In this blog post…
In the American political landscape, understanding the intricacies of voters’ attitudes and behaviors has never been more crucial. With the 2024 election season on the horizon, the challenge lies in moving beyond broad categorizations like “Democrat,” “Republican,” or “Independent.” Voters seek candidates who resonate with their beliefs and values.
To meet this challenge, Experian has created political personas that offer a nuanced understanding of American voters. In this blog post, we’ll explore how these Experian audiences can help you tailor your engagement strategies for the upcoming election cycle.
Before we dive into our political personas, let’s break down what political campaign marketing is and six benefits of using digital marketing in political campaigns.
What is political campaign marketing?
Political campaign marketing is the strategic engine that drives candidates toward electoral success. It involves crafting and sending out tailored messages to effectively reach constituents to inform them about candidates’ stances on key issues. Think of it as the art of narrative construction, using various communication channels—from traditional media to digital platforms—to engage and mobilize supporters. In an era marked by information saturation, effective campaign marketing serves to cut through the noise to deliver compelling messages that inform, inspire, and spur action.
Benefits of digital marketing in political campaigns
As the 2024 election approaches, using digital marketing in political campaigns becomes paramount to effectively reach and influence voters where they spend a significant portion of their time—online.
Kamala Harris’s entry into the race has shifted spending priorities, particularly in critical states such as Ohio, where the Senate race has already attracted $300 million in ad spending. Political ad spend on connected TV (CTV) is expected to rise significantly, from 2.7% in 2020 to 12.8% this year. The Harris campaign is spearheading this trend, dedicating $200 million to digital ads, with a substantial portion directed toward streaming platforms.
Embracing digital marketing can help campaigns effectively shape opinions and mobilize support. Here are five key benefits of integrating digital marketing strategies into political campaigns:
- Unparalleled reach with targeted advertising: A well-connected digital platform partner can help you reach your target audiences across the ecosystem – from social to the open web.
- Optimization flexibility: Digital marketing allows for quick adjustments in response to real-time data and evolving circumstances.
- Interactive engagement: The interactive nature of digital channels creates meaningful engagement and dialogue between candidates and voters, building connections and community.
- Insights: Robust analytics provide valuable insights into audience behavior and preferences, facilitating continuous optimization and refinement of outreach efforts.
- Amplified messaging: Through digital marketing, political campaigns can amplify their message, mobilize support, and forge deeper connections with voters.
Data serves as the foundation for these benefits. Interactivity hinges on data to deliver the right message and creative for engagement. Insights are gained through pre-campaign research, analyzing audience attributes to grasp their interests and behaviors. Flexibility relies on real-time campaign data, a unique advantage in digital marketing.
In an era where audiences are available readily on most major activation platforms, advertisers need to understand how audiences are built to be privacy conscious and consistent in a cookieless environment.
Experian’s political personas
Digital marketing in political campaigns is crucial to reach and influence voters online. Integrating Experian’s political personas into your political campaign strategy can help you grasp the complexities of today’s American voter landscape and craft tailored engagement strategies. These personas offer invaluable insights into voter viewpoints on key political issues, enriching digital marketing efforts and empowering campaigns to connect with constituents more effectively.
Experian has created 10 political personas to help you better understand today’s American voter so you can reach consumers based on their viewpoints into key political issues.
Our political personas group voters along the political spectrum from most “committed” on the ends of the spectrum.
Let’s walk through how we define each persona starting from the most “committed” personas on the ends of the spectrum.
Committed Democrats
This audience contains consumers who are likely to have a “very liberal” outlook on political issues. They have strong liberal opinions on various topics including key issues and the economy and are very involved in their communities.
Committed Republicans
This audience contains consumers who are likely to have a “very conservative” outlook on political issues. They are well-informed, community-minded individuals with strong opinions that reflect their conservatism. They have very conservative attitudes regarding key social issues.
Moderate Democrats
This audience contains consumers who are likely to have a “somewhat liberal” outlook on political issues.
Moderate Republicans
This audience contains consumers who are likely to have a “somewhat conservative” outlook on political issues.
Political Leaning Liberals
This audience contains consumers who are likely to have strong opinions on key issues that may not align with the traditional Democrat point of view.
Political Leaning Conservatives
This audience contains consumers who are likely on-the-fence on traditional Republican points of view on key issues.
Liberal Leaning Independents
This audience contains consumers who are registered independents and who are likely to have a “middle of the road” outlook on political issues while tending to lean more liberal.
Conservative Leaning Independents
This audience contains consumers who are likely registered independents and likely have a “middle-of-the-road” outlook on political issues while tending to lean more conservative.
Political Unregistered Liberal Leaning
This audience contains consumers who are not likely to have aligned with a specific party, but have a more liberal attitude. They are well-informed and are aware of important political issues. They frequently align with but are not necessarily completely aligned with liberal points of view.
Political Unregistered Conservative Leaning
This audience contains consumers who are not likely to have aligned with a specific party, but have a more conservative attitude. They are well-informed and are aware of important political issues. They frequently align with but are not necessarily completely aligned with conservative points of view.
These 10 personas can help you better understand who the American voter is, but when combined with our 200 politically relevant audiences, such as watches political TV, donations to charitable causes, engagement channel preferences, hobbies, and more, the ability to study and improve engagement for each persona is considerably magnified.
How to combine our political personas with other audiences
If you’re a political candidate looking to reach an important population, Experian audiences are available on-the-shelf of major platforms. For example, if you want to reach unregistered voters and independent voters to influence green initiatives within your community, you can focus on unregistered and moderate personas in the area and combine that with audiences interested in green initiatives, like our GreenAware segments – which predict a consumer’s attitude and point of view on environmental issues.
You can use our “Political Unregistered Liberal Leaning”, “Liberal Leaning Independents,” and GreenAware “Think Greens” audience segments to reach constituents who are likely to be most interested in your message.
To reach voters based on their regional voting patterns, you can use our new battleground counties and district audiences:
- Affiliation Switcher Counties
- Battleground Counties
- House Battleground Districts
- Democrat Counties
- Republican Counties
- Independent Counties
Add Experian’s audiences to your 2024 election strategy
Political advertising spend is projected to surpass $12 billlion in the 2024 election cycle, generating the largest amount of voter outreach in the history of American elections. Experian’s audiences are available on major activation platforms allowing you to strategically reach constituents who would be most impacted and interested in your initiatives.
As we approach a cookieless future, Experian’s political personas are cookie resilient. Our data is rooted in both offline and online data that doesn’t rely on third-party cookies. The personas do not rely on an individual’s browsing behavior. Experian can help our partners understand and engage with these political audiences.
Over 200 politically relevant Experian audiences are available for activation on-the-shelf of the leading TV, demand, and supply platforms. Here are the platforms where you can find our political audiences:
- ArcSpan
- Audigent
- Cadent
- Eyeota
- Magnite
- Microsoft
- Nexxen
- Pandora
- Permutive
- Samsung Ads
- The Trade Desk
- Verizon Media
- Viant
- Videoamp
- Yieldmo
Can’t find the audience you’re looking for or need a custom audience? Connect with our audience team for more information.
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Once upon a time, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) was primarily focused on their company’s branding efforts. They spent a lot of time thinking about things like look and feel, messaging, ad buys and what their competitors were up to. Of course, those are all still important components of a CMO’s job description, but the role has changed – expanded, really – over the last five or so years. The ongoing proliferation of devices in the hands of empowered consumers requires that CMOs understand things like consumer behavior, channel and device preference, triggered messaging and much more. They must have expertise in various technologies, real-time analytics and, oftentimes, be change agents who move their organizations toward a more customer-centric business model. Today’s CMO must know how their customers want to interact with their brand, then build messaging and execute campaigns that create engagement and ensure ongoing brand advocacy. In a newly published predictions piece: “#7for14: Seven ways digital marketing will change in 2014” several of Experian Marketing Services’ leaders weigh in on the changing role of today’s marketing heads. Check out prediction #1 – Challenges of the CMO and prediction #6 – The CMO as technologist to see more.
CASL will come into force in phases starting July 1, 2014 The information below should not be considered legal advice. Please consult with appropriate legal counsel before relying upon the compliance information provided below. As of December 2013 both regulators responsible for implementing Canada’s Anti-Spam Law have finalized their regulations. Industry Canada’s guidelines confirm all but one of the expected exemptions, provide needed clarifications to key requirements and delay implementation of the more controversial aspects of the law. Over the past two years we have been updating you on CASL’s developments and efforts by industry groups to address unclear or onerous aspects of its proposed regulations. With Industry Canada confirming all but one expected exemptions and providing detailed guidance in its Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement, marketers should now have an easier time preparing. Here is a summary of key points for Industry Canada’s final regulations: i. CASL will be implemented in three phases: a. The majority of CASL comes into force July 1, 2014; b. The rules that apply to computer programs will come into force January 15, 2015; and c. The private right of action takes effect on July 1, 2017. ii. Industry Canada has provided interpretive guidance on several issues under CASL, including: a. The definition of a "CEM"; b. The application of CASL to express consent obtained before CASL comes into force; c. The application of CASL to IP addresses and cookies; and d. The interaction between the unsubscribe requirement and implied consent. iii. New exceptions have been added for: a. Closed platforms, which would appear to apply to platforms such as BlackBerry Messenger and social medial networks; b. Limited-access accounts, where organizations communicate directly with recipients (e.g., online banking); c. Messages targeted at foreign persons; and d. Fundraising by charities and political parties. A surprising exclusion of the ‘Reasonable Knowledge’ exemption In its draft regulations, Industry Canada sought to exempt foreign senders in instances where the sender could not reasonably know that the message would be received in Canada, particularly when the recipient does not typically access email within Canada or through Canadian systems.[1] However, in its final rulemaking the Department chose to nix this exemption as “unnecessary,” choosing instead to exempt messages routed through Canada into a foreign state. [2] This omission may create challenges for marketers in situations where it’s not possible or practical to collect country of origin information.[3] We expect further clarification on this concern from Canadian regulators in the coming months. For detailed information please visit the Canadian Government’s informational website. For summary information please see the following links: http://news.gc.ca/web/article-eng.do?nid=798829 http://blog.deliverability.com/2013/12/canadas-anti-spam-law-casl-is-now-a-done-deal.html http://www.cauce.org/2013/12/canadas-anti-spam-law-coming-into-force-june-2014.html If you would like to discuss CASL’s email-related issues, please email us at digitalprivacy@experian.com or reach out to us through your account teams. [1] Archived http://www.gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/2013/2013-01-05/html/reg1-eng.html [2] See Limited Exclusions section of Industry Canada’s Regulatory Risk Impact Assessment, http://fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/00271.html [3] If a consumer uses a global inbox provider like Google a sender will be challenged to determine where the email is accessed. And since reverse IP geo-location records may be outdated or inaccurate, new technologies and customer self-identification processes may be needed.