In this blog post…
In the American political landscape, understanding the intricacies of voters’ attitudes and behaviors has never been more crucial. With the 2024 election season on the horizon, the challenge lies in moving beyond broad categorizations like “Democrat,” “Republican,” or “Independent.” Voters seek candidates who resonate with their beliefs and values.
To meet this challenge, Experian has created political personas that offer a nuanced understanding of American voters. In this blog post, we’ll explore how these Experian audiences can help you tailor your engagement strategies for the upcoming election cycle.
Before we dive into our political personas, let’s break down what political campaign marketing is and six benefits of using digital marketing in political campaigns.
What is political campaign marketing?
Political campaign marketing is the strategic engine that drives candidates toward electoral success. It involves crafting and sending out tailored messages to effectively reach constituents to inform them about candidates’ stances on key issues. Think of it as the art of narrative construction, using various communication channels—from traditional media to digital platforms—to engage and mobilize supporters. In an era marked by information saturation, effective campaign marketing serves to cut through the noise to deliver compelling messages that inform, inspire, and spur action.
Benefits of digital marketing in political campaigns
As the 2024 election approaches, using digital marketing in political campaigns becomes paramount to effectively reach and influence voters where they spend a significant portion of their time—online.
Kamala Harris’s entry into the race has shifted spending priorities, particularly in critical states such as Ohio, where the Senate race has already attracted $300 million in ad spending. Political ad spend on connected TV (CTV) is expected to rise significantly, from 2.7% in 2020 to 12.8% this year. The Harris campaign is spearheading this trend, dedicating $200 million to digital ads, with a substantial portion directed toward streaming platforms.
Embracing digital marketing can help campaigns effectively shape opinions and mobilize support. Here are five key benefits of integrating digital marketing strategies into political campaigns:
- Unparalleled reach with targeted advertising: A well-connected digital platform partner can help you reach your target audiences across the ecosystem – from social to the open web.
- Optimization flexibility: Digital marketing allows for quick adjustments in response to real-time data and evolving circumstances.
- Interactive engagement: The interactive nature of digital channels creates meaningful engagement and dialogue between candidates and voters, building connections and community.
- Insights: Robust analytics provide valuable insights into audience behavior and preferences, facilitating continuous optimization and refinement of outreach efforts.
- Amplified messaging: Through digital marketing, political campaigns can amplify their message, mobilize support, and forge deeper connections with voters.
Data serves as the foundation for these benefits. Interactivity hinges on data to deliver the right message and creative for engagement. Insights are gained through pre-campaign research, analyzing audience attributes to grasp their interests and behaviors. Flexibility relies on real-time campaign data, a unique advantage in digital marketing.
In an era where audiences are available readily on most major activation platforms, advertisers need to understand how audiences are built to be privacy conscious and consistent in a cookieless environment.
Experian’s political personas
Digital marketing in political campaigns is crucial to reach and influence voters online. Integrating Experian’s political personas into your political campaign strategy can help you grasp the complexities of today’s American voter landscape and craft tailored engagement strategies. These personas offer invaluable insights into voter viewpoints on key political issues, enriching digital marketing efforts and empowering campaigns to connect with constituents more effectively.
Experian has created 10 political personas to help you better understand today’s American voter so you can reach consumers based on their viewpoints into key political issues.
Our political personas group voters along the political spectrum from most “committed” on the ends of the spectrum.
Let’s walk through how we define each persona starting from the most “committed” personas on the ends of the spectrum.
Committed Democrats
This audience contains consumers who are likely to have a “very liberal” outlook on political issues. They have strong liberal opinions on various topics including key issues and the economy and are very involved in their communities.
Committed Republicans
This audience contains consumers who are likely to have a “very conservative” outlook on political issues. They are well-informed, community-minded individuals with strong opinions that reflect their conservatism. They have very conservative attitudes regarding key social issues.
Moderate Democrats
This audience contains consumers who are likely to have a “somewhat liberal” outlook on political issues.
Moderate Republicans
This audience contains consumers who are likely to have a “somewhat conservative” outlook on political issues.
Political Leaning Liberals
This audience contains consumers who are likely to have strong opinions on key issues that may not align with the traditional Democrat point of view.
Political Leaning Conservatives
This audience contains consumers who are likely on-the-fence on traditional Republican points of view on key issues.
Liberal Leaning Independents
This audience contains consumers who are registered independents and who are likely to have a “middle of the road” outlook on political issues while tending to lean more liberal.
Conservative Leaning Independents
This audience contains consumers who are likely registered independents and likely have a “middle-of-the-road” outlook on political issues while tending to lean more conservative.
Political Unregistered Liberal Leaning
This audience contains consumers who are not likely to have aligned with a specific party, but have a more liberal attitude. They are well-informed and are aware of important political issues. They frequently align with but are not necessarily completely aligned with liberal points of view.
Political Unregistered Conservative Leaning
This audience contains consumers who are not likely to have aligned with a specific party, but have a more conservative attitude. They are well-informed and are aware of important political issues. They frequently align with but are not necessarily completely aligned with conservative points of view.
These 10 personas can help you better understand who the American voter is, but when combined with our 200 politically relevant audiences, such as watches political TV, donations to charitable causes, engagement channel preferences, hobbies, and more, the ability to study and improve engagement for each persona is considerably magnified.
How to combine our political personas with other audiences
If you’re a political candidate looking to reach an important population, Experian audiences are available on-the-shelf of major platforms. For example, if you want to reach unregistered voters and independent voters to influence green initiatives within your community, you can focus on unregistered and moderate personas in the area and combine that with audiences interested in green initiatives, like our GreenAware segments – which predict a consumer’s attitude and point of view on environmental issues.
You can use our “Political Unregistered Liberal Leaning”, “Liberal Leaning Independents,” and GreenAware “Think Greens” audience segments to reach constituents who are likely to be most interested in your message.
To reach voters based on their regional voting patterns, you can use our new battleground counties and district audiences:
- Affiliation Switcher Counties
- Battleground Counties
- House Battleground Districts
- Democrat Counties
- Republican Counties
- Independent Counties
Add Experian’s audiences to your 2024 election strategy
Political advertising spend is projected to surpass $12 billlion in the 2024 election cycle, generating the largest amount of voter outreach in the history of American elections. Experian’s audiences are available on major activation platforms allowing you to strategically reach constituents who would be most impacted and interested in your initiatives.
As we approach a cookieless future, Experian’s political personas are cookie resilient. Our data is rooted in both offline and online data that doesn’t rely on third-party cookies. The personas do not rely on an individual’s browsing behavior. Experian can help our partners understand and engage with these political audiences.
Over 200 politically relevant Experian audiences are available for activation on-the-shelf of the leading TV, demand, and supply platforms. Here are the platforms where you can find our political audiences:
- ArcSpan
- Audigent
- Cadent
- Eyeota
- Magnite
- Microsoft
- Nexxen
- Pandora
- Permutive
- Samsung Ads
- The Trade Desk
- Verizon Media
- Viant
- Videoamp
- Yieldmo
Can’t find the audience you’re looking for or need a custom audience? Connect with our audience team for more information.
Contact us
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In fact, it complements it. No single commerce media network has all the data needed to give advertisers the scale and reach they're looking for. And no advertiser wants to recreate the same audience in dozens of disconnected platforms. That friction creates inefficiency and slows decision-making. Why collaboration supports sustainable growth The opportunity is to look beyond first-party data alone and start thinking about collaboration. Second-party data. Data partnerships. Signal sharing done responsibly and transparently. Imagine an advertiser defining an audience once and being able to understand and reach that audience across multiple commerce environments. Not through a series of disconnected buys, but through a more consistent approach built on shared understanding leading to increased reach and more impactful campaigns. 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Building a massive media operation takes time and investment. Data-driven revenue streams can be introduced more quickly, require fewer internal resources, and provide steadier margins. It’s a practical approach. Use signal-based revenue to fund growth. Let that revenue support investment in tooling, talent, and media innovation over time. Bootstrapping, in the truest sense. Why transparency matters early There’s also a broader responsibility here. In many advertising channels, transparency followed growth, often after pressure from the market. Commerce media networks have an opportunity to do this differently. To lead with transparency from the start. To be clear with brands and consumers about how data is used, how signals are created, and how value flows through the ecosystem. Because the reality is this: commerce media networks are holding some of the most valuable intent signals in the market today. But those signals don’t retain their value in isolation. 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