As we approach the 2024 election season, the advertising landscape is poised for tremendous growth, with political ad spending projected to surpass $10 billion. With Kamala Harris entering the race, spending priorities have moved, especially in key states like Ohio, where the Senate race alone has already seen $300 million in ad spending.Connected TV’s (CTV’s) share of political ad spending is set to jump from 2.7% in 2020 to 12.8% this year. The Harris campaign is leading the charge, allocating $200 million for digital ads, much of which will go to streaming platforms.
During this political campaign marketing season, effective audience targeting is crucial, as it holds the potential to sway voters, shape public opinion, and ultimately determine election outcomes. In this blog post, we’ll highlight political audiences that can assist political campaigns and organizations in connecting with their desired audiences in a meaningful and impactful way.
Three political campaign marketing audience categories
Over 240 politically relevant audiences are available on-the-shelf of leading TV, demand, and supply platforms to help your political partners gain share based on three political audience categories:
- Political affiliations
- Political personas
- Relevant ballot initiative audiences
Let’s break down each category and which audiences you can use in your political campaign marketing to target voters this upcoming election season.
Political affiliations
Target audiences could include those who are likely to be in the Democratic, Independent, or Republican parties, or are likely to not be registered to a political party. Our political affiliation audiences use a foundation of voter registration data with Experian’s advanced statistical models to reach voters at scale, based on their political party.
Here are four audience segments that you can activate to target voters based on their predicted party affiliation:
- Political Affiliation > Democrat
- Political Affiliation > Republican
- Political Affiliation > Independent/Other
- Political Affiliation > Unregistered
Political personas
One key target audience could be voters who are likely to be influenced by a political candidate’s renewable energy program. Additional target audiences could include those who are likely to be influenced by a candidate’s position on the economy or healthcare.
Here are 10 audience segments that you can activate to target voters based on their viewpoints on key political issues:
- Political Personas > Political Unregistered Liberal Leaning
- Political Personas > Political Unregistered Conservative Leaning
- Political Personas > Committed Democrats
- Political Personas > Moderate Democrats
- Political Personas > Political Leaning Liberals
- Political Personas > Liberal Leaning Independents
- Political Personas > Conservative Leaning Independent
- Political Personas > Political Leaning Conservatives
- Political Personas > Moderate Republicans
- Political Personas > Committed Republicans
To reach voters who believe the environment is a key political issue, you can layer in our GreenAware audiences with our Political Personas audiences:
- GreenAware > Behavioral Greens
- GreenAware > Think Greens
- GreenAware > Potential Greens
- GreenAware > True Browns
- Psychographic/Attitudes > Shopping Behavior > Smart Greens
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
Relevant ballot initiative audiences
You can also reach voters based on their attitudes and behaviors related to key ballot measures. Let’s walk through a few examples below and highlight relevant syndicated audiences that you can activate during the 2024 political campaign marketing season.
Local and national ballot initiative support
Consumer behaviors are often great predictors of down-ballot initiatives. For example, military families may show favor toward initiatives supporting veterans, households with children present may show more interest in school funding, and those interested in the environment will favor green initiatives. Experian offers an array of consumer behavior and interests audiences to help you fine-tune your targeting and messaging strategies.
- Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Occupation > Military – Active
- Demographics > Presence of Children > Ages: 0-18
Charitable causes
Understanding where consumers are actively donating to charitable causes paints a clear picture into their political interests.
- Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Charitable Causes > Contributes to Political Charities
- Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Donations > $1,000-$1,999
Demographics
Demographics play a critical role into voter opinions with presence of children, age, and household income influencing decisions at the polls.
- Geo-Indexed > Demographics > Household Income: $50,000-$74,999
- Geo-Indexed > Demographics > Education: Bachelor Degree
- Demographics > Presence of Children > Ages: 10-12
- Demographics > Marital status > Single
- Demographics > Ages > 19-24
- Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Moms, Parents, Families > Mothers with infant child(ren) (0-3 yrs old)
Millions of campaign dollars were wasted in the 2022 midterm elections when voters were targeted with ads for issues and candidates they couldn’t vote for. Using advances in geo-targeting can help save wasted spend and ensure relevant messages reach the right voters.
Finance
Income and large financial decisions often trigger changes in perspective and influence voter behaviors.
- Financial FLA Friendly1 > Income > $1,000-$24,999
- Financial FLA Friendly > In Market New Mortgage
- Financial FLA Friendly > In Market Auto Loan
Media consumption and engagement
Media consumption and engagement offers great insights into how voter interest, current channel engagement, and engagement in political issues.
- TrueTouch: Communication Preferences > Engagement Channel Preference > Email Engagement
- TrueTouch: Communication Preferences > Engagement Channel Preference > Streaming TV
- Social Media > Snapchat
- Purchase Transactions > Ad Responders > Digital
- Television (TV) > Ad Avoiders/Ad Acceptors > Ad Acceptors
Mosaic
Proprietary persona-based audience solution that combines demographic and behavioral data to create a holistic view of voters and their interests.
- Mosaic – Personas – Lifestyle and Interests > Group O: Singles and Starters > O55 – Family Troopers
Occupation
Provides the opportunity to deliver targeted messaging on measures based on a consumer’s occupation.
- Demographics > Occupation > Management/Business and Financial Operations
- Demographics > Occupation > Sales
- Demographics > Occupation > Farming/Fish/Forestry
- Consumer Behaviors > At-Home: Retired/Empty Nesters
- Consumer Behaviors > Occupation: Education
Personal views
Understand consumers personal views around family, their social and work life.
- Psychographic/Attitudes > Personal Views > Work Centered
- Psychographic/Attitudes > Personal Views > Family Centered
- Psychographic/Attitudes > Personal Views > Social Isolation
We can help you match your message to your audience
With Experian’s political audiences, you can confidently execute your political campaign marketing, knowing our audiences are based on voter registration data and advanced predictive technology. Our highly accurate models are validated by our expert audience team to ensure precise targeting and drive impact and influence with the right audience. We understand that finding a trusted data provider can be a challenge, which is why we make it easy to access our syndicated audiences.
For a full list of all of Experian’s syndicated audiences, download our syndicated audiences guide.
You can activate our political audiences on-the-shelf of most major platforms. Can’t find the audience you’re looking for or need a custom audience? Connect with our audience team for more information.
Footnote
- “Fair Lending Friendly” indicates data fields that Experian has made available without use of certain demographic attributes that may increase the likelihood of discriminatory practices prohibited by the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) and Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”). These excluded attributes include, but may not be limited to, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, disability, handicap, family status, ancestry, sexual orientation, unfavorable military discharge, and gender. Experian’s provision of Fair Lending Friendly indicators does not constitute legal advice or otherwise assures your compliance with the FHA, ECOA, or any other applicable laws. Clients should seek legal advice with respect to your use of data in connection with lending decisions or application and compliance with applicable laws.
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It is time for us to polish off our crystal ball and give our predictions straight from consumers’ fingertips for the hot products of the 2012 holiday season. Gadgets will reign across many ages Tablets including LeapPads, Tabeos, iPads, Kindles and others will continue to be a popular gift this year, with more choices than ever. On the list of top product-related search terms driving traffic to the Retail 500 category of sites, Kindle Fire HD and Windows 8 top the list as new products. Additionally, Meep!, a child friendly tablet appeared in the top fifteen. Accessories for both phones and tablets will also be popular, especially as the variety grows for iPhone 5 and iPad Mini. A reoccurring favorite gift for the holidays is UGGs which shows a decrease year over year. However, another brand with a similar product is Bearpaw, which is in the top ten searches and has seen big growth year over year. Source: Experian Hitwise Dolls, video games and Furbys, oh my! To identify the popular toys for gifts this year, we researched product-related search terms driving traffic to ToysRUs.com compared to last year’s holiday season. We uncovered trends in the doll category, Doc McStuffins as number one on the list, along with the classic Barbie, which saw a growth in searches year over year. The Furby is making a strong comeback at the number two spot with a reboot and new features. Another trend here is tablets, from branded searches like LeapPad and Kurio there is also the generic term ‘tablets for kids’. In the video game category, the new Wii U that is debuting just in time for Black Friday and should be a big gift this year, along with searches for PS3 games and the Nintendo 3ds xl are all in the top 20 searches. Source: Experian Hitwise Keywords of the consumer to identify demand Beyond product names, it is important to understand the actual way people search, using key phrases and questions. Last year, for example, there was a lot of activity around ‘in-stock’ products, such as the LeapPad explorer, which was hugely popular and quickly sold out in many stores. Retailers and marketers should monitor this throughout the season and make sure to optimize for in stock if there is a popular product that they have available. Source: Experian Hitwise Consumers also focus on what is the ‘best’ – so we see search activity around ‘best place to buy’, particularly around electronics. Questions such as ‘where to buy a’ specific product are also common, such as ‘where to buy a kindle’. These phrases offer opportunities to boost search campaigns by considering how consumers phrase their questions to ensure to capture these searches. Source: Experian Hitwise Quick tip: In the retail category there will tend to be a lot of retail branded store terms but to keep up with holiday search behavior and help make analysis quick, create portfolios of branded terms to easily exclude those from a certain category. When you strip out all the variations of that term you are able to gain insight into product searches that are most popular to a certain site or category. For more insight on the hot product trends for this year from our Hitwise trend-spotters, watch our webcast.
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