In the video below, Aiden and I touch on a ton of good topics, including the power of data
for microtargeting in general, for cookie - based voter - file targeting, for multi-variant email fundraising campaigns and for tracking supporter actions, including social sharing.
If you're a regular e.politics reader, you know I'm crazy
for microtargeting and niche marketing.
I noticed this week that MoveOn is now fundraising specifically to pay
for microtargeting, and they seem to be reaching their fundraising goal.
Not exact matches
They take all this information and use it
for what Nix calls «behavioral
microtargeting» — basically individualized advertising.
But its focus on transparency — making sure people know how and why data will flow if they choose to click «I agree» — combined with supersized fines
for major data violations represents something of an existential threat to ad tech processes that rely on pervasive background harvesting of users» personal data to be siphoned biofuel
for their vast, proprietary
microtargeting engines.
CA's intent was to use Facebookers» data
for political
microtargeting, according to evidence provided by Wylie.
For instance, Romney's campaign talked a lot about
microtargeted communications, but they seem to have had in mind reaching out to the same pool of voters as usual but with better messaging.
For more on cable, see this post about Wall Street Journal coverage of the topic and the e.politics section on
microtargeting.
They spent a lot of time talking about
microtargeting, particularly
for direct mail, a skill at which the Republicans have excelled over the past few election cycles.
[Click here
for more about political
microtargeting.]
So, consider
microtargeting if it seems like a good fit, but make sure you're paying
for information that's actually useful.
They talk about database - driven
microtargeting,
for one thing, along with the importance of campaigns» going where the audience is.
My firm, Connections Media, has done
microtargeting for some of our political candidate clients.
Following up on last week's manifesto about using databases
for political
microtargeting, Phil Lepanto from Connections Media has an exhaustive piece (his second on e.politics) about the mechanics of collecting and using data to identify potential supporters.
Political professionals, who work at the nexus of ideology and marketing, have been developing
microtargeting techniques
for years.
In the 2014 cycle, GOP congressional campaigns and conservative - leaning groups paid at least $ 729,000 to the firm
for a range of services, including research, data analytics and
microtargeting.
Many companies compete in the market
for political
microtargeting, using huge data sets and sophisticated software to identify and persuade voters.
While the RNC was fine - tuning its «
microtargeting» program in Rhode Island, Democrats were announcing they had finally resolved a months - long dispute between Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) over a budget
for mobilizing voters.
Cambridge Analytica has quickly grown into one of the world's leading political data firms, using psychological profiling to build award winning behavioral
microtargeting tools
for political and commercial marketing campaigns globally.
Less clear is their power as a tool
for targeted persuasion; Cambridge Analytica has claimed that OCEAN scores can be used to drive voter and consumer behavior through «
microtargeting,» meaning narrowly tailored messages.
Obama operatives used Facebook data to get users to send their messaging
for them, according to Eitan Hersh, a Tufts professor who wrote Hacking the Electorate, a book on Obama's
microtargeting strategies.
Introduction letter
for Eunoia, detailing its «
microtargeting» products.
Many companies compete in the market
for political
microtargeting, using huge data sets and sophisticated software to identify and persuade voters.
There, with the help of a Canadian company called Aggregate IQ, which was also instrumental in analyzing voter data
for the Brexit campaigns in support of the U.K.'s departure from the European Union, SCL set up a data
microtargeting program
for the ruling party at the time, United National Congress.
«The next layer of scum — Cambridge Analytica, who seized the opportunity to scrape your details from Facebook, value - add with other big data, and build tools
for political parties to
microtarget you with just the right words at just the right time to buy your vote — add to this the fact that the Australian Privacy Act does not apply to politicians, political parties, or those acting on their behalf, and you have a recipe
for the wholesale violation of the privacy rights of Australian citizens,» he told the Senate.
So sophisticated was Obama's
microtargeting operation — based mostly in Chicago — that Sasha Issenberg could write in the MIT Technology Review that the campaign already knew the names of most of the people who had voted
for Obama in 2008.
Microtargeting of voters by Cambridge Analytica contributed to the decision
for Britain to leave the EU, Chris Wylie told the UK House of Commons» parliamentary select committee on digital, culture, media and sport.
According to the talking points, Cambridge Analytics's research allowed
for «a more innovative approach from other super PACs,» with «deepdive research» from an outside firm guiding its digital ads, which are «
microtargeted to a degree that really hasn't been done before.»
Another document in the bundle published today details a project pitch by SCL to carry out $ 200,000 worth of
microtargeting and political campaign work
for the conservative organization ForAmerica.org —
for «audience building and supporter mobilization campaigns».
That might further account
for why
microtargeting runs into so many obstacles.
When I first learned about how far advertisers could
microtarget to people facebook, even without a data breach, I thought this must be a minefield of potential hyper influence
for both commercial and nefarious political means.
In addition, hiring managers had improved tools (Applicant Tracking Systems) to
microtarget exact skills, making it impossible
for candidates to portray themselves as commodities and also stand out at the same time.