techPresident - campaign email - Comments

It's illegal

brianmcgann — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:06:43 -0500

I've gotten numerous unsolicited e-mails from Giuliani's campaign with NO opt out option. I got another one today. They are required by LAW to have an opt out option, as per CAN SPAM. Don't know why they would not do this, but someone should make a stink about it. The only reason they got my e-mail is because I sent them a message a year or so ago that was far from supportive of Mr. Giuliani. Why they would choose to then add me to their spam list is a mystery.

Great observation

Michael Whitney — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 10:57:19 -0500

I think it's key for campaigns or, really, any online fundraising drive to connect what they send out in emails with what they put on their website. It's easy for the people who do those campaigns to not connect with one another - and I think part of the variable is if campaigns test conditional content or different text and goals to different parts of the list.

What they tell non-donors could be very different from what they tell people who have already donated, which they can control through variables in the email set up.

I'm biased coming from a Dean-centric worldview, but my impression of the 2004 fundraising efforts were that there was transparency, and there was a focus on building community on the campaign blog and website, and emails were in part a vehicle to get people invested in the larger community.

My impression of this year's fundraising campaigns are that folks are encouraged to spread fundraising efforts through people they already know - instead of focusing on building a community from scratch on their own, they count on fundraising efforts expanding virally through existing social networks.

So while it's likely more effective for people to push asks to their friends, there is definitely somewhat of a disconnect between the email sphere and the website sphere.

Clinton vs. Obama fundraising e-mails

tlsmith — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:45:38 -0500

Thanks for the good article. On a similar vane, I received e-mails this week from both the Clinton and Obama campaigns trying to take advantage of the rhetoric between the two campaigns. Here are my observations on the differences between the e-mails.

Clinton's e-mail arrived in my inbox at 9:32:05 a.m. EST titled, "Dead Heat In Iowa." The e-mail mentioned that they have a goal of raising $1.25 million by the end of the week, "to ensure that we have the resources needed to win." There is no direct mention of any other Democratic challenger, just one sentince that says, "in Iowa, we're in a dead heat." The rest of the e-mail was a pretty generic fundraising appeal, personalized with my name when appropiate. The graphic is of a calendar showing "31 days left," a reference to when the Iowa caucuses will be held. Looking on her website today, there is no reference to how much was raised towards the goal, nor can I find it quickly.

Obama's e-mail arrived in my inbox at 2:03:18 p.m. EST titled, "When Hillary Attacks." The e-mail started out mentioning that Obama was now leading in a poll conducted by the Des Moines Register. The e-mail went on to mention, "less than 12 hours after the poll results were released, the Clinton campaign launched multiple frantic, baseless attacks against Barack Obama." The e-mail continued requesting, not a specific dollar goal be reached, but they get 10,000 donors within 48 hours. There were no graphics with this e-mail. When I went to Obama's web site, there was a counter showing how many people had responded to the fundraising drive. Granted, it isn't Howard Dean's bat, but it was well done. As I write this, the graphic is still there, but I don't think they've updated it since the 48 hours ended.

I just find it interesting how the campaigns are reacting differently yet similarly to the same event.

In the interest of full disclosure, I contributed to both campaigns, but I have contributed more to Obama than I have to Clinton.

Getting to the bottom of this

Luigi Montanez — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:39:00 -0500

After quickly reviewing Giuliani's last four emails, it looks like the problem Michael described occurred with the three "On the air:" messages, where the unsubscribe link was exactly the same as the joinrudy2008.com link in the footer. So that definitely was just a template error as Colin surmised.

The newest message from today, "Happy Thanksgiving", did have the correct link to the Lyris unsubscribe page (it makes you click on another button to confirm) as Patrick stated. I clicked on it, confirmed, and got a confirmation email. So we'll see if I get truly unsubscribed, but due to being hosted by Lyris I see no reason as to why that wouldn't work correctly.

Giuliani's emails have been pretty good technically, unlike those from Fred Thompson's staff, who continue to compose their email in Microsoft Word/Outlook 2007 even after this little tift.

A couple of things.

Michael Whitney — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:11:33 -0500

I think a little bit more context is necessary - I apologize for not providing more in the initial post.

First, the person who first discovered this problem has repeatedly tried to unsubscribe from Giuliani's emails without success - both through that unsubscribe link, by replying to the emails, and by calling the offices - to no avail. She is still on the list.

Second, just because you see a Lyris link doesn't mean that you're going to where you're supposed to go. All email marketing applications - from lyrics to Convio to Constant Contact - offer clickthrough tracking for links in emails. The links are tracked by changing all of the URLs you make in a message to first hit a page set up by the company that tracks how many hits the page has, and then forwards you on to the actual page.

So even though it looks like a normal link an email, it's actually just tracking the clicks without doing what it's supposed to do. You can check this out with any of the candidates - all links on Joe Biden's emails first go to a Get Active page (http://ga3.org..., etc.), for example, before forwarding on to Biden's website.

I think Colin's correct that this is a problem with the email template that has to be corrected, and not a malicious plot by the Giuliani campaign to trap email recipients forever. It is disconcerting that it is not a more obvious process to get out of the email list.

Huh?

Patrick Ruffini — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:34:37 -0500

What happens if I click the link? Are you saying I'm not unsubscribed?

The Giuliani email I got this morning had an unsubscribe link that pointed to a personalized URL on giuliani.lyris.net -- the campaign's email vendor. By all appearances this is a proper unsubscribe link and provides a mechanism for the user to opt out.

I don't want to unsubscribe (because it can be a b*tch to get back on at the same address with some of these systems) so I haven't gone through the process. But I'm not sure what the point of this post is.

Is the "click here to unsubscribe" language (that everyone uses) suddenly now invalid?

Probably a bug in the template

Colin Delany — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:15:11 -0500

I bet it turns out that this was just a bug in the template setup -- a link that was left with a default target during development and not filled in with the correct address later, for instance. Still, definitely bad list-management practice. More here.

Colin Delany
e.politics
http://www.epolitics.com

I should add

Josh Koenig — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:59:06 -0400

I should add that what's most annoying and frustrating about this is that doing this "honestly" is not all that hard: just set up a tool that gives your donors templates to use and has them message their own contacts, or send real personalized messages to other registered democrats or not-yet-donated list members.

Of course, once you let people participate you can't really control the message, which I suspect is why this was done fraudulently.

It seems

Josh Koenig — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:55:20 -0400

It seems clear from the available evidence that this wasn't generated by a real donor importing a contact list or the like, but rather is the Obama camp picking up on what spammers have known for years: faking a personal message from a "real person" is effective, probably much more effective than something from a celeb.

All email communication that purports to be from well-placed sources within the campaign (or the candidate his or herself) tend to be semi-disingenuous. They aren't really telling you what they think, and they're not interested in any response other than a donation. This takes the dishonesty to another level though, because they're essentially falsifying p2p activism.

The unfortunate thing is that this works, which, again, if you check your spam filter, you can see hawkers of viagra and pr0n have been onto for a while. Kudos to Blue State for figuring this out, but 10 demerits for further lowering the moral stock of the Obama campaign.

Keep pressing on these email issues

Zephyr Teachout — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:16:36 -0400

I don't think they would raise less money if the return address was the person sending the email. Which would also encourage the person sending the email to take more responsibility for it--an email triangle disperses responsibility unfortunately.

In the long run, if mass email must be used this way, people writing their own emails will be far more sustainable than people using a template, so taking the opportunity to show people models of other real emails, written by other supporters, sics and all (very easy to do) instead of a form email, will create more sustainable support.

It no doubt seems to work, but...

Nancy Scola — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:01:26 -0400

The Obama campaign seems to have taken in a significant amount and I've heard from others in the know that other campaigns have raised a great deal with this approach.

A separate question, though, is whether or not this technique is succeeding in bringing more people into the political game in a meaningful and sustainable way. That's not something that campaigns can be expected to worry about, of course -- not while the money's rolling in. But it is one possible outcome for using new technologies in creative ways.

During the Howard Dean campaign, supporters sat down in bars and houses to write paper-and-pen letters to voters in Iowa and maybe New Hampshire telling them why Howard was so great. The key was that they were personal, real, and direct. Did those letters earn one extra vote or raise one more dollar? Not sure.

But that sort of exciting engagement in politics circa 2004 is what inspired the whole idea that giving more people more ways to get involved was good for American democracy. It was the grandfather of this email technique, which raises the question of what we see this "bulk personal" email technique evolving to in 2012 and beyond.

I got an email from our friend in Leawood too

Todd Zeigler — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:37:55 -0400

I think the Obama campaign is encouraging the active members of his email list (in terms of donations/actions) to email those that aren't active (like me, who signed up out of curiosity).

http://www.bivingsreport.com

Am I missing it?

Peter Pasi — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:46:54 -0400

Peter's right about the basic "send-to-a-friend" functionality, but in this case I think the campaign just picked one supporter and sent out an email in her name. I say this because two of my friends received the same email from our "friend" in Leawood, who none of us know.

You're missing how the feature works

Peter Erickson — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 06:33:38 -0400

This is a pretty basic distributed email feature. On Tuesday, the Obama campaign sent out a message from "Barack":

Peter --

Last night each of the presidential campaigns reported their third-quarter fundraising numbers.

The results are clear. We continue to build the largest grassroots movement in history, but Washington lobbyists and special interests rallied to help Hillary Clinton out-raise us for the first time.

If we want real change in this country, then we need to prove that together we are stronger than the lobbyist-driven money machine that has dominated Washington for too long.

The situation here is simple. We are $2.1 million behind. We must close that gap right now. I need you to make a donation of $*****:

https://donate.barackobama.com/closingthegap

Hillary Clinton aggressively seeks money from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. She's even said that these lobbyists represent real Americans.

She's wrong.

I think it's time to turn the page on that kind of politics, and that's why I have not accepted a dime from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs in this race. We rely on a network of more than 350,000 ordinary people to make us competitive -- more supporters than all the other Democratic candidates combined.

Washington lobbyists have chosen their candidate and are determined to provide her with an overwhelming advantage. But you can even up this contest.

In the face of the most entrenched political machine in Democratic politics, I believe a movement of ordinary Americans can change our country. And you can prove that right now.

I need you to make a donation to close the gap:

https://donate.barackobama.com/closingthegap

Barack

The email came from info@barackobama.com, interestingly mailed by bounce.bluestatedigital.com.

I was targeted because I was a prior donor and I was given a donation goal based on my previous donations. (Some people were asked for $25, others for $50, some for $100.)

If you click the link to donate, you are then taken to the donation page, where a video appeal from Obama plays automatically. If you then donate, you're asked to email a list of friends or to easily and automatically import all of the contacts in your email account.

You can then choose which contacts (or all of them) to message, and all of these messages are delivered in your name but from info@barackobama.com. I don't know how this particular email ended up in your inbox, but KW from Leawood is most likely someone using this feature or someone else forwarding a message that she sent them. (I don't know about you, but my contacts list contains several journalists, a half dozen newspapers, blogs, names from assorted email lists that I'm on, lots of other strangers.) It would be easy to get carried away with the feature and spread it all over the place.

The Obama campaign has been using this feature from Blue State Digital since forever.