Three audience categories for political campaign marketing

As we approach the 2024 election season, the advertising landscape is poised for tremendous growth, with political ad spending projected to surpass $10 billion. With Kamala Harris entering the race, spending priorities have moved, especially in key states like Ohio, where the Senate race alone has already seen $300 million in ad spending. Connected TV’s (CTV’s) share of political ad spending is set to jump from 2.7% in 2020 to 12.8% this year. The Harris campaign is leading the charge, allocating $200 million for digital ads, much of which will go to streaming platforms. 

During this political campaign marketing season, effective audience targeting is crucial, as it holds the potential to sway voters, shape public opinion, and ultimately determine election outcomes. In this blog post, we’ll highlight political audiences that can assist political campaigns and organizations in connecting with their desired audiences in a meaningful and impactful way.

Three political campaign marketing audience categories

Over 240 politically relevant audiences are available on-the-shelf of leading TV, demand, and supply platforms to help your political partners gain share based on three political audience categories:

1. Political affiliations
2. Political personas
3. Relevant ballot initiative audiences

Let’s break down each category and which audiences you can use in your political campaign marketing to target voters this upcoming election season.

Political affiliations

Target audiences could include those who are likely to be in the Democratic, Independent, or Republican parties, or are likely to not be registered to a political party. Our political affiliation audiences use a foundation of voter registration data with Experian’s advanced statistical models to reach voters at scale, based on their political party.

Here are four audience segments that you can activate to target voters based on their predicted party affiliation:

1. Political Affiliation > Democrat
2. Political Affiliation > Republican
3. Political Affiliation > Independent/Other
4. Political Affiliation > Unregistered

Political personas

One key target audience could be voters who are likely to be influenced by a political candidate’s renewable energy program. Additional target audiences could include those who are likely to be influenced by a candidate’s position on the economy or healthcare.

Here are 10 audience segments that you can activate to target voters based on their viewpoints on key political issues:

1. Political Personas > Political Unregistered Liberal Leaning
2. Political Personas > Political Unregistered Conservative Leaning
3. Political Personas > Committed Democrats
4. Political Personas > Moderate Democrats
5. Political Personas > Political Leaning Liberals
6. Political Personas > Liberal Leaning Independents
7. Political Personas > Conservative Leaning Independent
8. Political Personas > Political Leaning Conservatives
9. Political Personas > Moderate Republicans
10. Political Personas > Committed Republicans

To reach voters who believe the environment is a key political issue, you can layer in our GreenAware audiences with our Political Personas audiences:

1. GreenAware > Behavioral Greens
2. GreenAware > Think Greens
3. GreenAware > Potential Greens
4. GreenAware > True Browns
5. Psychographic/Attitudes > Shopping Behavior > Smart Greens

To reach voters based on their regional voting patterns, you can use our new battleground counties and district audiences:

1. Affiliation Switcher Counties
2. Battleground Counties
3. House Battleground Districts
4. Democrat Counties
5. Republican Counties
6. Independent Counties

Relevant ballot initiative audiences

You can also reach voters based on their attitudes and behaviors related to key ballot measures. Let’s walk through a few examples below and highlight relevant syndicated audiences that you can activate during the 2024 political campaign marketing season.

Local and national ballot initiative support

Consumer behaviors are often great predictors of down-ballot initiatives. For example, military families may show favor toward initiatives supporting veterans, households with children present may show more interest in school funding, and those interested in the environment will favor green initiatives. Experian offers an array of consumer behavior and interests audiences to help you fine-tune your targeting and messaging strategies.

1. Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Occupation > Military – Active
2. Demographics > Presence of Children > Ages: 0-18

Charitable causes

Understanding where consumers are actively donating to charitable causes paints a clear picture into their political interests.

1. Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Charitable Causes > Contributes to Political Charities
2. Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Donations > $1,000-$1,999

Demographics

Demographics play a critical role into voter opinions with presence of children, age, and household income influencing decisions at the polls.

1. Geo-Indexed > Demographics > Household Income: $50,000-$74,999
2. Geo-Indexed > Demographics > Education: Bachelor Degree
3. Demographics > Presence of Children > Ages: 10-12
4. Demographics > Marital status > Single
5. Demographics > Ages > 19-24
6. Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Moms, Parents, Families > Mothers with infant child(ren) (0-3 yrs old)

Millions of campaign dollars were wasted in the 2022 midterm elections when voters were targeted with ads for issues and candidates they couldn’t vote for. Using advances in geo-targeting can help save wasted spend and ensure relevant messages reach the right voters.

Finance

Income and large financial decisions often trigger changes in perspective and influence voter behaviors.

1. Financial FLA Friendly¹ > Income > $1,000-$24,999
2. Financial FLA Friendly > In Market New Mortgage
3. Financial FLA Friendly > In Market Auto Loan

Media consumption and engagement

Media consumption and engagement offers great insights into how voter interest, current channel engagement, and engagement in political issues.

1. TrueTouch: Communication Preferences > Engagement Channel Preference > Email Engagement
2. TrueTouch: Communication Preferences > Engagement Channel Preference > Streaming TV
3. Social Media > Snapchat
4. Purchase Transactions > Ad Responders > Digital
5. Television (TV) > Ad Avoiders/Ad Acceptors > Ad Acceptors

Mosaic

Proprietary persona-based audience solution that combines demographic and behavioral data to create a holistic view of voters and their interests.

1. Mosaic – Personas – Lifestyle and Interests > Group O: Singles and Starters > O55 – Family Troopers

Occupation

Provides the opportunity to deliver targeted messaging on measures based on a consumer’s occupation.

1. Demographics > Occupation > Management/Business and Financial Operations
2. Demographics > Occupation > Sales
3. Demographics > Occupation > Farming/Fish/Forestry
4. Consumer Behaviors > At-Home: Retired/Empty Nesters
5. Consumer Behaviors > Occupation: Education

Personal views

Understand consumers personal views around family, their social and work life.

1. Psychographic/Attitudes > Personal Views > Work Centered
2. Psychographic/Attitudes > Personal Views > Family Centered
3. Psychographic/Attitudes > Personal Views > Social Isolation

We can help you match your message to your audience

With Experian’s political audiences, you can confidently execute your political campaign marketing, knowing our audiences are based on voter registration data and advanced predictive technology. Our highly accurate models are validated by our expert audience team to ensure precise targeting and drive impact and influence with the right audience. We understand that finding a trusted data provider can be a challenge, which is why we make it easy to access our syndicated audiences.

For a full list of all of Experian’s syndicated audiences, download our syndicated audiences guide.

You can activate our political audiences on-the-shelf of most major platforms. Can’t find the audience you’re looking for or need a custom audience? Connect with our audience team for more information.

Footnote

1. “Fair Lending Friendly” indicates data fields that Experian has made available without use of certain demographic attributes that may increase the likelihood of discriminatory practices prohibited by the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) and Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”). These excluded attributes include, but may not be limited to, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, disability, handicap, family status, ancestry, sexual orientation, unfavorable military discharge, and gender. Experian’s provision of Fair Lending Friendly indicators does not constitute legal advice or otherwise assures your compliance with the FHA, ECOA, or any other applicable laws. Clients should seek legal advice with respect to your use of data in connection with lending decisions or application and compliance with applicable laws.

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