Frankly many Republican firms made a lot of money in 2012 and didn’t see the need to recalibrate after the devastating losses.
We thought that a strategic revamp was imperative if we were going to create a digital company that won elections. For a year after the last presidential cycle we studied the landscape, met with the best data and technology targeting experts, and built strategic partnerships with data gurus to ensure our clients and candidates had an edge over digital firms living in the past.
Fast forward to Election Day 2014 in Louisiana 6th Congressional District, Garret Graves, a PSCI client, pushed through a crowded field to beat the nearest Republican by 13 percent. That earned him a spot in the December runoff, where he’ll face Democrat Edwin Edwards, a former four-term governor who spent time in federal prison on racketeering charges.
We helped Graves, a former state coastal adviser to Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), distinguish himself in the 12-person field by contacting in-district high-propensity voters through digital video ads, banner ads, search and retargeting and social media. Graves raised some $1.1 million and put a double-digit percent of that into digital (because of the ongoing race we can’t reveal the exact figure).
Our 15-second pre-roll ads delivered completion rates consistently above the 70-75 percent industry average (Graves averaged 81 percent). On the social media front we built a Facebook community that focused on converting “likes” from high-propensity voters, while strategically promoting posts to voter-targeted custom audiences until the end of the campaign. Every dollar spent to generate likes, comments, shares, website clicks, and video views was delivered to in-district voters…