Heavy-Hitter Political Ad Psychographic Targeting Round 1: Facebook

LLLLLLLLLLET’S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLLE. Ladies and gentlemen, WELCOME to the MAIN Event – political social advertising season. From Madison Square Garden to the MGM, political advertising agencies are training for The Big Fight… for engagements and the ultimate WIN. In this Psychographic Targeting Hot House, aimClear Production Manager Lea Scudamore highlights eight fantastic Facebook psychographic targeting punches and combos to help your agency’s candidate crush it in the center ring in November 2016— and avoid any ROI split decisions.

A Jab with Precise Address

If you know where your audience gathers, enter the address of the location in Facebook and select a radius from .63 miles to 10, 25, 50, etc. Here we have a 21K audience located within .63 miles of the White House that are government employees.

In a sprawling city, state or territory, targeting by address can quite literally draw the lines of where you want to concentrate your efforts. To aid marketers, Facebook offers four ways to use the location to reach the right users:

• Everyone in this location– includes the users with stated “current city” as the city selected or the location a mobile device last reported a user.
• People traveling in this city– location is provided by a user’s mobile device but the difference is that the user’s home is more than 100 miles away.
• People recently in this location– location is acquired according to their mobile device and includes people who live nearby or are traveling there.
• People who live in this location– the hometown audience. This group is determined by the users, “current city” and is validated by IP address and information gathered about their friends’ profile locations. We recommend utilizing the location options that make the most sense for your audience and craft messages to fit each in different ad sets if targeting more than one location type.

For our case, we’d target People recently in this location, as it is likely most government employees don’t live within a half-mile of The White House. If you were looking to hit up those working on The Hill and living nearby, we’d recommend targeting the Capitol as your home base, plus a 10-mile radius, setting the location targeting as People who live in this location.

Not focused on DC? You can do the same for any State Capitol.

Concentrated Corner Power Jab!

Get ‘em on the ropes while they’re on the move! As the candidates crisscross the nation, don’t forget to target the specific locations of:

• Town hall meetings
• Local rallies
• Debates (yes, even the live debate location!)

But don’t forget each party, in all 50 states, will have a state convention during 2016 (plus the two national conventions closer to Election Day). That’s 102 opportunities to reach political heavyweights by their Facebook location! Targeting the locations of these conventions is like having them cornered in the ring. They’re all there no matter where the move you have a glove waiting for them.

Address Jab + Right Cross Interests

A jab at the address (or an intersection) combined with interests (right cross) is a great way to find government employees in the heart of DC who have a certain agenda. In our example below we have found those passionate about feminism and gender equality. Address + Interests is a quick and effective 1-2 punch.

Right Cross Interests + Upper Cut Industry

Looking to get local and bringing the “fight” to the home turf? Start with the state, add the legislative interests that would benefit your company as interests (Right Cross) then add Government Employees via the Demographics Work category, then Industry and select Government (Upper Cut). Just for fun, let’s find government employees pro legalizing Medical Marijuana in Minnesota, according to their profile. Our combination: Minnesota + Interests + Industry = A solid and effective 1-2-3 sure to land a blow on your audience.

Get ’em on the Ropes with Job Titles

Fighters have a corner man, a cut man, a trusted friend, proudly carrying their job titles on their jackets ringside the night of a bout. Thus, another audience set we will look into are those job titles in the corner of the politicians we are trying to reach. From the lobbyist to the White House, we started with a broad list of government jobs and stemmed from there:

• Senate
• Congress
• Representatives
• Lobbyists
• Election Teams
• White House Staffers

As you can see, we found a list of 6,200 Facebook users with titles ranging from Legislative Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You might be saying, “But Coach. What about layering interests?” Yup. We’re getting there. Keep reading. J

Employers Southpaw

Targeting by Employers is another way to find US Government employees because most are going to share where they work. Who wouldn’t put that on their Facebook page?  It’s like hoisting a title belt above their head because they made it to the big show, The White House, The Senate or The House of Representatives. This 14K audience proudly “represents” their employer.

Hook the 2016 Heavy-weight Super PACs and Campaigns

Super PACs and the candidates’ campaigns control a lot of money. (A LOT) If you didn’t hear a cash register go CHA-CHING in your head you should have. Landing a blow on any of these groups could have your corner cheering on their feet!

The above audience includes people who would work for campaigns themselves too, not just PACs. Someone can’t legally work at both. If that’s okay for your goals, you are set. Otherwise, conduct additional research to find Super PACs divided by party affiliation and sorted by money raised. If your efforts are more focused on a specific state or region, be sure to do a deep dive into the dominant PACs and mega-donors pulling the purse strings at the state level.

Employer Southpaw & Interests Right Cross

One more way to reach the pro politicians is through their employer. For example, The House of Representatives combined with an Interest of their party of choice — GOP, Democratic, green or a Politician’s name.

On the Ropes with Job Titles + Landing a Interests Right Cross

As promised above, our final example is layering job titles with interests. You have their back against the ropes. You know what they do for a living and now are landing a hard brick right cross layering their political interests. The fight is at its apex, the audience is down and your corner starts to count with the ref… 1… 2…

DING! DING! DING! WINNER! By Unanimous Decision = YOU

As you can see, the Facebook political targeting reveals many variables as long as you’re willing to do a little research to find the locations, candidates, lobbyists, Super PACs, etc. Now, Vaseline your nose, forehead and cheekbones, go practice your left jab + right cross + left hook combinations and get in the ring.

Stay tuned marketers, next week aimClear’s Senior Creative Strategist, Merry Morud, enters the political targeting ring duking it out with Twitter targeting for political gain.

And remember, “Float like a (Marketing) Butterfly, Sting like a (Psychographic) Bee.”

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