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From the Shanes (D'Aprile & Greer) @ Campaigns & Elections

Incredible moment: when Google announced the huge change to its political ad policy in the middle of our CampaignTech Innovation Summit (more below, obvs).

Tickets are now on sale for CampaignTech East next April 14-15. Join us.

Spare a thought for Greer who right now is on a plane to Cancun 🏖️ for our Reed Latino Awards, where we’ll be honoring the best campaign work in Latin America.


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No Digital Targeting for You
Google Shrinks Its Ad Options and Consultants Aren’t Happy

Turns out this week was a good time to have hundreds of digital strategists gathered under the same roof at CampaignTech Innovation Summit in DC. News of the changes to Google’s political ad policies broke as day one of the Summit concluded. Summary: No one’s happy.

Here’s a lengthier treatmentfrom C&E Editor Sean J. Miller, but the general consensus from both D and R strategists is that legitimate political outreach takes a big hit + the new rules do nothing to address the spread of disinformation. A couple of quick takes from strategists at the Summit:      

Carter Kidd of Campaign Solutions:
"You can come up with a lot of ways to work around it for acquisition when you’re looking for new email addresses and things like that, but persuasion is going to be hit pretty hard, and I think more is likely to come with second and third-party data in terms of restrictions and who can do what. YouTube will certainly be impacted."

Tatenda Musapatike of ACRONYM:
"We don’t have buckets of money and so what happens when we know we can no longer lift the audience based on targeted factors?"

Julia Ager
of Sapphire Strategies:
"Ultimately what this Google policy does is takes away our ability to target voters. Rolling back that policy right away would be our recommendation."

Among strategists on the left, the concern is particularly acute. In an open letter to Google, signed by Democratic consultants at more than a dozen firms, strategists ripped the new policy as one that will empower "the biggest advertisers, with the most dollars" and disadvantage progressive campaigns given that Google will now restrict campaigns from using the voter file to target.

A few things to think about here as this develops:

  • The impact on smaller campaigns who, in the absence of targeting options, can’t afford the waste that may now be inherent in reaching the audience they need via Google.
  • Who steps in to fill the void? There’s a major opportunity for smaller ad networks here and the reality is plenty of other inventory options already exist.  
  • Which platform is next? Facebook is already mulling some limited restrictions with regard to political advertising, but how much further will they go?

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Xandr has enhanced the digital advertising capabilities for political media buyers. Xandr Invest, the strategic buying platform built for the future of digital advertising, enables candidates to reach voters at key moments on premium video inventory. Meet us at the upcoming summit to learn more!

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What About the Twitch Streamers?

Finding Value in Emerging Platforms

One of our favorite sessions at this week’s CampaignTech Innovation Summit was one that explored the value of emerging platforms with Tate Holcombe of Go BIG Media, Cheryl Hori of Pacific Campaign House and Emily Keller, the social media director at the DNC.  

One place where the panel sees real potential: the gaming platform Twitch. Hori told the story of a gun violence prevention group she worked with that partnered with a well-known Twitch streamer. During a day-long gaming stream, the gamer offered a quick pitch for the organization every 45 minutes or so. The group raised $250k in 24 hours.

The real potential with Twitch may be in the partner streams, according to Holcombe. These let verified streamers bring someone else onto the stream via video to engage with — potentially an opportunity for the right sort of candidates.   

A couple of caveats here. First, most people on the platform would rather not see politics on their streams, so orgs or campaigns who engage here need to be cautious. Second, there are no targeting options on Twitch — good for national campaigns or orgs, less so for anything down-ballot.   

As for other emerging platforms, the panel saw limited value in TikTok in large part because of security concerns. And Reddit still has a bit of a Wild West quality, despite the enormous audiences you can reach there.

One interesting nugget from the DNC’s Keller on Snapchat: the party is actually ramping up its presence on the platform for 2020 and trying to take advantage as Snap puts more emphasis on its political vertical.


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Nov 20-21, 2019 - Washington, DC


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Likes, Clicks and Shares Tell Us Nothing

It’s Time to Get Serious About Optimizing Creative

Patrick Ruffini gave a tour de force on the CampaignTech Innovation Summit main stage about why campaigns need to get serious about testing creative for persuasion.

In short: Traditional tools don’t always tell us what works well. Three examples:

Focus Groups: a great way to explore what voters are thinking about. But they aren’t great for judging advertising. For example, if you’re testing a negative ad, participants generally don’t want to be the one to say, "I really like this."

Facebook: likes, clicks, and shares are great if you’re any kind of acquisition campaign. But studies show that metrics like this don’t work for testing persuasion. Ruffini: "There is absolutely zero correlation between what moves people on an issue and engagement with an ad."

List Studies: they take the right experimental approach: control group vs those exposed to the ad(s). The problem is that, 1) they typically aren’t used for TV ads and, 2) generally it is used as part of a live campaign. Whereas what you really should be doing is testing the ads before they ever go live.

Tips for success:

  • Make testing a part of the plan from the get-go. That might mean investing more upfront to cut a few different versions of an ad.
  • Decide upfront on what metrics matter. Don’t have that discussion when you actually get to the testing stage. Prime example: using a ballot sample to determine if creative has a measurable effect on voter decision-making.
  • Test multiple creative variations. Don’t put your eggs in one basket.
  • Have the humility to test unfinished work because most campaigns won’t have the budget to fully produce numerous ads just for testing purposes.
  • Commit to change based on testing results.
Worth Diving Into

Google Ad Policy Update
(Google)

Read the Google announcement in full.

What Your Campaign Should Do About Google’s Advertising Changes
(Best Practice Digital)
Eric Wilson breaks down four things he thinks campaigns need to do in response to the change in Google’s ad policy.

Google Change Hits UK Weeks From National Election
(Sky)
Google announced that its new ad policy would take effect in the UK within a week, leaving campaigners little time to adjust ahead of the looming December 12th national election.

 
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