The media’s analysis of the 2018 elections and their look ahead to 2020 has proven 2019 a bellwether year for press coverage around political marketing.
Dominated by coverage of Google and Facebook’s adventures in political disclosure, emerging trends like artificial intelligence, social listening, and Connected TV have also received significant attention. The 2018 cycle will be remembered as the tipping point for these tools – when savvy political marketers first cut their teeth as their use explodes into 2020.
As part of this trend, AdVictory’s 2018 work and our Managing Partner Adam Meldrum were featured in an OZY Media profile titled, “Meet The GOP’s Chatbot and Artificial Intelligence Guru.” Ozy noted of Adam, “from donation-seeking chatbots to social listening tools trawling the web like the world’s biggest eavesdroppers, he’s helping map the future of political campaigns.”
Here’s a quick look at this technology, AdVictory’s use, and the potential in 2020.
Social Listening & Audience Analytics
The digital world is a treasure trove of data. Social listening and audience analytics tools have significantly lowered the barrier to entry to consume and activate this data.
AdVictory has utilized social listening technology to understand how potential voters are discussing political issues online and the sentiment around the language they are using. Once analyzed, this data informs audience modeling, contextual targeting, and marketing impact.
Audience analytics pixels from partners like Resonate are also a cornerstone of AdVictory’s technology stack. These pixels create rich personas on target audiences, site traffic, and ad engagers to better understand their political and personal value drivers, media consumption patterns, and contextual trends.
This data is then used to optimize the channels, web properties, devices, and messaging to more efficiently persuade and engage these target audiences.
AI-Based Ad Delivery and Marketing Automation
Since inception, Google’s Brand Studies have grown in use and features year after year. They provide real-time measurement – much quicker than traditional offline polling.
In 2018, AdVictory was thrilled to work with Google’s beta “Max Lift” feature. Max Lift creates real-time, AI-driven delivery optimizations based on survey results. In other words, ad dollars become more efficiently spent as the ad is more heavily weighted to the users who are most likely to be impacted by a specific creative variant.
In addition to AI’s role in audience development and ad delivery, AdVictory also used marketing automation tools like chatbots to drastically change the engagement funnel. Facebook Messenger bots, in concert with AdVictory’s social ad campaigns, created highly impactful, customizable, and conversational approaches to user engagement.
Once a target is captured in FB Messenger, AdVictory defined pre-programmed chat workflows. The bots asked customized questions with variable responses and prompted targets to enter information like email or phone number to continue the conversation on other channels.
This data can also be used to segment audiences within Messenger for future communication similar to broadcast email and SMS programs. The free-form text entered into these chat workflows can also be analyzed for trends and sentiment patterns.
Screens are Colliding
The dynamic between traditional TV and digital video is converging more rapidly as legacy problems surrounding the lack of quality digital video inventory self-correct, and media consumption shifts toward connected, OTT, and internet-based TV.
One way to reach this audience is through direct ad placement in Connected/OTT TV and full episode player inventory. Digging deeper, AdVictory also heavily profiled and modeled these cord cutters/shavers.
As we gained a better understanding of cord cutters/shavers and where to target them, we increased penetration rates via a mix of direct Connected TV ad inventory and audience-based ad delivery over traditional digital/social channels.
A holistic targeting approach of this manner, one that synchronizes traditional TV buys with Connected/OTT TV inventory and cord cutter/shaver audience-centric digital delivery will be critical to an efficient media mix in 2020.
AdVictory’s 2018 work on Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s campaign using artificial intelligence and chatbots won a Reed Award for “Best Use of New Technology,” an AAPC Pollie for “Best Use of Social Media Advertising,” and a CampaignTech award for “Development Team of the Year.” Our inventory and audience-based approach to connected TV was also awarded a Reed for “Best Use of Connected TV/OTT Advertising.”
As these tools evolve, savvy digital consultants will use them shape the strategies and tactics of their campaigns – the media will continue to examine their impact in elections – and AdVictory’s work will continue on the forefront of this movement.
Cori and Ali are Senior Digital Strategists at AdVictory. They lead data and technology-driven client programs in races of all sizes across the country. AdVictory LLC is an award-winning media-buying technology stack and consultancy specializing in data optimization, targeting, and ad delivery based in Washington DC.