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.
Latest posts
If you are a mother, or if you know any mothers, you know that being a mom of an infant or toddler can be challenging. Not only is there an extreme amount of responsibility involved (and very little sleep!) but there is also a shift in social priorities. It’s no longer easy to ‘catch up with the ladies’ over drinks. Finding time to go on a date means finding a baby sitter and scheduling far in advance. And weekly poker nights at the neighbor’s house may no longer be feasible. It’s not a surprise, then, that moms with young kids (MYK’s) are very apt to become active on social media websites. In fact, according to a recent whitepaper by Experian Marketing Services, these moms are two times more likely than the average adult to use social media more than three times each day. And not only are they more likely to visit these sites, but they are also more likely to be active, posting and commenting two times more than the overall population. A possible explanation for this observation is that MYKs, especially those with infants, spend a lot of time at home with the kids and need an outlet that allows them to stay connected with family and friends. In that sense, social media—especially sites like Facebook (the top choice for MYK’s) where users can share photos, statuses and private messages—is ready-made for this segment. Beyond catching up with friends, these moms have a high propensity to follow brands and companies on social media platforms. Because they are so participatory as a segment, they offer a huge opportunity to marketers who may be looking to expand their target audience or narrow in on young mothers. Brands looking to target moms with young kids should consider offering deals through these social channels. They should also encourage moms to participate in their branded social media posts, both to interact with the brand directly and to support conversations between moms. Brands that offer time-saving ways to keep in touch and share ideas across platforms will do well with this segment. And marketers can get creative, too! Sponsoring “most beautiful baby” contests or starting discussions about the best way to calm a fussy child will not only give moms an entertaining break in their day, but will also help them associate the brand with positive, helpful experiences. For more information about moms with young kids, their online and mobile behaviors, and how to best reach them, download the whitepaper: From Diapers to Preschool: a window into the world of the Mom with Young Kids.
The holiday season is right around the corner and retailers are gearing up for a massive influx of customers, both new visitors and returning loyal patrons. But, organizations need to make sure they’re prepared to handle the influx of business. Data quality should be a priority for retailers at any time of year, but even more so as the holiday season approaches. During this time, it’s important for companies to provide customers with relevant shopping offers. When consumers shop for holiday gifts for their friends and families, they have countless directions to which they can turn. In order to prevail in competition, retailers need to provide customers with relevant offers and messages. Unfortunately, many businesses fall short in this regard. According to recent research from Experian QAS, organizations feel that, on average, 25 percent of their data is inaccurate. Consumers are frantically looking to find deals on products that meet their holiday needs, but loyalty offers may not be reaching consumers. One reason for the difficulty is the messy nature of companies’ customer databases. Retail businesses are working hard to gather as much information as possible about the consumers who patronize them, but all too often, information is riddled with errors. These errors have become more prevalent in recent years due to the proliferation of mobile apps, web interfaces and social media channels. There are so many different channels that companies now interact with people through an average of 3.27 channels. This poor data quality is hurting organizational bottom lines. Experian QAS found that an average of 12 percent of departmental budgets are wasted due to inaccuracies in contact data. During the 2013 holiday season, consumer spending is expected to increase by at least 11 percent. Retailers need to be certain that they improve data quality prior to the holiday season to ensure communications reach consumers and resources are maximized in order to take advantage of the expected increase. Be sure to check out our new data quality infographic.
Experian Marketing Services’ Head of Global Research Bill Tancer appeared recently on Fox Business News to talk about new holiday shopping trends, including why both retailers and consumers are starting the 2013 season earlier this year. “We are seeing the eventual extinction of Black Friday,” says Tancer. “What we see in our data is that retail is really changing. The consumer is relentlessly searching for that deal.” In fact, as Tancer notes, the hyper-connected, digital consumer is already searching for holiday deals. Hear more from Tancer in this clip. Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com Tancer and other Experian Marketing Services data experts will discuss holiday marketing trends at an upcoming webinar; register for more insights and tips.