The political season is fast up on us. Over the years there has been a rise in politicians using digital media strategies to get their message across -- and win. What is becoming more of a trend is candidates using search engine marketing (Google Adwords) tactics with campaigns trying to buy up keywords of their opponents names. In fact Advertising Age has an interesting article on this new trend in politics. This gives me a bit of chuckle because these are the same strategies some companies use as well, and I find it somewhat self-defeating because since each company (or opponent) are just driving up each other’s costs.
Or are they?
One thing to keep in mind with Google Adwords is that you can be a lower bidder on a keyword and still outrank your competition and get the top spot. This is because Google assigns each ad a quality score. The higher the quality score your ad receives, the less it will cost per click when someone clicks on the ad and the higher it will rank. Furthermore, if you assign that ad a goal (a conversion) it will help improve your quality score as well. So the principles are a bit similar to search engine optimization. What is an even more important to realize is while you might think you are driving up the costs for your opponent, what you don't know is how much they are actually paying for that keyword. So while you think you are driving up their costs by continually increasing your bid amount of a keyword, the only person you are really hurting is yourself (along with your opponent laughing at you for wasting money).
So if I am managing the online ads for a campaign, I am much more interested in trying to create good ad copy that grab people’s attention, rather then get into an arms race with my opponent and just trying to drive up their costs. More importantly, I want to create ads that convert potential voters to receive my newsletter, or better yet donate. Surprisingly this point was not touched on in the Advertising Age article, but keep in mind when it comes to digital media the beauty is that it is all measurable so you know what is working and not working. At the end of the day what is the point in spending a huge budget on online ads if they do not drive conversions.