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How the US Election candidates are using pay per click advertising to target voters

By Andrew Redfern @ 12th June 2008 9:21 am

It’s one of those things that does initially seems a little bit incongruous but the more you think about it systems like Google adWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing are absolutely perfect for super-targetted campaigns and so why wouldn’t you use it for an election campaign?

Peter Greenberger is Google’s man in charge of political advertising and perhaps unsurprisingly he thinks the candidates should be investing more of their budgets in pay per click.

He gives an interesting interview to Clickz in which he highlights the difference between how the various candidates used adWords.

Q. What can you tell me about how Clinton, Obama and McCain have used Google thus far this election season?

A. I think the momentous thing about the 2008 election campaign is just about every presidential campaign used Google AdWords, on the right and the left. However some candidates used it a lot earlier than others… Obama started the strategy very early and stuck with it and was able to build an enormous list of supporters.

Clinton’s campaign started a little later… They had experimented with it early on in the campaign season and then they ended up cutting it off the last two quarters of 2007… During that time the Obama and McCain campaigns were using AdWords.

Clinton’s campaign re-launched their AdWords campaign when the primaries were already underway… They had already dug themselves into a huge hole in terms of how many small donors they could count on.

All along, the Obama campaign had been building this huge list and Clinton wasn’t even in the game.

Q. What can you tell me about how the presidential campaigns used geo-targeting, or about their keyword buying strategies?

A. Both of the remaining campaigns have had very aggressive keyword strategies.

One of the more interesting things I’ve seen was the attempt to expand the electorate… During the “Texas two-step” primary, the Obama campaign geo-targeted ads to users in the state of Texas. When they searched for voter information, they were shown an Obama ad… I think you’ll see this strategy adopted in the swing states during the general election.

Q. Did Clinton target Google ads in a similar fashion?

A. They seemed to be more focused on fundraising… The priorities of a campaign have to relate to what the greatest needs are… The Obama campaign was raising money online, but they had the luxury to experiment… and now they go into the general [election] with some critical learnings.

Read the full interview here : Q&A with Paul Greenberger

Would you like to know more about pay per click advertising? If so, contact Hit Search, SEMPO accredited Search Engine Optimisation and Pay Per Click specialists, on 0845 643 9289. Remember, its a big world out there, make sure you become visible.

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