Running a successful digital political ad campaign starts with understanding political data and how it works.
The Steps
- Collect first-party political data from various campaigns, such as the ones collected from voter registration databases, people-based data providers like BRIDGE, polls, and past donor and volunteer activities.
- Next, organizations should create tailor-made multichannel digital marketing strategies based on political data to reach target audiences across different online channels.
- Finally, one should monitor political campaigns in order to effectively measure the results and tweak campaign elements accordingly to optimize success.
The Big Picture: By leveraging political data techniques and having an effective multi-channel strategy, any political campaign can be a success.
Running A Successful Political Ad Campaign With BRIDGE
Follow these best practices and guidelines for a successful political campaign with BRIDGE.
Running Political Ads on Social Media:
Time to launch: 7-10 business days after the following steps are complete
- Your Account Manager gets admin access to the client's Facebook page
- If the client is not confirmed as a political entity, they must receive this confirmation. This requires an email that matches the site's .gov or other documentation. This process typically takes 2 weeks to complete and must be completed by the admin of the Facebook page
- Link for identity confirmation:
https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2992964394067299?id=288762101909005
- Your Account Manager must create the disclaimer and get it approved by Facebook
- disclaimer creation and share info:
https://www.facebook.com/business/help/488070228549681?id=288762101909005
- We need to get advertising access to the client's page. We can get this from the sales rep if they are an admin to the client’s Facebook page (step 1)
Note: Political ads on Facebook MUST be positive and only focused on the representative/candidate. Shaming ads against the competition will not be accepted by Facebook and will be rejected.
Running Political Display Ads
Time to launch: 7-10 business days after the following steps are complete:
- Your Account Manager must fill out this Political Ad Campaign form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/14kVWmaxd4MzV6XEagPc8dXCAzo_pElt2BZausxNaacg/viewform?ts=5f46d29a&gxids=7628&edit_requested=true
Best Practices:
- Advertising for political candidates or parties is not allowed where it is prohibited by law.
- Political advertisers must comply with all applicable local, state, and national laws, rules, and regulations, including communications, campaign finance, “silence periods,” and any other election-related regulations.
- Political advertisers must uphold the standards of industry organizations such as the DAA
- Political advertising campaigns must adhere to all other portions of our Content Guidelines including our policies related to violence and derogation, accuracy in ads, and anti-solicitation of funds.
- Political advertising for state or local ballot measures and candidates in the State of Washington is prohibited.
- Political advertisers may only use data segments comprised solely of users residing in the U.S.
Verification:
- All political ads require verification, including the entity paying for the ad. Advertisers will be required to provide the following information:
- For US federal elections, a valid Federal Election Commission ID (FEC ID).
- For US state or local elections, a valid Employer Identification Number (EIN).
- The advertiser’s address, which must match the address used in FEC submission.
Targeting:
- Microtargeting for political advertising is prohibited. Specifically, the size of an advertiser’s final audience, after applying all targeting qualifiers and refinements, must be larger than 15,000 targeted users for all elections.
- The use of Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO), a tactic where ad creative is customized based on data available at the time of ad serving, or similar creative swapping techniques, for political advertising campaigns is prohibited.
Note: Political advertisers must abide by the guidelines of our inventory partners. In addition, our inventory partners may have discretion regarding what ads run on their sites, apps, and channels.
Transparency:
- Advertisers are responsible for including a “Paid for by” disclosure directly in all political ads, regardless of the ad format, along with any other disclosures required by law.
- All ads must follow the self-regulatory guidelines of the DAA, including its SelfRegulatory Principles for Political Advertising. We can facilitate the ability to place the DAA’s political icon on candidate political advertising creatives. This icon links to a disclosure page where the following information will be made available for public viewing:
- Name of the paying entity (the advertiser).
- Advertiser contact information.
- Name of the executive designated by the advertiser.
- Link to the DAA website page with access to state government and FEC databases.
- Any other information required by applicable federal or state law is to be included in a disclaimer notice.
- We can also include links to fact-checking organizations on the disclosure page to give users the opportunity to research any claims made in the ad
Violence:
- Political advertising often involves the advocacy of one point-of-view, or policy position, over another. Candidates frequently produce ads that express disdain of or disagreement with the opponent’s policies or opinions. In doing so, those ads may include violent images or videos in an effort to make a point to voters about important issues like policy, public safety, or change. While such heated debates and imagery are part of an open democracy, we prohibit political ads that:
- Incite, threaten, advocate, or call for acts of violence.
- Promote or glorify acts of violence.
- Advocate or claim that people from a specific race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, gender, sexual orientation, or immigration origin are a threat to the physical safety or health of others
Voter Suppression:
- Political advertisers often represent the opinion of a certain candidate or party. As a politically neutral technology platform, we do not aim to determine the accuracy of the opinions and claims made by politicians or groups in these ads. We do provide links to several independent fact-checking organizations directly to voters so they can verify these claims for themselves. We do, however, prohibit ads that are aimed primarily at suppressing voters or voting activity or delegitimizing the election process