techPresident - online advertising - Comments

Click 4 Obama

atrusty — Fri, 23 May 2008 21:25:58 -0400

This is exactly the power that my new site Click 4 Obama is trying to tap into! I've recently launched a simple and educational quiz game to support Obama called Click 4 Obama. Every question you get right helps post "Obama for President" ads all over the web. You can challenge your friends to play and see how you rank against them and everyone else! There is also a facebook application available to play Click 4 Obama on facebook.

You Play, Obama Wins!

Searching for Understanding

Alan Rosenblatt — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:16:12 -0500

Eric, I am struggling to wrap my head around your comments.

When I posted the piece on Obama running a Nevada ad in South Carolina, you complained that "Post like this do nothing to help campaigns want to run online advertising."

Now that I have made a strong pitch for the campaigns to spend more on online advertising, you are taking issue with me again, suggesting they (at least two) are doing enough, even with only 1% of the ad budgets being spent.

Where are you going with this line of reasoning?

Alan Rosenblatt
AKA DrDigiPol (drdigipol.com)

Clarifying Point 4

Read Scott Martin — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:26:45 -0500

Fair point. I could have been a lot clearer - Point 4 was reference to the quantity, not the quality of the effort, which was (as many others have also judged) adept in McCain's case. Only, when folks look back and benchmark for future GOP presidential efforts, did interactive get adequate resources to be seen as one of the main reasons McCain wins? If the answer is "yes" then you re right, and Point 4 is only half correct (again arguably, the HRC half). The philosophical commitment to paid display advertising should not be questioned. It was unquestionably high.

Read Scott Martin
Partner
WIT Americas, LLC

Proof?

EricFrenchman — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:04:36 -0500

What data do you base #4 on? Your point #3 contradicts point #4 at least for half of it.

Eric Frenchman
Chief Internet Strategist
Connell Donatelli Inc

quick observations

Read Scott Martin — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:55:02 -0500

For your consideration:

1. Obama is visibly using interactive (with display ads) to fundraise and to organize.

2. HRC is not going the display route. If the measure is online display advertising of any kind, she is invisible.

3. McCain and Romney are also users of online display; McCain more so. But his level of spend is dwarfed by Obama even if it surpasses the rest of the field in both parties.

4. McCain v. HRC as the winners of their parties' respective nominations will generally make things harder, not easier, for efforts to advance the use of interactive advertising in politics.

Discuss.

Read Scott Martin
Partner
WIT Americas, LLC

How Much Are They Spending

EricFrenchman — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:28:12 -0500

Alan,

Since I've been working in online advertising (1998) every prediction I've seen for online spending has been way off. It is to the point where I don't believe any of them - political or otherwise. I only read them when I need a laugh.

Who's to say what the correct number is? Why 10%? So if someone spends 1% of their ad budget online but accomplishes their goals than what does that mean? Does that mean they don't get it as he title of your post suggests? Experienced advertisers spend their valuable marketing dollars based on which channel can deliver their goals and who the target market is.

Sadly the correct answer will be based on who wins the nominations and then who wins the Presidency. Whatever number is spent online for a successful Presidential run will be the correct number going forward (it won't be 0%).

Based on what I know for two campaigns, I know they get it more than you give them credit for and especially in search which is well documented in numerous publications, but sadly few of them are picked up on Techpresident.

Eric Frenchman
Chief Internet Strategist
Connell Donatelli Inc

So How Much Are They Spending?

Alan Rosenblatt — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:57:05 -0500

Eric, these campaigns that are not behind the curve... what percentage of their ad budgets are being spent online. Just placing the right type of ads is not enough to say they get it. There is getting what types of ads to use and then there is getting how much to spend. My point is about spending in relation to total ad budget and media consumption patterns.

Here is another article with slightly higher predictions for presidential campaign online ad spending, but lower estimates for total ad spending. It also gives some breakdown for candidate versus non-candidate spending.

Alan Rosenblatt
Executive Director, Internet Advocacy Center
AKA DrDigiPol (drdigipol.com)

Some Campaigns Get It

EricFrenchman — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:41:45 -0500

and they are not behind the advertising curve. I know of two that are very active in persuasion, GOTV, and targeted search ads. In fact, I'm very surprised regarding your search comment since a simple search would turn up articles written about presidential campaigns using search very effectively. Finally, all campaigns needs to balance what % of the budget to devote online. 10% is an overall average and not necessarily the correct # for all marketing objectives, private sector or not.

Eric Frenchman
Chief Internet Strategist
Connell Donatelli Inc
www.connelldonatelli.com

Really? "Nothing" to learn?

Read Scott Martin — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:59:40 -0500

I think the Obama campaign might have reason to quibble with that. Put yourself in their shoes. How do you go about finding out that your buy was errant - mistargeted or mislaunched, it makes no difference - when you only have five days from launch to the next important election date.

Do you think the network or the agency alerted the campaign to the mistakes, or was it left to the campaign to discover the error on its own?

Accountability is not a topic to shy away from, if we want to continue developing confidence in the interactive medium.

Didn't Mean to Imply It Wasn't Factual, But

EricFrenchman — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:49:00 -0500

I don't believe pointing out something that was obviously a minor mistake is news. It appears to me to be petty and looking to embarrass the campaign. I felt the same thing about the Romney campaign running on unwanted sites, but unfortunately because of his stand on that issue it was newsworthy for some.

Everyone has made minor mistakes in online advertising and the more media you buy the more mistakes you are going to make. We need to get past gotcha moments especially ones as trivial as this. This just fuels the flames that you can't trust online advertising.

What good can possibly come from this? There is NO learning to be gained from pointing out this minor event. Nothing.

Consider it a cautionary tale

Colin Delany — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:36:15 -0500

Hi Eric, I agree with you that things like this are ultimately trivial and shouldn't be a "gotcha" against a campaign or against the general concept of online advertising. But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be reported at all. At the very least, other campaigns should know that things like this can happen and be prepared when they do. In this case, Alan's piece was entirely factual and should cause no embarrassment to the campaign.

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

We Need to Move Past Things Like This

EricFrenchman — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:40:05 -0500

Alan,

Why is this news? So the Obama campaign had an incorrectly geo-targeted ad run and it was corrected. Either they placed it wrong by mistake or the network made a mistake. Either way it was fixed.

We as an industry need to move past obvious mistakes that were corrected as quickly as possible. Post like this do nothing to help campaigns want to run online advertising. Pointing out that online ads can be fixed quicker than offline is not a significant selling point.

Eric Frenchman
Chief Internet Strategist
Connell Donatelli Inc.

Presidential Google ad rejected

2008 — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:16:51 -0500

Thought you might be interested in this: Prompted by this posting and interest in experimenting with Google adwords, I attempted to post a Google ad for one presidential candidate with a keyword of an opponent. Simple and innocuous enough, one would think, considering that similar tactics already existed. However, a few days later I got a notification that my ad had been rejected because of content.

The claim that Google does not permit ads for sites that solicit funds seems absurd, considering almost every site out there using Google adwords is selling something. So much for that sacred 1st amendment.

Excerpt:

Hello,

Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords. In reviewing your
AdWords Starter Edition account, we've found that your ad or keywords
do not meet our guidelines. Please log in to your account to see your
disapproved ad, the reason for disapproval, and editorial suggestions.
We've also included the reasons for disapproval here:

AD TEXT:

Obama: The Next President
Get on board with Obama!
Build your own Obama website now.
my.barackobama.com

Ad Status: Suspended - Pending Revision
Ad Issue(s): Unacceptable Content
~~~~~~~~~

SUGGESTIONS:
-> Content: At this time, Google policy does not permit the
advertisement of websites that contain the solicitation of funds and do
not display tax-exempt status. As noted in our advertising terms and
conditions, we reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when
it comes to the advertising we accept on our site.

---------------------
POLICY DEFINITIONS:

Unacceptable Content: Google believes strongly in freedom of expression
and therefore offers broad access to content across the web without
censoring search results. Please note that the decisions we make
concerning advertising in no way affect the search results we deliver.
Please note that both your ad and keywords have been suspended at this
time.

PQ Media's Political Media Spend Data

pquinn — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 13:22:43 -0500

Dear Mr. Bassik:

I’m responding to your email message containing the link to your posting regarding the exclusive PQ Media data contained in our “Political Media Buying” series (the 2004 and 2006 editions), some of which was featured in a February 14 Wall Street Journal article. You requested that I respond to your comments perhaps best summarized by the following statement:

“PQ Media’s numbers don’t gel with conventional wisdom and competitor data. Interviews with campaign strategists, estimates from TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG, data from Nielsen’s AdRelevance, and my personal knowledge as an online political advertising consultant peg online political advertising in 2006 at no more than $5 million.”

I applaud your characterization of PQ Media’s data as unconventional, as we pride ourselves on being the world’s leading alternative medianomics research consultancy. Our methodology differentiates us from traditional media researchers because we have invested an enormous amount of sweat equity in answering the call from media research end users who have made it clear that they no longer trust “conventional wisdom.” As a result, PQ Media has remained independent and forward-looking in order to provide our clients with unbiased strategic intelligence that empowers them to make high-stakes investment decisions.

While PQ Media’s clients have made us the leading authority in media econometrics, they have also challenged us to use our proprietary methodology to take a fresh look at myriad media markets, trends and drivers to provide them with an alternative perspective on the hyper-change transforming communications models. Part of this challenge was for PQ Media to expand traditional coverage of political media spending, which tends to focus on broadcast TV, radio and newspaper advertising. We launched the “Political Media Buying” series in 2004 to expand coverage beyond just advertising in these three segments to include advertising and marketing spending in broadcast TV, radio, newspapers, cable, direct mail, promotions, internet, out-of-home, magazines and wireless outlets. This we did because it had become clear that the traditional methods being used and segments being covered were not telling the whole story of political media spending.

Although our political media spend data has received high praise and news coverage worldwide, I understand the need to sometimes explain why our data differs from conventional sources. Your comments focused specifically on PQ Media’s political internet spend figures, and why they are higher than what traditional sources have published. First, PQ Media’s data includes all forms of advertising and marketing spend, not just advertising. So while other researchers limit their online spend data to just advertising, such as banners and search, PQ Media also includes email marketing, website development, blog/podcast advertising, and the increasing use of online video advertising. For example, our research indicates that in 2006 email marketing accounted for the majority of political internet spend, as databases have become more sophisticated and list generation has been refined, driving up implementation costs.

Second, while I do not wish to disparage other researchers, you mentioned TNS specifically and its $5 million estimate for 2006, per the TNS presentation you forwarded to me. In addition to the aforementioned differences, there is also a disparity as it relates to spending in gubernatorial races, which we believe featured more contentious races than TNS presents in its document. Third, PQ Media’s preliminary estimate of approximately $80 million in political online spend for the 2008 campaign is driven by two additional factors: increases in local search engine advertising as well as local online advertising, a perspective supported by researchers such as Borrell & Associates, eMarketer and The Kelsey Group. Other factors driving growth in the 2008 cycle include the first election in decades without a current administration official running for office, the abnormally high number of candidates, the expected record increase in fundraising, the battle to regain/hold both houses of Congress by each party, and the high number of issue-oriented organizations that are using the internet for a majority of their political marketing spend.

Taking a step back from PQ Media’s political media spend research, the broader view is that our proprietary econometric methodology has produced 20 years of unrivaled accuracy using our exclusive SpendTrak and UsageTrak databases, which cover the 18 major segments and more than 100 subsegments of the global media industry. PQ Media’s data and forecasts are also vetted through our proprietary Global Opinion Leader Panel, a process that has allowed us to pioneer the alternative media research category and to deliver the most comprehensive analytics, insights, and perspective available to our clients.

I appreciate the opportunity to respond to your questions, and I hope they have been answered adequately. I wish you and your organization a successful 2008 campaign.

Best regards,

Patrick Quinn
President/CEO
PQ Media LLC
Two Stamford Landing
Suite 100
Stamford, CT 06902
Phone: 203-921-0368
Fax: 203-921-0367
Email: pquinn@pqmedia.com

PQ Media
Custom Media Research
www.pqmedia.com
"We stay ahead of the curve
to keep you ahead of the curve"

Correction...

2008 — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 20:08:03 -0500

Unfortunately, this isn't exactly true. There definitely are other campaigns (particularly Democrats) that have purchased Google AdWords...including Barack Obama, for search terms on Clinton, and others. You probably didn't see the ads, though, because of the way Google Adwords work: The business (or campaign, in this case) sets a concrete 'budget' for their adwords, per month. Google then allots a certain number of 'impressions' (times the ad is made visible after a search is made). Each time a person clicks-through on that ad, the campaign gets dinged for a given amount (usually $.05-$.10, as you noted). As soon as the budget max is reached, though, your ad will stop appearing.

Also, unlike domain names, keywords can be used by multiple organizations at the same time and are rotated based on the amount budgeted. Basically, the ultimate form of capitalism and democracy!

Great bit of info, though. Google Adwords are so easy to use, it's likely that even smaller campaigns will pick up on this as a necessary trend for the upcoming cycle.