Political advertising is unique. Campaigns are marathons – racing to build awareness before voting day. Political advertisers must appeal for donations, battle it out in the primaries in some cases, and educate their audiences on platforms and policies to garner as much support as possible.
In addition to high stakes, political advertising brings with it additional privacy concerns, since voters have a right to a private ballot. This makes targeting tricky, since you can’t rely on past voter behavior. But that doesn’t make targeting impossible.
There are several strategies that political advertisers can leverage to persuade skeptical and undecided voters before they head to the polls.
1 – Lookalike Audiences
Political advertisers can use lookalike audiences to reach potential voters who have similar needs and interests to existing supporters. One way to do this is to leverage your customer relationship management (CRM) list to create a lookalike audience. You can use this audience to increase reach or to suppress a list of unlikely voters.
This is a great way to drive reach and build campaign awareness. It’s also a great way to ensure you reach the right audience to effectively engage with prospective voters.
2 – Geotargeting
Political advertisers should leverage geotargeting to deliver content to specific locations. Location is always an effective way to determine audience needs and behaviors, but it is also uniquely important for political advertising. This is because some issues and messaging are more impactful in some areas than others. Likewise, some issues are more controversial is certain locales.
Candidates, issues, and demographics change based on geographic location, making it especially important for political targeting. Advertisers should use geotargeting to reach audiences based on their country, state, zip code, and congressional district.
This lets advertisers reach the right audience, in the right place, without wasting time and effort on irrelevant locations. It also lets them tailor their messaging to meet the needs of the constituents in each region.
3 – Cross-channel marketing
Cross-channel marketing is a crucial way political advertisers can reach audiences across their decision-making journey. Political advertisers need to be where their potential voters are going to be. In today’s media landscape, that means showcasing candidates through a variety of channels.
Voters consume media in a wide range of formats including traditional TV, connected TV (CTV), online, and more. Advertisers must connect with their audience on the audience’s terms – meaning they need to reach them across multiple channels.
A multi-channel strategy and cross-channel re-targeting increases the likelihood that political ads will reach their target audience. Additionally, seeing ads across multiple devices and platforms builds campaign awareness through increased visibility.
Advertisers need to be where their customers are – that is just as true for political advertising as it is for anything else. By understanding which channels your intended audience uses and reaching them there with a cross-channel strategy, advertisers can effectively target and communicate with potential voters.
Planning and targeting with illumin Elect make leveraging audiences, location, and cross-channel marketing easy and effective. illumin partners with L2 to provide robust journey planning and execution for political advertising. Reduce the time needed to build customer audiences and transform your campaign. Access integrated social media campaigns on Meta, craft tailored messages, and take advantage of precise targeting options like first-party data and Point of Interest targeting for location-based segments.
2024 is proving to be an especially difficult election campaign, making effective political advertising more important than ever. Effective targeting is essential for reaching the right audience and convincing undecided voters to swing in your direction. By carefully considering the unique needs of a political ad campaign, advertisers can leverage the strategies most likely to garner them a win at the polls.
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