Posts filed under 'Search Advertising'
- Update: The Obama Camp Dials It Forward. Post-primary conference call plays it subtle, while all is well in ClintonLand.
- McCain Launches Spanish-Language Website. Wonder how the Minutemen (no, not THE Minutemen) will feel about THAT one?
- Bury bad news with online press releases. Somebody forward this to Hillary Clinton. C.f. Craigslist Ad Of The Day.
- The critical technology, for the early phase of the industrial revolution, was gin. From gin to sitcoms to lolcats, via Henry Copeland.
- Bunches o’ Studies and Stats on Nonprofit Marketing.
- How-To: 10 Tips for Launching a Solid Podcast.
- Two new guides to presidential online advertising from Clickz, Online Presidential Display Ads Leading to the 2008 Primaries and All Primaries Are Local: 2008 Presidential Campaigns Buy Local Online.
- The Tale of the E-mail. Hillary and Barack’s constrasting post-Indiana/NC notes. C.f. She’s Still In, And She’s Still In To Win.
- Pew Study Confirms Cell Phones Rule.
- Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth.
- Right now, I’m watching the President of the Utah State Senate on my desktop. Julie, you had me at “desktop.”
- Google Reader is becoming more of a social networking application.
- Twitter Post Rescues Jailed Journalist, but Egyptians ignore Facebook call.
- How the White House lost 5 million e-mails.
- Jailed Chinese Journalist Shi Tao’s Poem Follows Olympic Torch’s Route Online.
- Matt Stoller on how liberals rule the web, and The Baltimore Sun on how Matt and friends raised 400K for Donna Edwards. Via tPrez.
- Phantom Obama Vote Appears on NJ Voting Machine.
- Web Ads from Left and Right Advocacy Groups Signal More to Come.
- Media criticism in context: “Yes, it would be nice if the press spent less time on inanities and more time on how candidates planned to actually run the country. But this view of the media is just too simplistic.” Via Salon.
- North Carolina Radio Host Reports Anti-Obama Chain E-Mail Distortion As Fact. C.f. Pennebaker: Clip Doctored, about the Mickey Kantor video distortion. (also via tPrez).
- Union-organizing emails get employees of a social networking site fired! Sent around by Michael Whitney.
- Clinton’s and McCain’s Gasoline Tax Holiday Reimagined as a Phishing Scam.
- National Intelligence Agency Breaks Out RSS Feed.
- 6% are Natural Born Clickers.
- Twitter frenzy! Using Twitter for Your Organization, Use TwitterFone For Easy Voice-To-Text On Twitter, and Political Junkies Congregate and Comment on Election Results Through Twitter. Plus, 5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence and The Bivings Group Does Twitter.
- Yes, a Montana cattle ranch is using banner ads combined with search ads to sell their premium beef via the internet.
- 10 Valuable Tips for Shooting Web Video. Via Frogloop.
- Google, YouTube and the city of New Orleans try to host their own presidential forum. Via Mike Allen.
- Video: how primary-season attacks have been amplified in the general election.
- FBI Targets Internet Archive With Secret ‘National Security Letter,’ Loses.
- Harold vs. Markos. Not everyone wants a unified Dem ticket.
- META Keywords are Legally Dead.
- Be very afraid: Engineers find ‘missing link’ of electronics. Robots take next step toward world domination.
- A minute and a half with Shana Glickfield…is enough to spark any man’s dreams.
- Clone-tool war on nipples continues. Complete with tragic casualty figures.
– cpd
May 7th, 2008
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Along with Dennis Johnson, Karen Jagoda and Morra Aarons-Mele, I had the pleasure of giving a presentation this morning on congressional and local online campaigns for the assembled journalists at the Knight Digital Media Center’s symposium, Election ’08: Unleashing the Cyber-watchdogs (i.e., after a week of luxuriating in the California sun, it was time to sing for my supper and justify the trip). My notes are below; if they’re too cryptic, drop me a note for details.
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April 24th, 2008
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Vikki Porter passed along an article today from Rob Garner at Media Post’s Search Insider which details the results of the company’s recent research into political search trends in the ‘08 elections. Below are some high points; check out the full piece for more.
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April 23rd, 2008
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Greetings from New Orleans and the Nonprofit Technology Conference, where e.politics is bearing up nobly under the strain of going to fantastic cities and hanging out with bright and interesting people. Rough life, I know
As a takeaway for the participants in our online advocacy panel on Friday, below are a ton of articles on various aspects of the question of spreading a message and working to change politics and policy online.
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March 20th, 2008
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Cross-posted on techPresident
The Obama campaign seems to have shifted at least some of its online ad buying towards a general election strategy, at least judging from the display ad below, which I saw on an article on Space.com:
Click for larger version
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February 21st, 2008
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Guest article! First in a long time, too. In an online discussion a few days ago, friend-of-e.politics Riche Zamor posted a set of tips for getting the best results out of a pay-per-click advertising campaign. He was responding to a question about free ads an organization was running via a Google Grant, but these would seem to apply to PPC ad runs across the board. BTW, Riche will be taking a leave of absence from CITI over the next few months to run a Congressional campaign in Alaska — an awesome opportunity.
Tips for Pay-Per-Click Advertising Campaigns
By Riche Zamor
Here are a few tips I recommend when you are running PPC campaigns:
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February 15th, 2008
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Potomac Primary special edition — special because for once, DC’s vote actually matters.
- Update: Over the Horizon: User-Centered Online Politics?
- Hillary’s Valentine Email to supporters. Tasty treat or sickly sweet? Also check out the viral email that’s helping her.
- Michelle Obama Robocalls DC Voters, as does DC mayor Adrian Fenty. C.f. Rep. Foxx pledges no more robocalls.
- Ron Paul Rallies Supporters via YouTube.
- Dueling Washington (State) GOP Web Sites. Huckabee die-hards launch online offensive.
- What, No Flowers? RNC Sends Valentine E-Cards. Mike Turk’s not in love.
- Moroccan Man Jailed For Fake Facebook Profile. It’s good to be the king, but don’t pretend to be his younger brother.
- How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free.
- Not every site needs to be a social network.
- Why Google keywords cost more but deliver less.
- A cellphone in every pocket.
- Putting Candidates Under the Videoscope.
- Predicting the return of predictive journalism.
- Georgia Perspective on the Evolution of Media and Politics. From an MTV voter turnout organizer.
- Catch-22: Communicating with Congress. Interesting — mass emails may actually be being heard.
- Nokia creates its own mobile advertising network.
- TSA Reads Blog Comments, Changes Policy.
- Google News Goes Local With Neighborhood Headlines.
- Super Tuesday’s Gadgets: Touch Screen Monitors, New Notebooks, and 3D Graphics Drive TV Coverage.
- A New Online Fundraising Record on the Horizon. C.f. Money, Money, Money.
- But do donations predict a state’s final vote?
- Despite Web success, Obama loses Silicon Valley.
- Wired’s Guide to Starting a Viral Political Campaign on YouTube.
- Start a Nonprofit and Join Election ‘08 YouTube Free-For-All. A new route for 527s and similar outside political groups.
- MoveOn delivers Obama $500,000, plus 500,000 messages to friends.
- Political Blogging Scholarship. Please don’t feed the animals.
- Video Games for Social Change.
- Matt Stoller Fails to Consolidate the Netroots. Food Fight!
- Presidential fundraising doubles in 2007.
- Lolcats meets Obama: Yes We Can Has (cheezburgers).
I does haz no understanding of why this is as funny as it is. Via tPrez.
– cpd
February 12th, 2008
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Cross-posted on techPresident
Political campaigns typically use search advertising primarily for long-term list-building, but with a big chunk of February 5th voters apparently still undecided, shouldn’t targeted search ads be an effective way to reach people who are still making up their minds?
Here’s why: if X percentage of primary voters in a given state haven’t picked a candidate three days out, you can bet that a good chunk of them are naturally going to turn to the internet for information to help make a decision. And since most online quests start at a search engine, search advertising would seem to be a natural way to get to those potential supporters directly and at the moment they’re thinking about voting. Geo-targeting, keyword-targeting and the fact that search ads are pay-per-click makes this strategy cost-attractive — you can concentrate resources on voters in particular states or metropolitan areas, and you only pay when you actually get a voter contact (i.e., when someone clicks).
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January 25th, 2008
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Cross-posted on techPresident
A new site announcement arrived in my inbox today, courtesy of an aggressive Waggener Edstrom outreach campaign (two separate emails came — here and here — plus an extra copy of the second; the PDFs unfortunately don’t fully capture the complexity of the messages’ layout). LeftvsRight.com is a strange mix of targeted political search engine and political entertainment, and as someone who helped start a targeted political search engine in 1999, I feel a unique obligation to take a good look at it. Particularly since a LeftvsRight.com visitor’s first impression is likely going to be to wonder what the hell is going on.
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January 23rd, 2008
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Hidden in a Post article today on the presidential campaigns’ precarious financial shape was this remark:
Ken Mehlman, who helped plan President Bush’s reelection strategy four years ago, said each campaign is trying to isolate demographic groups and geographic areas to target with phone calls and mail.
Think about it: if you’re running out of money, one way to save (besides cutting the press plane) is to microtarget your outreach so that you can get the most out of every dollar. Some candidates are reportedly considering blowing cash on a Superbowl ad, but others will be looking instead at zip code-targeted cable tv buys. What about adding blog ads or geo-targeted search and online display ads? You could do worse than targeting California-based online readers of the major political newspapers, for example.
It’s hard to imagine that campaigns that have raised tens of millions of dollars could be going broke, but that’s apparently one consequence of this tight primary election schedule. Glad that’s working out so well for everybody.
– cpd
January 22nd, 2008
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I almost missed it in the pre-holiday frenzy, but last week Kate Kaye of Clickz wrote up an excellent way to use Google Ads (in this case funded by a Google Grant) to hitch your promotional wagon to a presidential candidate’s star:
The Environmental Law and Policy Center gets up to $10,000 worth of Google ads provided free of charge each month to help promote its green efforts, including one aimed at reaching Iowa caucus voters. A search for “Hillary Clinton” turns up an ad suggesting that users “Learn how Hillary Clinton proposes to solve global warming.” Targeted to presidential candidate names, the ads link to IowaGlobalWarming.org, and are part of a year-long campaign set to finalize after January’s Iowa caucuses.
This tactic is an extension of a classic PR tool, which is to tie the story you’re trying to pitch to something topical and pressing. Of course, it’s a classic PR tool because it works, though if too many people jump on board the Google Ad train, the cost of running ads on the candidates’ names becomes prohibitive (try buying a more specific query if that happens to you).
While we’re on the subject of PR, check out this Wall Street Journal blog piece by Laura Lorber (via Publicity Hound) about a flack’s pitch gone tragically wrong (be sure to read before you send, kids). For more consequences of bad pitching, see “Long Tail” Chris Anderson’s email blacklist, which also sparked a fairly violent discussion among PR types.
– cpd
December 28th, 2007
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Some email discussion over the past few days about the Edwards fundraising text/voice campaign and about last Friday’s desktop widget has really brought home to me the importance of going where your supporters are. A few years ago, online activists had only a handful of ways to reach people — to supplement traditional phone-banking, direct mail and television, the Internet really offered only two channels, email and relatively static websites. Since ‘04 cycle, which brought both the perfection of email/online fundraising and the rise of blogs, we’ve seen an explosion of new channels, including an array of social networking sites and other online communities. These days, electoral and advocacy campaigns confront so many possible ways to reach potential supporters that it’s dizzying. How do we allocate resources?
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July 2nd, 2007
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Update: Politico.com’s publisher responds. See below.
The recent discussion about Politico.com’s traffic “stickiness” got me thinking about the different strategies behind building a niche audience vs. building a mass audience. What differentiates the two? First and formost, niche audiences are, well, niches — they’re groups of people drawn together by a common interest or set of interests. Because of their concentration, they can be valuable to advertisers trying to reach exactly that niche. Because of their relatively small size, they tend to be manageable, both in terms of the technology required to serve their needs and in terms of the time needed for customer service/reader contact.
Most money-making/popular blogs are niche sites, as are many more traditional online magazines and publications. Display ads (banners, blog ads) on niche sites that host a desirable audience are often carefully targeted to appeal to those exact readers and hence can command more money per ad impression. Sites usually supplement targeted ads with lower-cost run-of-site ads, though, if they have unfilled inventory. Google Ads and other context-sensitive text ads are a special category, since they’re linked to a page’s content and are theoretically always targeted, but the amounts site owners earn can vary immensely depending on the value of their niches and on how “clicky” their readers are.
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April 23rd, 2007
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- I just caught Susan Finkelpearl cheating on us with Democracy in Action! Moreover, she’s brazenly flaunting her Tips (for Sprucing up Your Website), and in public, too!
- Does User-Generated Content Work for Political Campaigns? Todd Zeigler takes a gentle sip of the Kool-Aid: “It seems to me that truly allowing your supporters to carry your message for you will ultimately result in more supporters, more donations and ultimately better online results”
- More Second Life marketing skepticism. Wagner James Au says, “To play in Second Life, corporations must first come to a humbling realization: in the context of the fantastic, their brands as they exist in the real world are boring, banal, and unimaginative.” Sounds like a Friday night in Georgetown to me. (A Bivings Report find).
- Blog P.I. tweaks his Magnum moustache saucily before looking at which candidates are buying Google ads on their own names AND those of their rivals (sneaky — me likee).
- A look at two niches in the blog-o-rama — an Analysis of Black Bloggers in the Blogosphere and Feminist Blogs: Activism, Journalism, or Masochism (I’m voting for the latter, as always). Via F-email Fightback.
- A YouTube for conservatives. Wonkette wishes them well: “Good luck, guys! We bet Michelle Malkin would make you a video of her pretending to personally kill every single Arab and Mexican! She could wear like a KKK robe over her bikini or whatever.”
- Also in Wonkette, a lesson in why some people should avoid technology, as the Prez tries to blow up a hydrogen-powered car (oh, the humanity).
- More niches, bitches: A socnet for political junkies, launched by Campaigns and Elections magazine (Via David All).
- News from the Edwards campaign: John Edwards Debuts Saturday Podcasts (my mom will have to learn to use mp3s), and also modifies online fundraising practice to be nicer to folks who are sending supportive messages to his wife.
- Tips on tools: Seth Godin says, campaigns need to beware the too-frequent mass email, and Solidariti talks about interactive maps made easier.
- MySpace Plans Virtual Presidential Primary. My man Monty should be a shoe-in.
– cpd
April 10th, 2007
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