefactor.com, or by calling 215.283.1000.