Case Study: Foundation Blue Reaches Local Voters Across the Country Amid 2020 Election Season
Foundation Blue Overview• Political media firm located in Washington, D.C.
• Focused on driving voter turnout instate, county, and municipal elections
• Partnered with Simpli.fi to serve 168 candidates across 23 states in 2020
2020 ELECTION SEASON
Political campaigns are increasingly turning to programmatic advertising to build awareness and drive voters to the polls. With the latest addressable OTT/CTV solutions, political advertisers can achieve the impact of traditional advertising with the precision of digital. When gearing up for the 2020 elections, Foundation Blue, a political media firm in Washington, D.C., partnered with Simpli.fi to take advantage of unique household-level targeting capabilities. With a focus on Democratic candidates in state and local elections, they knew that precise targeting would be key to garnering votes. Foundation Blue is one of many political agencies from both sides of the aisle that partners with Simpli.fi for innovative programmatic advertising solutions.
In 2020, Foundation Blue chose to partner with Simpli.fi on behalf of 168 candidates in 23 states, including races for State Senate and House of Representatives, county wide officials, city council, district attorneys, and school board members. In order to scale a large number of campaigns at the local level, they turned to Simpli.fi’s innovative addressable programmatic solutions. Foundation Blue’s expertise at campaign messaging and content creation combined with Simpli.fi’s advanced audience targeting capabilities meant that the right message would be delivered to the right person at the right time for a large number of campaigns. Simpli.fi’s unique OTT/CTV advertising solution enabled them to serve engaging video ads to streaming devices of all sizes. Additionally, Foundation Blue served display and pre-roll video ads.
TARGETING MILLIONS OF LOCAL VOTERS AT THE HOUSEHOLD-LEVEL
Ultimately, the goal of each individual advertising campaign was to encourage voters to cast a ballot for the respective candidate. With a focus on using engaging video ads to build awareness among voters, Foundation Blue relied on Simpli.fi’s OTT/CTV solution. After developing a comprehensive marketing strategy for each candidate, they leveraged Simpli.fi’s technology to execute dozens of custom advertising campaigns aligning with each election cycle.
First, the team leveraged Simpli.fi’s Addressable Geo-Fencing solution to target at the household-level. The political campaigns provided address lists from voter registration rolls to upload to the Simpli.fi platform, ranging from 2,000 to 50,000 addresses for each candidate. Simpli.fi achieved an average address match rate of greater than 90%, far superior to IP-based solutions, and additionally had no minimum list size requirements.
Furthermore, Foundation Blue enjoyed speed and flexibility when launching campaigns due to the ability to upload address lists and activate campaigns within one hour or less. This mattered significantly because the voter list changed regularly based on voters being added and removed from mail-in ballot lists.
With the audience in place, Simpli.fi’s Addressable Geo-Fencing solution used GPS data paired with plat lines to match each address to the exact physical location, shape, and size of the property. The system then automatically built a target fence around each property for targeting users who live at the individual households. Simpli.fi’s cross-device matching helped to serve ads across all of a user’s devices, including large-screen connected TVs. While most political campaigns focused on OTT/CTV advertising, Simpli.fi also served display and video ads on desktop, mobile, and tablet.
SUCCESS IN POLITICAL MARKETING
Overall, Foundation Blue has been thrilled with the results based on Simpli.fi’s ability to drive performance at scale. In total, there were more than 5.4 million addresses uploaded and matched in the Simpli.fi platform across all advertising campaigns. Simpli.fi executed more than 700 different campaigns on behalf of 168 individual candidates, with 550 of these launching in the final two months of the election cycle. Furthermore, Foundation Blue produced historic winning campaigns throughout the nation. Examples include:
- Flipped the only Ohio State Legislative race from Republican to Democratic
- Flipped the only Pennsylvania State House race from Republican to Democratic
- Elected the first African-American State Senator in New Mexico
- Elected the first African-American County Attorney in Harris County, Texas (the third largest county in America)
- Elected the first female sheriff in South Carolina history
Foundation Blue will continue to use Simpli.fi’s advanced household-level targeting for future candidates.
KEY SUCCESS FACTORS
Targeting at the household-level to reach potential voters and minimize wasted impressions.
The ability to match and activate campaigns in minutes, with no minimum list size, and an average address match rate exceeding 90%.Utilized video ads served on OTT/CTV devices to offer the impact of linear TV with the precision of digital, in addition to pre-roll video and display ads.Ability to scale and manage dozens of localized campaigns simultaneously across 23 states with varying flight dates.A robust and user-friendly self-serve platform, including the ability to easily upload proprietary address lists of registered voters.In-depth reporting and visual dashboards to showcase KPIs to each candidate’s campaign staff.Simpli.fi’s world class customer service and training.
Interested in granular targeting at the household-level for your next political campaign?
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