Case Study: How A Political Campaign Used Geofencing Technology To Generate Votes

Whether you're running a political campaign or running a business, geofencing can be an incredibly useful tactic.
Political candidate drives voters to the polls with addressable geofencing

As Election Day comes into sight (and for many, it can’t come soon enough), the 2020 campaign is projected to be the most protracted and expensive of all-time. Political ad spending on the 2020 election cycle is estimated to reach $6.7 billion.

In a saturated and competitive environment, standing out from the crowd is a challenge. It takes the ability to reach a relevant, localized audience with the appropriate reach and frequency. Additionally, it can be even tougher to decipher the impact that advertising has on voters and election results. 

In the pivotal days leading up to an election, a local Circuit Court Judge candidate was looking to build awareness and drive voters to the polling booths. The campaign staff knew that to win a competitive election, they needed an innovative digital strategy to complement their traditional marketing efforts. 

The campaign staff wanted to reach as many voters as possible. From there, they wanted people to click through to learn more about the platforms they represent. They also wanted to gauge the impact that the campaign had on voters as every vote counts. 

The team at Moving Targets recommended they utilize addressable geofencing. This enabled them to take a proprietary list of potential voters’ home addresses and show them ads digitally. Using this tactic, they could expand their marketing efforts to target individuals at these addresses with mobile, video, and/or Over-The-Top (OTT) / Connected TV (CTV) ads. 

OTT ads consist of platforms that make instant streaming possible, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and HBO Now. CTV is any television or device that allows you to connect to the Internet and stream video content; think devices such as Amazon Fire, Roku, and Apple TV, as well as gaming consoles like PlayStation and Xbox.

The Front Runner

The team developed a collaborative strategy to:

  1. Digitally target specific addresses to build awareness about the candidate among a relevant audience;
  2. Encourage people to vote at polling locations and track online-to-offline visits. 

The team uploaded a list of potential voters. Then, they matched these addresses to the physical location, shape, and size of each address using GPS data. They built a geofence targeting zone around each precise address to showcase their candidate to each person at every location. 

Addressable Geo-Fencing made it possible to target users associated with each household across multiple devices. Over the six days before the election and the day of the election itself, ads were shown on mobile, tablet, desktop ad, and CTV/OTT ads. 

On election day, the team added conversion zones around 45 polling locations. Adding conversion zones made it possible to track the number of people who saw an ad, then visited a polling location on election day, gauge the impact that the advertising campaign had on voter turnout.

The Exit Poll

Throughout the weeklong advertising campaign, the team delivered a high CTR of .15%. The campaign produced 288 geofence conversions on election day. This means, 288 people saw an ad, then visited a polling location on the day of the election. Consequently, the judicial candidate won an immensely close election – less than 150 votes decided the race! 

In a hyper-competitive landscape, the political campaign reached the right audience and measured the impact on voter turnout using an innovative address-level advertising strategy.

Click Through Rate

0.15%

Geofence Conversions

288

Marketing Campaign Type

Political

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