CampaignGrid in the News

CampaignGrid Co-Founder Rich Masterson Joins Panel Discussion on “Big Data and Politics” at CampaignTech Conference 2012 on Thursday, April 19th in Washington, D.C.

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:15:00 GMT

Fort Washington, PA – Rich Masterson, co-founder and chairman of CampaignGrid, the leading online advertising platform for candidates and causes, is part of a panel of industry experts speaking on “Big Data and Politics” at CampaignTech Conference 2012 on Thursday, April 19th.

Among those joining Masterson on the panel, scheduled for 11:30 a.m. at the Washington Marriott (1221 22nd Street NW) are: Andy Cotton (Yahoo! Search Marketing and Display Advertising); and Tracy Dietz (Labels & Lists).

One of the pioneers of online marketing dating back to the early 1990s, Masterson co-founded CampaignGrid in 2008. In addition to his work with candidates and causes, he has developed online strategies for industry leaders including Microsoft, IBM, AT&T and American Express. A graduate of James Madison University and the Harvard Executive Education Program, Masterson was the first entrepreneur in residence for the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

CampaignGrid’s proprietary platform combines 187 million U.S. voter records with demographic, behavioral and lifestyle data, creating advertising solutions that marry the precision of direct mail with the efficiency and reach of online advertising. CampaignGrid has served more than 400 political campaigns and causes. Additional information is available at campaigngrid.com.

Additional information about the two-day CampaignTech Conference is available at campaigntechconference.com,

CampaignGrid Co-Founder Rich Masterson Joins Panel Discussion on “Persuasion with Online Advertising” at 21st American Association of Political Consultants Conference in Austin, Texas

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:57:00 GMT

Fort Washington, PA – Rich Masterson, co-founder and chairman of CampaignGrid, will join a panel of industry experts on Thursday, March 29th during the 21st American Association of Political Consultants Conference in Austin, Texas.

Masterson will be part of the “Persuasion with Online Advertising” panel, scheduled for 1:45 p.m. (Central Time) at Austin’s Hilton Hotel. The panel, to be moderated by Chris Talbot (Talbot Digital), also includes Peter Greenberger (Twitter) and Travis Hockersmith (YuMe). The discussion will focus on how online advertising should be incorporated into the media mix for political campaigns. Attendees will hear how pre-roll ads, in-banner video, rich media, and precision targeting are helping to support persuasion efforts and providing new options for political consultants.

One of the pioneers of online marketing dating back to the early 1990s, Masterson co-founded CampaignGrid in 2008. In addition to his work with candidates and causes, he has developed online strategies for industry leaders including Microsoft, IBM, AT&T and American Express. A graduate of James Madison University and the Harvard Executive Education Program, Masterson was the first entrepreneur in residence for the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

CampaignGrid is the leading online advertising platform for candidates and causes. The company’s proprietary platform combines 187 million U.S. voter records with demographic, behavioral and lifestyle data, creating advertising solutions that marry the precision of direct mail with the efficiency and reach of online advertising. CampaignGrid has served more than 400 political campaigns and causes. Additional information is available at http://www.campaigngrid.com.

Additional information about the three-day American Association of Political Consultants conference is available at http://www.theaapc.org.

2012 Election to Drive $9.8 Billion in Ads, Online Share Growing

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:26:00 GMT

http://streetfightmag.com/2012/03/07/2012-election-to-drive-9-8-billion-in-ads-online-share-growing/

Campaigns Use ‘Microtargeting’ to Attract Supporters

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:26:00 GMT

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/us/politics/campaigns-use-microtargeting-to-attract-supporters.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

CampaignGrid featured in the New York Times - Online Data Helping Campaigns Customize Ads

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:05:00 GMT

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/us/politics/campaigns-use-microtargeting-to-attract-supporters.html?_r=3&scp=1&sq=Online%20Data&st=cse

Obama, Facebook and the power of friendship: The 2012 Data Election

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:27:00 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine-facebook-election

CampaignGrid featured in Philadelphia Business Journal - Targeting Voters Online

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:01:00 GMT

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/print-edition/2012/02/17/targeting-voters-online.html

CampaignGrid featured in The Guardian - Obama, Facebook and the power of friendship: the 2012 data election

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:03:00 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine-facebook-election

CampaignGrid featured in Street Fight - The 2012 Election Goes Hyperlocal With Targeted Online Ad Buys

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:04:00 GMT

http://streetfightmag.com/2012/02/17/the-2012-election-goes-hyperlocal-with-targeted-online-ad-buys/

Yes We Can (Profile You) – And Our Political System Is Stronger for It. An Industry Response from CampaignGrid to a Recent Essay in the Stanford Law Review Online

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:16:00 GMT

By Jordan Lieberman, Jeff Dittus and Rich Masterson

Last week in the Stanford Law Review Online, Daniel Kreiss, an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published his analysis of the development of new voter modeling techniques and challenges to privacy. The essay reflects that Kreiss has a good understanding that we stand on the cusp of a watershed moment in political and public affairs targeting:

While it is difficult to have an accurate picture of an in-progress campaign, it is clear that the integration of databases to deliver more targeted communications is a key theme of the 2012 campaign. The firm Campaign Grid, for instance, is actively matching voter databases, including the Republican Party’s, to the online registration data of its multiple partner sites. This allows the firm’s clients to deliver video, display, and search advertising to targeted segments of, and even individual, voters.

Yet the piece continues to draw the tenuous conclusion that a nexis exists between harnessing technology to provide voters with relevant messaging and the purported demise of democratic practice. The essay expresses concern that the population of voters will receive campaign messaging not seen by nonvoters. A positive aspect of relevant campaign ads is that the ads are more relevant to the voter receiving them: voters receive ads about issues they are most likely to care about, with easily accessed links to click-through to learn more. There is an elegantly simple solution to the problem the essay posits – citizens should register to vote and exercise their constitutional right to vote on Election Day. It is an embarrassment that 50 percent of the U.S. population does not vote, but this is not a privacy or messaging problem. Rather, it can be traced to voter fatigue (too many elections) and the fact that political discourse is increasingly negative. The process candidates endure in seeking political office was called “the politics of personal destruction” by Bill Clinton in 2007 and has a chilling effect on the recruitment of candidates, suppresses voter turnout and contributes to the polarization of Washington, D.C. It is our belief that there is room for positive campaigns that inspire and encourage voter engagement and we are happy to be helping many campaigns and candidates who share this belief. In fact, over the past 4 years, a good portion of our work has been focused on “get out the vote” and other campaigns designed to get more people involved in the democratic process.

The essay glosses over the ways relevant online ads support democracy to hone in instead on perceived risks. The essay relies on stories of voter data breaches from a traditional voter data company and the 2008 presidential campaign. A lot has changed in four years. The privacy debate of 2012 is how we at CampaignGrid, and others, deal with personally identifiable information (“PII”). No doubt, other companies have gone too far and paid the price with lost customers and reputation.

CampaignGrid is invested in ensuring not only that we do it right, but that we are transparent in our approach and set the bar high. CampaignGrid offers the leading platform for providing voters with relevant online ads. Over time, other companies may develop similar technology. We aim to set the standard for respecting privacy while providing voters with messaging that they find meaningful.

Our model for conveying relevant communications to voters relies on identifying computers that are used by voters and then directing information to those computers. Foremost, the cookies CampaignGrid uses to voter target do not contain, collect, or convey any PII. Instead, each cookie contains anonymous, non-personally identifiable categories of information (such as voter registration status, voting history, and relevant voter geographies – state, Congressional district, and ZIP code, etc.). These aggregated anonymous demographic categories are derived from off-line sources and the applicable category for a user is assigned to a cookie when the user registers through one of CampaignGrid’s registration partners and exercises a choice to allow third-party marketing.

Our match process was designed to be sensitive to privacy concerns. Working with our match partners, we take direct mail lists (and other off-line data for registered voters with basic demographic data) and map the data to Internet users via cookies and other commonly used tracking mechanisms. Once matched, the cookies are de-identified and stripped of information that could be used to identify specific voters – including name, address, email address, and telephone information. The information stripped away from the cookie is not stored with the cookies, but instead is permanently and securely destroyed. Use of this one-way data anonymization process means that even we cannot restore the PII to connect the cookie to an individual user. In other words, we can only identify the recipients of ads we place by the DNA of their data profile and not by voter name or address. Direct mail and telemarketing firms – in business for decades – cannot say the same.

Through this process, CampaignGrid is able to direct online messages to individual voters who are likely to find them relevant and meaningful. Not only does this online model allow for near real-time interaction, but it is more efficient for campaigns. Before the online model matured, campaigns had little choice but to devote substantial resources, far in advance, to ensure access to limited advertising space available on television. Providing voters with relevant ads online is less expensive than television and allows for a two-way dialogue that is critical to furthering democratic ideals.

The essay expresses concern that “as citizens become more educated about privacy-related issues they may be less likely to engage in public and private political expression.” CampaignGrid believes in educating citizens about privacy-related issues. It is our hope that by being transparent about our processes, and helping people understand the steps we have taken to respect privacy, engagement in political expression should benefit. In conclusion, the privacy debate of 2012 is underway. We stand ready to lend our voice to the dialogue.

Yahoo Readies Its Advertising Arm for Election Season Cox Digital Solutions, CampaignGrid partner with Yahoo for election ads

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:09:00 GMT

WASHINGTON, DC--(AdWeek - Jan 11, 2012) - For the past few months, Yahoo has been ramping up its 2012 election coverage, with a new Web show “Remake America,” new blog “The Signal” and new ABC News partnership. Now, it’s making sure that it’s advertising arm is equally ready for the campaign season ahead.

In an announcement today, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company disclosed that it was naming Cox Digital Solutions the exclusive national seller of political, issue and advocacy advertising across Yahoo properties for the upcoming election year. Cox, which enables advertisers to target people in specific congressional districts, will be selling Yahoo inventory as part of its total

portfolio. Yahoo also told Adweek that it would be partnering with online ad platform CampaignGrid to help candidates and other advertisers finely target consumers around key election topics.

“The election is one of our 2012 major tent pole events,” Wayne Powers, Yahoo’s SVP of North America Sales, told Adweek. “It’s going to be a real area of opportunity and a real area of focus.”

Powers said Cox will focus on campaign dollars specific to issues, such as jobs and healthcare, while Yahoo’s field sales team will work with core advertisers who want to want to associate their messages with the most engaging and high-traffic election issues.

Echoing recent comments made by Yahoo’s incoming CEO Scott Thompson about how data will drive the company’s turnaround, Powers also said that technology and data will play a big role in the company’s multiplatform political advertising capabilities.

In addition to the 80 million monthly unique visitors to Yahoo’s news channel, Powers said Yahoo has identified 100 million unique visitors with political interests around specific election-related topics. The company says its entire universe of Web properties attracts 149 million unique users a month, including 90 percent of the nation’s online voting-age adults.

By partnering with CampaignGrid, which has a database of 187 million registered voters, he said Yahoo will be able to help advertisers reach consumers in targeted geographical areas interested in topics like healthcare, jobs and the economy.
“We can give the candidates and the advertisers the ability to tightly define and zero in on specific topics,” he said.

According to a survey this month from STRATA, which provides software for media buyers and sellers, spending on digital political advertising has increased 100 percent since the 2010 mid-term elections. The company also said that political campaigns are increasingly merging traditional and digital buys, with one-third of the respondents indicating that this includes 75 percent of their clients.

But, it seems that mobile advertising has not yet gained traction this year. According to STRATA, 85 percent of survey respondents said that less than 25 percent of political clients are using mobile to reach voters.

CampaignGrid and Mixpo Team Up to Deliver Voter-Targeted Interactive Video Ads

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:03:00 GMT

WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwire - Jan 5, 2012) - 2012 will bring an unprecedented $4 billion spend in political advertising. To help campaigns reach their goals, CampaignGrid, LLC. today announced the availability of a new interactive video advertisement product powered by ad technology providerMixpo, Inc.

Online video advertisements have proven to be an effective way to heighten a campaign's ability to cost-effectively build awareness and favorability for candidates and causes, garner additional donations and volunteers, and ultimately to maximize votes. Political advertisers now have access to a powerful combination of CampaignGrid's revolutionary voter targeted video ad network -- VoterGrid -- and Mixpo's proprietary SmartVideo platform. VoterGrid maps every registered voter in the United States to the Internet and uses party registration, voter history and demographic data to target online messages, and Mixpo SmartVideo localizes and tailors the actual video ad itself based on audience so that each ad is customized based on whoever is watching. Mixpo's platform also enables the incorporation of compelling interactivity into online video ads.

CampaignGrid's Interactive Video Ads include elements such as volunteer registration and donation forms, directions to local polling stations, and sharing via Facebook and Twitter. They also offer polling inside the videos themselves for instant results. Interactive Video Ad campaigns are incredibly efficient, as campaigns can create once, run anywhere as the ad units run across computer, tablet, and smartphone. The ads can also run in-stream, in-banner, on mobile, or in-app.

"Targeting audiences in this way saves money, eliminates waste, and assures campaigns are communicating with the voters they most want to target," said Jeff Dittus, CEO of CampaignGrid. "Our new Interactive Video Ad product powered by Mixpo will give CampaignGrid the ability to deliver voter-tailored, rich interactive ads across our video inventory to engage and persuade specific voting groups more effectively than any other online ad type during this critical election season."

"The ability for political and public affairs campaigns to easily transform TV spots into targeted, interactive voter-tailored video ads will be of great benefit to them in 2012," according to Anupam Gupta, CEO of Mixpo. "We've worked with nearly two hundred campaigns of all types over the last two years and are excited to be supporting CampaignGrid in this regard."

About CampaignGrid
CampaignGrid is the market leader and innovator in providing data-driven online advertising targeting for candidates, causes and commercial clients. VoterGrid, the Company's best-in-class online advertising platform, combines 187 million U.S. voter records with demographic, behavioral and lifestyle data to enable clients to custom design highly targeted campaigns to achieve their goals, bringing a new dimension to constituent outreach and political campaigns. CampaignGrid was founded in 2008 by industry veterans with decades of online experience and has headquarters near Philadelphia and in Washington, D.C. CampaignGrid's voter targeted in-stream video inventory is powered by TidalTV, which seamlessly integrates with Mixpo advertising technology.

About Mixpo
Mixpo is a video advertising technology provider that enables publishers, ad networks, and agencies to easily deliver dynamically tailored, interactive video ads that are customized for unique audience segments. Mixpo's SmartVideo Advanced Analytics provides automatic multivariate testing and deep insights for marketers wanting to assess and hone campaign performance. Headquartered in Seattle, Mixpo serves, manages, and enables hundreds of millions of video ad impressions and thousands of campaigns simultaneously each month throughout the U.S. across in-stream, in-banner, mobile and in-app advertising platforms. To learn more, visit www.mixpo.com.

John Galloway Joins Campaign Grid in Philadelphia Office

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:07:00 GMT

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

CampaignGrid announced today respected publishing and operating executive John Galloway has joined the data-driven advertising company to help manage the firm’s rapid growth and expansion into new market segments.

From 2004 to 2009, John was the President of Atlantic Media Company, a leading media company serving influential audiences in Washington, DC and around the nation through some of the most respected brands in American journalism including The Atlantic, National Journal, Congress Daily and Government Executive. During his tenure, John moved aggressively to transform legacy business lines, achieving record profitability while transforming the organization by offering advertisers and corporate sponsors innovative online and event-based opportunities in addition to traditional print advertising programs. Prior to joining Atlantic Media, John held a variety of senior executive positions with The Advisory Board Company (Nasdaq: ABCO) a preeminent provider of best practices research for the health care industry, where he played an integral role in the company’s growth and successful initial public offering.

More recently, John served as the Senior Advisor to the Federal Chief Performance Officer and Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget.

John joins a CampaignGrid team that has created the only platform that allows political campaigns and advocacy organizations to target registered voters through online display, video and mobile advertising. Having proven the power of its platform over the last several years, CampaignGrid is poised to capture a significant and growing share of online political advertising in the 2012 cycle, and to expand its data-driven approach to additional market segments.

CampaignGrid’s Chairman Rich Masterson said, “John is a fantastic addition to our team given the combination of his publishing experience, operating expertise, and understanding of how Washington, DC works. As our Executive Vice President for Strategy and Development, John will work with me, our CEO Jeff Dittus, and other members of our senior team to ensure flawless execution on our business plans and growth strategy.”

Campaign Grid CEO Dittus Talks Ad Platforms For Politics

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:11:00 GMT

Campaign Grid CEO Dittus Talks Ad Platforms For Politics
October 31, 2011 4:54 pm

Jeff Dittus is CEO of Campaign Grid, a data-driven ad platform for political campaigns.

AdExchanger.com: How did Campaign Grid begin?

JD: The founding of CampaignGrid was an accident. My partner Rich Masterson was asked to run for Congress in the suburbs of Philadelphia. As he was putting his campaign together he priced out how much placing advertisements for his congressional campaign on TV would cost. As we evaluated the media buy, we quickly realized that you had to pay millions of dollars to reach six million people, of which 98 percent of them were not the target audience and could not vote for him in his congressional district (i.e.: registered voters, living in the 13th district of PA that vote in primaries). In 2008 when we started the company, we understood the power of online targeting and how the electorate was moving online to get news, participate in democracy and give to candidates. It was before the President used the web so brilliantly. We quickly learned how difficult it was to buy online media for political campaigns, as publishers were not set up to deal with the niche. It also became apparent that targeting voters was impossible. So we took these set of circumstances and adapted commercial tools that used “BIG DATA” for online political advertising.

What problem is Campaign Grid solving?

We solve several problems:

Grid eliminates the waste in traditional media by combining first party data via our National Online Voter File(TM); a proprietary list of all 187 million registered voters with RTB on all nine ad exchanges, the top portals such as Yahoo and AOL, and the top online video networks such as TidalTV, and mobile networks. In the past, first party matching programs had limited reach, and by combining the RTB exchanges, with the portals and other networks listed above, we can seamlessly provide advertisers with great scale.

This integration solves the second problem which is targeting accountability and consolidated reporting. Grid targets registered voters and provides accountability via audience reporting and conversion attribution.

Our solution to the lack of targeting registered voters and measuring their participation in elections was to invest heavily in post-click research. We’ve conducted studies measuring the efficacy of different online messaging programs.

In politics we have solutions for voter contact, persuasion, fund raising, list building and Get out the vote. We can also compliment a campaign or advocacy groups direct mail program by serving online ads to the same list of voters that get direct mail.

There are other companies in the space specializing in serving the political campaign world - how are you differentiating?

CampaignGrid is the only company that can target registered voters with online display, video and mobile advertising. We can reach over 100 million voters on our network, which puts Grid in the top ten of all audience targeting networks. Because of our National Online Voter File, which CampaignGrid owns exclusively, we have the ability to make creative media plans that match political micro-targeting programs.

This capability allows us to compliment other traditional media programs such as direct mail and television with online ads to the same groups of voters. Advanced segmentation allows us to reach the right individuals at the right time with the right message.

Can you characterize the momentum toward ad network services today on behalf of political campaigns? Thoughts on how that might play out?

When we started Grid, the average campaign spent one percent on digital media. In 2010 that moved to three percent of budgets in aggregate, and many of our clients spent upwards of ten percent online. As a result, CampaignGrid grew its top line ten times in 2010.

Political campaigns are increasingly sophisticated and can no longer afford to rely on a scattershot approach to paid media. Marketers have known for years that multi-channel programs are more effective, than a single medium. Television and direct mail will always be part of the media mix, but it’s increasingly evident that a wraparound of paid media is most effective, particularly when the message can be tailored to the individual.

In the end, we’ll see a departure from media that is not addressable. Radio and newspapers are toast. While addressable, mail costs are soaring and service is a mess.

Do you have to focus on one party or another? How do you manage that especially in that you may have access to sensitive targeting data?

We are working on ways to be bipartisan without alienating our past client base. All other major media companies are bi-partisan, including Google, Yahoo and the like, so there are companies in the marketplace as a precedent. Our platform can upload and use specific offline lists for individual clients, so we have firewalls in place to keep campaign and proprietary data in siloes.

What are the success metrics for your political campaigns, if you will?

Each campaign is different. Overall, most campaigns are looking for a combination of branding, list building, fundraising, persuasion and real time response to the news cycle and of course, turning people out to vote at election time. Depending on the point in the cycle, our metrics for success change. What’s great about this technology is that we can constantly change the media mix, which can’t happen in any other media.

What are your thoughts on good inventory sources today?

Since we are buying audiences, we are always learning which sites work best for the particular audience and have not found one rule of thumb yet. Grid is integrating voter targeting into private exchanges of some top news organizations. Our tools allow for publishers to ID voters and sell a higher CPM to their advertisers for this highly sought after audience. I believe this will become a larger portion of our business as time moves on, since the blind exchanges are not optimal for our clients or the publishers. We have just completed an integration of our voter data with a major broadcast television group and hope to be releasing the details of this private voter exchange shortly.

What types of datasets do you use for targeting? Where do they come from?

Our National Online Voter File allows targeting for various segments of political data. Geography where the registered voter pulls the lever, i.e.: State, Congressional District, and State House and Senate District, Voter propensity (i.e.: voted in three of the last four general elections), and of course party registration, Republican, Democrat and Independent. We also can identify prior donors for both candidates and causes.

Our platform also creates look-alike models, and with a large enough campaign, we can begin to find new donors that look like existing online donors who have moved through our funnel.

Grid's platform also has a large amount of third party demographic data available from companies like Targus Info, Lotame, IXI, Bizo and others.

Any plans to provide services that will facilitate the purchase of guaranteed placements?

In most of our campaigns, we do direct placements. Mainly this is limited to local news sites important to the campaign. We also buy guaranteed placements on the portals and email engines. In the last cycle we took over the Fox News Home page and syndicated the buy geographically to create 50 state wide home page roadblocks. We expect to repeat this tactic again.

How is the company funded? Any big milestones that you'd like to achieve over the next 12 months?

We’ve had tremendous growth over the last two years and haven’t required outside funding. We’ve invented and have patents pending to hold the lead in online targeting using the National Online Voter File with both display and the enormous video inventory we’ve acquired through our partnership with TidalTV.

What’s next? Data Mining of our "Big Data Set". The data exhaust we are collecting on the electorate is enormous and very valuable when mined correctly. Thus, we are working hard on data mining and benchmarking tools to get better lift in ad performance and political learning from our real time national poll. Politics will always be part art, and part science. We want to ensure the science is perfected.

CampaignGrid Partners with TidalTV to Create Exclusive Voter Targeted Video Network

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:45:00 GMT

- Political advertisers can now target registered voters on one of the largest in-stream video ad networks in U.S.
- Eliminates waste while using GRP metrics similar to traditional television

NEW YORK, Sept. 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- TidalTV, an online video advertising network and solutions provider, today announced it has been named the in-stream video partner for CampaignGrid, the market leader in providing data-driven, hyper-local online voter targeting for candidates, causes and commercial clients. By pairing CampaignGrid's National Online Voter File™ of over 187 million registered U.S. voters with TidalTV's in-stream advertising network, political advertisers can now target registered voters watching online video across thousands of brand-safe sites.

The partnership will now offer political advertisers the unprecedented ability to reach discrete voter segments based on party affiliation, voting history, congressional district, neighborhood and other demographic segmentation, through a highly-targeted and customizable online video network.

Political advertising in 2012 will continue its upward trajectory and will likely surpass the all time spending high of over $4.5 billion in 2010 (Source: PQ Media), of which more than half is untargeted broadcast television. The extreme competitiveness fueled by such massive spending will make the efficient use of advertising dollars crucial to the success of political campaigns. Yet traditional broadcast television, which was cluttered with approximately 80% of all political dollars in 2010 (Source: Kantar Media), delivers mass reach against what is, in most instances, a narrow base of eligible voters, resulting in substantial levels of wasted media dollars.

"According to the Census Bureau, just 58% of adult Americans voted in 2008. Those voters are then further segmented between three major political parties and multiple, local voting districts," said CampaignGrid CEO Jeff Dittus. "Obviously, traditional broadcast media, and even site-specific digital media, will deliver the majority of impressions to viewers who are either ineligible, or not politically-inclined to vote for a given candidate. Our data, paired with TidalTV's video network, allows political advertisers to eliminate this waste and reach those who will truly impact the outcome of a political race."

CampaignGrid data identifies consumers by political party, voting frequency or donor history in a non-personally identifiable manner. TidalTV then employs its extensive online video network and advanced ad decisioning technology to reach these consumers by demographic or geographic criteria, down to zip code level hyper-targeting, in accordance with campaign objectives. By applying this level of voter targeting to online video, advertisers can match the precision once only possible with direct mail, with the dynamic sight, sound and motion of video.

"Political advertisers have long understood the emotional appeal and added dimension that TV advertising bring to a candidate's message," said TidalTV President Tom McMahon. "Through our partnership with CampaignGrid, we're able to focus the delivery of sight, sound and motion advertising to the specific audience a candidate is trying reach. The implications of this could dramatically change the way political advertisers think about video in the upcoming political year."

Currently, 84% of U.S. Internet users, or over 171 million consumers, watch online video (Source: comScore). A recent IAB study projected digital video spending to increase 22% by 2012, yet only 2% of time spent viewing online video is currently spent viewing ads, compared to 25% on traditional television. So not only does online video provide more precise targeting and incremental reach, it also offers a less cluttered environment—a key advantage for political advertisers during what promises to be a historic year for campaign spending.

About TidalTV

TidalTV is a video advertising network and solutions provider that flawlessly connects some of the world's most powerful brands with their targeted consumers. Working with over 1,000 premier content creators and publishing partners, TidalTV has access to an online addressable universe of over 80 million unique viewers per month. The network is one of the largest aggregator of 1:1 addressable audience data from third-party providers, with the ability to target precise consumer segments by demographic, psychographic and behavioral metrics. TidalTV's industry-leading, mathematically-based consumer targeting technology guarantees Zero Waste—advertisers extract value from every media impression, and publishers monetize their audience across all demographics. TidalTV leverages the power of consumer data and ad decisioning to increase accountability, optimize performance and maximize advertising ROI within video campaigns.

TidalTV is headquartered in Baltimore, MD, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and London. For more information, visit www.tidaltv.com.

About CampaignGrid

CampaignGrid is the market leader and innovator in providing data-driven online targeting for candidates, causes and commercial clients. Its best-in-class online advertising platform combines 187 million U.S. voter records with demographic, behavioral and lifestyle data to enable clients to custom design highly targeted campaigns to achieve their goals, bringing a new dimension to constituent outreach and political campaigns. CampaignGrid was founded in 2008 by industry veterans with decades of online experience and has headquarters near Philadelphia and an office in Washington, D.C. Since inception, CampaignGrid delivered more than 2 billion advertising impressions on behalf of 250 campaigns, advocacy groups, nonprofits and commercial clients. For more information, visit www.campaigngrid.com.

SOURCE TidalTV

Direct Link to PR Newswire HERE...