Political Campaign Tips and Strategies by Online Candidate

Tracking Your Political Advertising Campaigns

track your political advertising for success How do you know that the money you are spending with your online political advertising is worth the investment?

Tracking your marketing campaigns is crucial to understanding where your website traffic comes from and what elements of your political marketing are working best. Simply sending traffic to a landing page on your campaign website without knowing how well that traffic converts is a waste of time and money.

Use tracking links with your political advertising

Tracking URLs are essential if you are advertising via email, Pay Per Click advertising, ads on other websites or via retargeting campaigns. By properly creating tracking URLS from your different traffic sources, you’ll be able to report on multiple elements of your advertising campaign, right down to a granular level.

With the proper tracking urls, marketers and campaign can know which of their advertisements are working to bring in more visitors. By knowing which of their ads are working best, they can improve their strategies and make necessary changes to maximize return on investment (ROI).

All this means is that you append your regular advertising link with some additional items.

Here is a sample tracking link that works with Google Analytics:
https://www.yourcampaignwebsite.com/?utm_source=fundraising&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=summer-drive&utm_content=Fundraiser-Form1

Source – Used to differentiate the type of medium. This is the most ‘broad’ element of your tracking. It may be fundraising, donation solicitations and so on.
Medium – This is the medium used to send your campaign. Include “email” for an email campaign, “cpc” for ads, “social” for a social network or “landing-page” if you’re tracking button clicks from a landing page.
Campaign -The name of your overarching campaign – e.g. spring-2016-fundraiser or summer-2016-advertising. Be sure to follow a consistent campaign naming structure.
Content – This is essentially a bonus field and is the most granular. It can be used to track many differentiating factors for your campaign. For example, you can use this field to track different versions of your email or landing page – e.g. “email-version2” or “fundraiser-July15”.

Google even provides a simple tool for creating tracking links. You can find it here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en

You can use tracking links on a variety of online marketing services, including:

From there, you can track how well your traffic performs. You can determine what each advertising channel provides in:

Visits
Donations
Volunteer signups
Conversions for polls, surveys, etc.

Why your advertising numbers may differ

You may find that the numbers provided from your advertising service provider or vendor differ from what you are tracking from your own website analytics. The answer is simple. The vendor tracks clicks directly from their end. However, when the visitor arrives at your campaign website, they may not appear in the analytics due to ad blockers. They prevent the tracking code from loading, so the visitor is rendered ‘invisible’. It doesn’t mean the visitor didn’t see the page or interact with the site or even sign up for something, it just means their visit (and possible conversion) might not be properly track

Need help getting Google Analytics set up for your campaign website? Our Site Launch Service includes Google Analytics and Google Webmaster setup to help your campaign get an initial promotional boost to rank well in the search engines. This service can be added as a Website Option or ordered when you are ready to launch. View our full website packages and optional add-on services.

5 Assumptions That Will Tank Your Campaign Website

Here are common assumptions that can cause problems for political campaigns. These issues can apply to those who already have campaign websites or are looking to start one.

Assumption 1: You don’t need a campaign website.

More and more, with the rise of social media, the role of the campaign website has shifted from being the bulk of a candidate’s online presence to more of a hub. But the website is still critical, both from an online presence, and as a brand to point to with your offline advertising. While the campaign website contains the core message and branding, people follow candidates and campaigns through a variety of methods – from blog feeds to Facebook and Twitter updates.

Online politics has expanded greatly over the last decade. The web is where voters look for candidate information. In short, voters expect candidates to have a website. If you don’t have your own voice online, then someone else is doing the talking about you.

Assumption 2: Your website will be the first search result when someone types your name.

Go ahead, ‘google’ yourself. Type in your name and search for your name. What shows up? Maybe you share a name with someone else, and links about that person are showing up. Maybe it’s an unflattering newspaper article or blog post?

Do you want to have a say in what shows up on those results? Well, you can.

One reason why we recommend using a candidate’s name as a domain name is that it goes a long way in making that website relevant for the candidate’s name searches. Even if there isn’t much content on the site, the fact of having a domain name that includes the candidate’s name will help it to appear for searches of that name.

You’ll often see a candidate’s Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages in the search results. These pages tend to appear nowadays because those domains are considered strong and authoritative to the search engines.

If you want to help ‘push’ certain web pages or sites up the search results, you may need to give a little ‘link love’; that is, point links to those pages. For example, to build links to your campaign website, you’ll want to link to the site from your Facebook and Twitter profiles, from supporter’s websites, and from other political sites. You’ll also want to link out to your social media pages from your website, as well.

Assumption 3: People already know about you.

Believe me, they don’t. How many people do you know that can name their congressperson or state representative? One thing we suggest to candidates is that they include enough information about themselves and their race. The ‘who, what and where’ must be immediately picked up by your site visitors. We’re always amazed when we see local campaigns sites that don’t expressly state what they are running for, and where.

“Vote Smith for Mayor.”

Smith who? Mayor of where? Vote when? People should be able to know within a second or two if your campaign matters to them. If they can’t figure it out right away, they won’t stick around to guess.

For all the talk about interactivity and social media, your campaign website is the perfect place to make that initial introduction. The reality is that many voters simply don’t know you – yet.

Assumption 4: Visitors already support you.

Depending on the race, there are likely a block of independent or undecided voters who can swing an election either way. While ‘red meat’ partisan attacks may play well to a base, it will likely turn off some voters. Just because Washington, DC is hyper-partisan doesn’t mean that the average voter is looking for that in their local elections. In fact, most independent voters are turned off by excessive partisanship.

Assumption 5: Your website will become your campaign’s ATM.

If you set up a campaign website for the sole purpose of raising campaign contributions, there’s a good chance you will disappointed.

A website CAN produce significant revenue, but only if your campaign is capable of attracting donors in the first place. The campaign website should inform and persuade first. Allow people to follow your campaign through email and social media. Promote your site offline as a way to contribute toward your campaign. Build trust and rapport, which is the key to opening donor’s wallets.

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Social Media Hacks For Your Political Campaign

Campaigning online is no simple task, especially for political campaigns and non-profit organizations with limited means. However, focusing your efforts and cultivating followers on specific platforms can pay off come Election Day.

Politicians use social media to help recruit volunteers and raise money. It also helps strengthen the political base. Local candidates sometimes wonder if social media can be used for their own election campaigns. It doesn’t matter if you are running for federal, state or local office, a successful political social media strategy can be achieved at any level.

The tactics may be vary depending on the race you are involved with, but with the majority of voters engaged in social media, it is important to make an effort to reach out to them online.

Here are ideas that will boost your campaign’s social media strategy.

Get Your Campaign Authorized

Before you can begin any political social media marketing, you will want to have your campaign verified and authorized. To provide greater transparency, Facebook, Google and Twitter now require user verification.

Verification allows social media users to easily identify ads that deal with politics, to know who paid for them, and whether the ad was authorized by a candidate or campaign.

One downside to the authorization process is the time it can take. Give yourself a few weeks to become authenticated. You will be snail-mailed verification cards to confirm your address. Don’t wait until the last minute to request your confirmation postcard. Otherwise, you might not be able to run your campaign advertising.

Don’t Just Rely On Facebook Posts

Using social media for political campaigns is more than just broadcasting a message and hoping someone sees it. With declining Facebook reach for individual Page posts, you may want to test the water with Facebook advertising. The can expand your reach to followers, friends of followers or others based on specific demographic criteria such as by location, age or interests.

To boost a specific post, click on the Boost button from any of your posts, or you can log into the Facebook Ads Manager and step through the process there.

In terms of cost, Facebook ads are affordable. You can start an ad campaign for as little as five dollars. You can increase spending as you focus on reaching more potential supporters. Build your audience throughout the campaign and target them for specific events and GOTV efforts.

Use Images With Your Social Media Posts

As social media has become more visual, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are more image-friendly than ever. Adding a picture with a post will take up more space and help capture attention from viewers.

If you are sharing a blog post or web page, an image is usually pulled in from the source. If not, use a new engaging image and attach it to your update. Real campaign photos work better than stock images. You can even edit images online using tools like Pablo.

While we are on the subject of images, make sure that all of your social media profile headers incorporate your campaign or party’s colors and fonts into the page design. While Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all have different dimensions, your header images should have a similar look and feel. You want to brand your political campaign across the web, and even into the real world with your signage and print material.

Use Video To Promote Your Campaign

With the ability to record video from just about any phone, there is no reason not to include engaging video content in your social media mix. Create a campaign YouTube channel to host your videos in once central location. Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook allow for video posts. However, it is best practice to directly upload video to those other channels than to embed a YouTube video link into your posts. You will get more initial exposure on those platforms in this way.

Add Your Social Media Info To Your Email Signature

Every personal and campaign email you or your campaign staff send is an opportunity to mention your social media profiles (and website). Add social media links into your email signature.

Post Updates From The Right Account

This is a big one. Make sure you and your campaign staff keep personal and campaign social media posting separate. Personal posts sent through official campaign accounts have caused embarrassment for many campaigns. One way to keep everything separate is to use a separate browser for just campaign posts. That way you don’t even have to worry about logging in or out of different accounts.

Ask Your Fans And Followers For Help

It’s not enough just to have followers. You need your followers to help increase growth and engagement. On Facebook posts, ask for comments, likes and shares. For Twitter, ask your followers for retweets. The key is to make the right call to action. If your post is about raising money, ask specifically for a donation. If you are looking for volunteers, ask your followers to go to the signup form and register. Be specific. Never assume that someone will just know what to do.

Use Social Listening To Track The Conversation

Social listening tools lets you follow social conversations about the candidates, the election itself and various related issues. There are several services that do this, such as Mention and SocialMention. Hootsuite also has a social monitoring platform.

A few items to track include:

Your campaign and candidate name, including alternate spellings or misspellings.
Your opponent’s names.
Slogans, taglines, or mottos.
Other keywords or phrases relevant to your campaign.

Unfortunately, none of the tools listed above are comprehensive. They catch part of what is out there but don’t always pick up every relevant link or mention. It’s a good idea to use multiple services to track online mentions.

You can also use social listening to keep track of your opponents. Politics moves fast on the web. You must be prepared to act and react quickly when something important happens.

Hopefully, these tips have given you some ideas for putting together your own campaign social media strategy.

Politicians of all parties have come to understand the value of an online presence. It is a powerful tool to speak directly to voters and supporters. It can also be used to influence voter turnout and help improve your chances for Election Day victory.

With our affordable website packages, why wait to start your online campaign? Your domain, hosting and content platform are all included to make building your web site as pain-free as possible.

Updated Online Candidate Client Service Offerings

While we are known for our campaign website services, some clients are surprised to know that we also perform other related web services.

Our Online Candidate Add-on Services are designed to help build your online presence beyond the website.

Save time and effort. Each service is self-contained and a fixed price. They are designed to meet the needs of new political campaigns and candidates.

The Mailchimp Setup and Integration is our latest service.

Here is a quick rundown of our additional services:

Social Media Graphics
We will rescale and modify your website header so it can be used as your Facebook cover image and Twitter account background.

Site Launch Package
This service is designed to help your site get an initial promotional boost to rank well in the search engines. We handle all the details and turn the accounts over to you on completion.

Site Launch Package + Social Media Setup
Includes the services of the Site Launch Package and Social Media Graphics, plus setup of your campaign Facebook Page and Twitter account.

Mailchimp Setup and Integration
Save time and get your email campaign started the right way. Let us set up and configure your Mailchimp account so you can concentrate on your campaign.

Custom Design Upgrade (Lite Package and Monthly Option)
Turn your template-based design into a custom look. We’ll create a website header with your campaign colors, logo, background and candidate head shot. We also modify your site colors, font and background for a unique look.

Initial Site Content Setup
Save time with initial content setup. We’ll arrange your site text and images for a pleasing design. After that, it’s all in your control. This site setup is performed ONCE with the materials provided. (This service is included with our Enhanced Website Package.)

Any website add-on service can be ordered with your initial website order or as an add-on at a later time.

Voter Data
Select from demographic, issue categories and even voting history. Your list is provided in different formats including mail, phone, walk, telemarketing and standard CSV. Use with IP Targeting, mailings and other purposes.

IP Targeting Services
By matching a physical address to a specific IP with extreme precision, IP Targeting becomes a secret weapon for political campaigns. With up to 80% of traditional advertising failing to reach its target audience, consider how much money you could save by getting the right message to the right people at the right time. Learn more.

For more information, visit our political marketing services page.

How To Launch Your Political Campaign Website

In the business world, the terms ‘soft launch’ and ‘hard launch’ refer to two different techniques for introducing a new product or service to the market. A soft launch is more subtle, for when a business wants to make a gradual roll-out. A hard launch, on the other hand, is designed to generating buzz right away.

The same techniques apply to websites. Often an organization will do a soft launch, and they may have a limited number of users try the service before it is rolled out to the general public.

It’s typical for a candidate’s website to have a ‘coming soon’ page in the days or weeks prior to an official candidacy announcement. Then, when the time is ready, the site goes live for voters.

All excited about the launch, an announcement is made to friends and supporters.

But when they search Google for the candidate’s name, they find – nothing.

Surprise! The site isn’t listed in Google at all.

Here’s why: If you look for Google to have your site listed in the search results immediately after a brand new site goes live, you will probably be disappointed. It takes time for search engines to index a new website.

However, there are ways to speed up the indexing process. An early soft launch is one method.

By doing an early soft launch of your site, you may not attract human visitors, but it may attract search engine spiders. Spiders are the search engine software that crawls the web looking for new or updated content. Simply having a few links from your social media accounts is enough to trigger a spider to visit and index your website.

Another benefit to a soft launch is that you can have a few trusted users go through the site first. They can give you feedback and point out any errors they find before the whole world sees them.

You may think that you’re going to lose all the buzz from a hard launch with a soft launch, but that’s not the case. A soft launch is only to a small group of individuals, so plenty of opportunity remains to drive awareness through a hard launch.

Some candidates may not have the option of a soft launch. Some judicial candidates, for example, cannot start campaigning before a particular date. A live website may put them in violation of local election laws.

Political Website Launch Checklist

Use this checklist to make sure your site is ready to go live for the public.

Fill out your site settings
The Site Settings page in your Online Candidate admin covers all of the major website configurations, including form settings, page options, disclosure options and custom code insertion. As we’ve added features over the years, the page has become longer, but we’ve found it’s easier to keep everything in one place. Make sure you have all the sections configured the way you want before you go live with your site.

Titles and meta data
When creating your site pages, the page title is the most important element for SEO and is also important so that users know what’s on the page. Make sure your page titles are different on every page and that the title relates to that page’s content. The meta descriptions should also be short and to the point.

Proofread your content
Once you have your site content ready to go, check it over. Even if you’ve already read it, read it again. Then get someone else to read it. Someone will usually find an error. Streamline your text as much as possible. Break up large text blocks into shorter paragraphs. Add clear headings throughout, and use lists so that readers can easily scan the content. Don’t forget about dynamic text too, such as quote and alert boxes (which you can add by applying a style in the page editor).

Make sure your spelling and grammar, consistency and tenses are correct. Again, have someone you trust give your content a final read.

Call to actions in place
Don’t assume that your visitors will know what to do after reading a page on your website. They won’t. All of your pages should have a call to action. For most pages, this will be a reminder to vote on a primary or Election Day. Calls to action also include volunteer or donation requests.

Check your links
Don’t just assume all the links in your site content work. Check them out by clicking on them, especially links to outside websites. Sometimes people don’t copy the links properly for external sites.

All Pages Added To Navigation
When generating your site, be sure to add any new pages you’ve created to your website navigation.

Search Engine Accounts
To ensure that your site is indexed quickly, you should create webmaster accounts on Google and Bing. You will need to verify your site ownership by adding a small amount of code to your site header. Setting up search engine accounts will give you access to additional search engine tools and site information.

Set Up Analytics
Add your analytics or other tracking code to the “Sitewide analytics or tracking code” box under Custom Code Insertion section in the Site Setup. Google Analytics is free and simple to set up after you have a Google Webmaster Account, but you can use whatever tracking service you choose.

Additional instructions on how to set up search engine accounts and analytics can be found in the Online Candidate Site Administration.

Verify Your Email Accounts
Send a test message to all of your email address to make sure the accounts and forwards are working properly. Make sure the proper email addresses are assigned to your various forms, as well.

Refresh When You Go Live!
Once you go live with your campaign website, the temporary page will be replaced with your actual website. If you still see the temporary page after regenerating the site, try refreshing your browser. If that does not work, hold down the shift key while reloading the page. Sometimes browsers may cache a page for display and you need to force a reload.

Online Candidate offers a Site Launch Packages and a Site Launch and Social Media Setup option with our website packages to help you get a leg up with your own site launch.

Are You Voting Next Week?

Next Tuesday is a big day for many of our US clients. But because it’s not a presidential or midterm election, voter turnout at the polls tends to be low.

That’s a shame, because many of the elections are for local offices, the elected officials who have a large impact on our daily lives.

Turnout is even worse for local elections that do not fall on November.

If you can vote next week, do it – and take a few friends with you. Every vote counts. Many local elections are won or lost by just a handful of votes.

See you at the polls!

Did You Know?

Special elections are never held for the U.S. President. If the President dies or resigns while in office, the successor is determined by the presidential line of succession, as specified by the United States Constitution and the Presidential Succession Act.
North Korea holds elections every 5 years, in which the ballots list only one candidate.
Some countries have compulsory voting. For example, in Australia, if you don’t have a good excuse for not voting, you are fined.

Even if your campaign has finished, don’t let your online presence fade away. Here are some ideas of what to do with your campaign website after the election.