"We can now literally target the household"

   digital ads / Emily / micro-targeting / targetblue      Posted on February 21, 2012 by Emily

Political campaigns have long been slow to adopt the "latest" in Madison Avenue advertising tactics. It is a common joke (truth) that we are operating "10 years behind" commercial advertisers. The latest trend--micro-targeted online ads that can literally be served on the household level--is poised to change that as political campaigns, PACs and other interest groups match data on how consumers (AKA voters) behave both online and off and what charitable donations they make with voter registration records. 

As explained in a recent New York Times article: 

The process for targeting a user with political messages takes three steps. The first two are common to any online marketing: a “cookie,” or digital marker, is dropped on a user’s computer after the user visits a Web site or makes a purchase, and that profile is matched with offline data like what charities a person supports, what type of credit card a person has and what type of car he or she drives. The political consultants then take a third step and match that data with voting records, including party registration and how often the person has voted in past election cycles, but not whom that person voted for.

Throughout the process, the targeted consumers are tagged with an alphanumeric code, removing their names and making the data anonymous. So while the campaigns are not aiming at consumers by name — only by the code — the effect is the same. Campaigns are able to aim at specific possible voters across the Web. Instead of buying an ad on, say, The Miami Herald Web site, a campaign can buy an audience.

In recent primaries, the Romney campaign has employed this "audience-buying" technique to serve one ad to committed supporters to encourage large voter turnout and a second ad to undecideds to bolster their opinion of Romney. 

Experts project that spending on digital political ads in the 2012 election season will reach 10 to 15 percent of campaign budgets. While this is still a small fraction of what campaigns will spend on television or direct mail, micro-targeted online ads allow campaigns to maximize the efficiency of their dollar -- zeroing in on a particular audience and paying as little as a few pennies for each display of the ad. 

Blueprint Interactive, in partnership with TargetSmart Communications, recently launched TargetBlue, which uses cookie and IP zone targeting to serve ads to the nearly 250MM people on the national voter file based on such variables as party-affiliation, household income and histories of giving and voting. To learn more about TargetBlue, please send an email to info@targetbluedigital.com.