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In case you haven’t read this in the WSJ, Google, Facebook and Twitter are making changes to how political campaigns use these platforms for targeted digital advertising.

Fortunately, Raconteur is ahead of the curve, and none of these changes will hamper our efforts for our clients. We continue to deliver targeted ads to voters and donors to lock down votes, raise money and mobilize supporters.

Facts about Raconteur’s capabilities:

1. We identify, track and deliver ads to voters and donors without using these three networks. Like the presidential campaigns, we refresh our data daily.

2. We have a unified data system to deliver ads efficiently to voters and donors across the digital landscape and on Connected TV. This keeps our targeting very accurate and improves our efficiency.

3. We are experts in compliance on Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other networks. This is how we are confident that these changes won’t affect our clients.

Please make an appointment if you want to discuss this in more detail. I look forward to hearing from you.

Some other news on this:

Facebook Weighs Steps to Curb Narrowly Targeted Political Ads, Nov. 21
Tech firms are reversing a trend of offering ever-more precise tools that in some cases facilitated the spread of misinformation

Google to Restrict Political Ad Targeting on Its Platforms, Nov. 20
Advertisers will no longer be able to target political ads based on users’ interests inferred from browsing or search history

Here’s the good, the bad and the troubling.

The Good

These changes will keep bad actors out of elections.
– Misinformation campaigns will be a smaller be part of the 2020 cycle.
– This will also keep bad, ham-handed vendors out of elections. Those folks who say, “Oh yeah, we do digital” won’t be capable of running high-performing digital ads for your campaign. Google and Facebook are looking for agencies will a level of expertise and certifications that comes from experience on their platforms. These networks still will allow data for targeting, but just not in campaigns that have the hallmarks of amateurs or intentionally contrived. Again, these networks won’t judge the content of your ads. They’ll evaluate how the ads are done.
– Twitter has never been a valuable network for targeting voters with advertising. So nothing lost here.

The Bad

These changes can block legitimate advertising campaigns. Without smart planning and execution, the ads on Google and Facebook can sit in a holding pattern.

The Troubling

Digital advertising is still a frontier in political campaigning, and it has given many a share of voice that had been expensive to acquire. Google, Facebook and Twitter are curtailing innovation. They are treating campaigns differently than corporations, nonprofits and other organizations that target their advertising.

I hope this is good information for you. Please make an appointment if you want to discuss this in more detail. I look forward to hearing from you.

This is part 3 of 3 blogs posts Past, Present and Future of Political Digital Marketing. You can find part 1 here, Is Your Campaign in the Past? Using old political digital marketing tactics is a sure sign you’re behind the times, and you can find part 2 here, Is Your Campaign Using Modern Political Digital Marketing Tactics?

This blog post is going to tell you whether your campaign is ready for the future of digital political marketing to raise money and lockdown votes. Make an appointment with Ryan Gravatt at Raconteur Media if you’re already concerned about your campaign’s political digital marketing.

These are predictions for the Future of Digital Campaigns based on trends and observations.

Less Facebook

Facebook may be less of a force for political campaigns in the future. By when? Maybe as soon as 2022. Large news outlets are reporting that Facebook is reducing its emphasis on political advertising, which is the main tool modern campaigns use to build lists and raise money. And other existing news and social sites are building platforms to compete with Facebook for advertising dollars that campaigns spend.

More Email List Building

Because Facebook is not a tool for reaching voters and your supporters in the future, campaigns will return to the very reliable tactics of List Building and sending email. Without the reach and consistency of Facebook as a tool, smart campaigns will start building a list of voters, donors, and supporters they can touch and mobilize.

Peer to Peer Mobile

Peer to Peer Mobile allows volunteers and supporters to use text messages through a platform to other supporters or to help you reach and contact voters. Think of it as blockwalking by text message. Any supporter can do it from anywhere. Here’s an example of a California county Democrat party using a Facebook Group to recruit locals to text for Beto O’Rourke in his 2018 U.S. Senate race.

Delivering Targeted Video

Want the power of TV without the cost? Then you’re looking for targeted video. Make an appointment with Ryan Gravatt to learn how to get it. Delivering targeted video will leap from social media to the living room TV. The media industry calls this “Over The Top” (OTT) and it refers to any content people view via a high-speed Internet connection instead of using a cable or satellite provider.

We can analyze any audience, determine their OTT viewing habits and craft a budget to sufficiently reach them with video advertising they consumer only with OTT viewing. This eliminates the guesswork of how much of your audience is seeing your ads. We can also mix traditional TV media buying and distribute the budget efficiently.

How? We connect our network partners to our voter data and place the ads to target our data segments. Already in the 2020 cycle, our team is planning targeted video campaigns that touch voters across the county from January 2020 to Election Day.

Multimedia Websites

Campaigns will need Websites to load quickly and have more video than images and text. Voters are becoming more accustomed to watching messages instead of reading political messages. With OTT growing, voters will expect the candidate to have videos. This trend helps those campaigns that rely less on Facebook and more on their own direct communication that drives voters into their engagement funnel.

A Larger Role in Fundraising

Campaigns should start planning a path toward a positive ROI with digital fundraising. The days are gone when you throw something on social media to see what happens. This jackpot style fundraising is past its prime and it’s no longer attracting the eyeballs and clicks it once did. Smart political digital marketing teams know how to build a list that raises money for campaigns. It takes time and investment, but starting now will ensure your campaign is ready for the future of fundraising. The hallmarks of a good trajectory are a gradual increase in the donors on your list and a gradual increase in the number of donations.

Your campaign is ready for the Future IF your…

• Email list building strategy depends less and less upon Facebook
• Voter targeting strategy depends less on Facebook
• Digital outreach is across many channels and platforms
• Delivering OTT video to voters
• Fundraising increases and provides a positive ROI

This is part 2 of 3 blogs posts Past, Present and Future of Political Digital Marketing. You can find part 1 here, Is Your Campaign in the Past? Using old political digital marketing tactics is a sure sign you’re behind the times.

This blog post is going to tell you whether your campaign is using modern tactics. Make an appointment with Ryan Gravatt at Raconteur Media if you’re already concerned about your campaign’s political digital marketing.

Is Your Campaign Using Modern Political Digital Marketing Tactics?

Political campaigns are shoestring operations. An overarching concern within all aspects of a shoestring operation is how to stretch the budget. Political campaigns wrestle with the question, “Can we spend less and get the same or better result?”

Political digital marketing is the answer in most cases.

Political digital marketing costs less relative to the traditional tactics that enable campaigns to scale quickly and frequently to your supporters and audience.

Resist tactical evolution, especially if their tactics helped them win and especially when those perceived have a perceived value of helping them win again. Why? Campaigns have stakeholders – consultants, candidates and staff – who hold on to the status quo, and their intransigence to new tactics is the obstacle. It’s understandable. Why change what works?

Your Campaign is in the Present IF…

Your Website Loads Quickly

And by quickly I mean less than 10 seconds. Mach Metrics released a study that the average landing page loads in 22 seconds on a mobile device. That’s key because for a modern political campaign, more than 50% of your traffic should be coming into a landing page. You’re driving most of that traffic to landing pages with advertising. So a page that loads slowly is a leak in your pipeline for locking down votes, raising money and spending wisely.

You are building an email list of voters and donors

It’s important to know who is on your email list. While open rates, click rates and the size of your list are important metrics, having voters and donors on your list correlates to success on election day. Donors are voters. And while donors are financial contributors, any dollar they give your campaign is a vote you can count on election day. Voters may become donors, but not always. Voting and contributing to political candidates are habits. So having an email of people who are not voters and donors means you are making assumptions in your communications and marketing. To belabor the point, grooming people to become voters and donors is hard, expensive work. So start your list building by reaching out to voters and donors in your district.

Your advertising is data-driven

Data-driven advertising for political and issue campaigns is the best, most efficient tactic for modern political digital marketing. Stop any advertising you’re doing that is not data driven. Demographic targeting wastes money. It’s a wish rather than a strategy. You’re hoping, wishing that people who vote will see your digital ads when you use demographic targeting. Example: Let’s use Facebook to advertise to people who watch Fox News.

A data-driven campaign uses a source of voters within Facebook or an advertising network to deliver ads only to those voters, no one else. Nothing gives you a better return on your advertising spend than delivering your message to the right voters at the right time.

You are making data-based decisions

A modern political campaign makes decisions using data. And there’s so much data in political digital marketing it helps campaigns execute the best, smartest tactics. If your digital marketing vendor doesn’t provide specific analytics reports, demand it. You can measure the quality of your Website traffic. You can measure the quality of your social media posts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. You certainly can measure the quality of your advertising campaigns with advertising reports, which need to go beyond impressions and clicks for sure.

Get Free Advice

I hope you found this blog post helpful or at least it made you ask yourself some questions about what you should be or could be doing. For some free advice, make an appointment with Ryan Gravatt at Raconteur Media if you’re already concerned about your campaign’s political digital marketing.

This is part 1 of 3 blogs posts: Past, Present and Future of Political Digital Marketing.

Is your campaign in the past and using old tactics of political digital marketing?

Political campaigns resist tactical evolution, especially if their tactics helped them win, and especially when those perceived tactics have a perceived value of helping them win again. Why? Campaigns have stakeholders – consultants, candidates and staff – who hold on to the status quo. Their intransigence to new tactics is the obstacle. It’s understandable. Why change what works?

Well, in digital political marketing, the proven tactics of your last election become out of date as soon as you win. The tactics you adopted at the beginning of your campaign, which could be 18 months before your victory, are not current. Trends change. Technology gets better. Metrics and analytics show a better way to reach your goals.

Political digital marketing is a growing force within election campaigns. The amount of money campaigns are spending on digital marketing proves this. Even if a campaign is doing the same old stuff, it is spending more money on digital marketing because all campaigns are doing more digitally. So, with an inevitable commitment to more digital marketing spending, a campaign should get out of the past and set its trajectory on the future of political digital marketing.

This blog post is going to tell you whether your campaign is stuck in the past. The next two posts will tell you if your campaign is in the present and whether your campaign is ready for the future of political digital marketing. Make an appointment with Ryan Gravatt at Raconteur Media if you’re already concerned about your campaign’s political digital marketing.

You’re campaign is stuck in the past IF…

You don’t have an email list

The name of the game in an election is scale quickly and frequently to your supporters and audience. Email checks all these boxes. A campaign operating without an email list is a campaign that will have to spend more to scale its reach quickly and frequently.

You are buying or renting email lists

Renting, buying or borrowing an email list is a failing tactic. Your campaign needs to build an email list from scratch. Renting, buying or borrowing an email list makes you feel like you’re going to scale quickly and frequently. But the truth is the emails you send are going to no one who knows you or cares much about your campaign. Worse, the messages may go to spam.

You don’t have a campaign Facebook page

Candidates need to use a campaign Facebook page – not their personal page. The differences are tremendous in order to scale quickly and frequently.

You are buying digital ads to target demographics

Digital advertising has many benefits and helps a campaign scale quickly and frequently. However, demographic target – ex: buying ads on foxnews.com because “this is the news site for my voters” – is a fast way to waste money without reaching voters. A campaign might as well light money on fire if it’s buying ads on sites rather than targeting voters.

Your campaign lets a generalist manage digital communication

Don’t confuse the ability to post on Facebook with the strategic expertise to manage a digital communication or marketing plan. Political digital marketing is an art and a science that builds upon itself. Too often, campaigns confuse motion with progress. If your campaign is allowing a generalist or even someone without proven political digital marketing expertise, your campaign will not scale quickly and frequently. In this scenario, your campaign is confusing motion ( posting on social media ) with progress ( actually touching voters and supporters and moving them into a deeper relationship with your campaign).

Friends, At Raconteur Media, we consider ourselves the luckiest folks in digital marketing because we have friends and clients like you. For 16 years, these relationships have helped us become the agency we are today.

The most significant changes to Raconteur Media came in the last 12 months. We had our most successful year ever. We added several new team members. And we celebrated 16 years of being in business. All of this happened because of friends and clients like you.

THANK YOU for 16 years. We are planning for the next 16 years and beyond! I will be communicating with you personally.

Curious what 16 year of experience can do for you? Please Make An Appointment talk with me if you have any questions or thoughts before I reach out to you.