GOP Hopefuls Face Online Ad Space Sell-outs

Even before all the Republican presidential hopefuls can enter the 2016 race, the hottest online ad inventory is selling out, especially for the New Hampshire and Iowa primaries, reports the National Journal. There were digital-ad shortages ahead of the 2012 and 2014 elections, too, but not so far in advance, note political pros and online sellers like Google. But, with the summer of 2015 still ahead, winter 2016 ad inventory is booking up in this presidential race. The ads that are selling out the fastest are those that automatically play on Hulu, YouTube and other Internet-based videos that users can't skip. With a field of nearly 20 GOP candidates, and super PAC money, the ad crunch is not surprising, and Peter Pasi, now vice president of political sales at Collective and a former GOP digital ad strategist, predicts "a huge shortfall." The ad space that will be available for late arrivals includes Facebook, which sells video ads at auction, so campaigns can't lock them up in advance, and YouTube's skippable ads, which are also sold at auction. But political strategists advise conservative campaigns to grab prime ad real estate early, especially since there is little penalty for pre-buying; most ad reservations can be cancelled later at no cost or for a small fee. Perhaps just as important, campaigns are urged to use more sophisticated data targeting than in the past to make the most of scarce ad inventory, avoiding wasted dollars by serving ads only to likely caucus-goers or primary voters. "It's BYOD--bring your own data--if you will," remarks Kenny Day, head of political-advocacy sales for Yahoo. For the full story, read http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/websites-are-already-selling-out-of-ad-inventory-for-2016-20150512

Donor List Rental Still Top Political Fundraising Tool

Donor list rental is still the leading tool of political fundraisers despite hype about social media and online politicking, reports a recent Advertising Age article. The list-rental dollars in this year's elections are indicative: The National Republican Congressional Committee already has spent just under $200,000 to rent the Romney 2012 e-mail list from Targeted Victory, a consultant for Romney's digital campaign. The Democratic National Committee has put a $190,909 per month value on the Obama for America list, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee told the Federal Election Commission (FEC) it used $135,000 worth of the same list twice in April. While the Obama and Romney lists may be among the largest, they are hardly the only lists being rented per FEC reports. Candidate campaigns and advocacy groups are renting lists of online petition supporters, campaign event attendees, donors to specific nonprofits or political candidates, left-leaning subscribers to The Nation and DailyKOS.com or right-leaning subscribers to Newsmax, and so on. The primary season is especially rife with donor list rentals as lesser known candidates vie for cash to support upcoming election bids. Why are donor list rentals so key? Can't the data wizards extract targets from public voter data using known-donor profiles? "You can build predictive models of likelihood to be a donor using your list of donors and lists of people who have not donated to you," Alex Lundry, senior VP at GOP data analytics firm TargetPoint Consulting, acknowledged to Advertising Age. But he then added, "That will never perform as strongly as just going out and renting a list of people who have given before to another campaign."A person's history of donating is the best predictor of another donation, the political direct marketers agreed. Read the full article at http://adage.com/article/campaign-trail/world-campaign-tech-list-rental-a-force/293714/

Lessons From GOP Cantor's Stunning Primary Loss

Stunned political pundits are trying to explain the Virginia primary loss of GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Are there lessons for campaigns and causes charging toward the midterm elections? Cantor's loss certainly was not due to a lack of money; Cantor outspent his Republican primary rival Dave Brat by 26 to 1 courtesy of big-business donors. So those facing big-money challengers take heart, and candidates with overflowing coffers take heed.  Fundraising that earns a "crony capitalist" label can come back to bite you: Cantor's unabashed big-donor image allowed Brat to successfully appeal to voters' populist sentiments. A recent analysis in The Atlantic magazine sums up other Cantor vulnerabilities that candidates will want to avoid. For example, don't go wrong on litmus issues: Cantor's support of certain pieces of immigration reform allowed Tea Party-stalwart Brat to win Conservative votes by accusing Cantor of "blanket amnesty" support. Next, remember that personality counts: Cantor, who has been described as arrogant and self-serving, apparently made more enemies than friends on his ambitious climb to House Majority Leader via leaps from moderate Republican to Tea Party and back toward the middle, and so earned distrust, dislike and Conservative responses ranging from apathy to outright opposition during the primary. And never lose touch with the home front: Cantor didn't pay attention to his constituent base while he played Washington power games and wooed donors. Plus, he then sought to change state central committee rules before the primary to minimize right-wing activists, a misguided effort to "vigorously poke a nest of already-angry hornets" as one Republican operative told The Atlantic. For more, see the article at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/six-theories-for-eric-cantors-loss/372552/