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:
The ad campaign is being run through Google, so who knows what kind of targeting is involved (by topic? by publication? by reader geography?), but the goal seems clear once you click through to the landing page: long-term support-building. Even on a small screenshot, you can tell that there’s no immediate fundraising ask, only an invitation to sign up for “rallies and special events” — which means, join an email list:
Note the nice video introduction from Barack himself — they know their candidate’s strengths and are happy to use them. Only on the follow-on page (screenshot) do they ask for money, this time accompanied by a video montage of the candidate and supporters at a rally.
This strategy looks to be focused on the general election because its goal is long-term support-building rather than short-term persuasion or fundraising — the move of a candidate who’s willing to invest at least some online money in expanding the pool of supporters, volunteers and (ultimately) donors for the Fall rather than in trying to win Ohio and Texas in a couple of weeks. It’s also running on a nonpolitical publication, so you’ve got to wonder about the targeting. I checked the ad traffic listed for the two candidates in the Ad of the Day and don’t see any mention of this buy, so I’m now curious as to how we can track Google ad campaigns. A good question for today’s online advertising discussion.
– cpd
The Media Trust says this exact creative on the banner, including the appeal, first appeared August 17, 2007, and has been appearing on blackamerica.com, politico.com ad other sites the last several weeks. Colin caught me napping today! Tracking Google ads has been a gap. The domain name Space.com could show renewed emphasis on network buying. The video traffic on the web site may well be evolving too – Ad of the Day has not been analyzing Obama’s site, just the ads, so I can’t be sure. I will get a post up later tonight with a fuller analysis.
Kate Kaye with Clickz made an excellent addition to the tPrez version of this article: