These are the ad variants Blogpac is running. Each of them links to a news article from a neutral source of information.
Back on Friday, BlogPac purchased educational Google Ads on Bob Latta. These ads appear only in Google searches for "bob latta," and a few related keywords, that were conducted within fifth congressional district of Ohio. The ads were designed to serve two purposes. First, they were designed to educate interested potential voters in the special election on Bob Latta by directing them to relevant local news articles in the Toledo Blade. Second, they were designed to measure how many people in the district were conducting Google searches for Bob Latta during the final weekend of the campaign.
On the second point, the numbers so far are decent. From 4 p.m. Friday through 2 p.m. Monday, there were a little more than 200 Google searches for either Latta or Bob Latta were conducted in the fifth congressional district of Ohio. Overall, across all searches and related content on the broader Google network, the ads have generated over 25,000 impressions. From noon through 2 p.m. today, there were 1,800 new impressions, or one over four seconds, and all of them within the fifth Congressional district of Ohio.
On the first point, the Googlebomb search engine optimization campaign initiated on Friday has been quite successful. The targeted Toledo Blade articles have risen from outside the top twenty, all the way to #6. Simultaneously, MyDD's Bob Latta tag has risen to #2 (passing the Bob Latta campaign website), Swing State Project is at #7, the Stakeholder is at both #8 and #9. The more than 200 people in OH-05 who have Googled Bob Latta since Friday have seen their results dominated by progressive blogs and negative local news articles on Bob Latta. Also, no one else appears to have even purchased Google Ads on this campaign, except BlogPac.
There are a couple of lessons to be learned from this, as I discuss in the extended entry.
First, it is important to start early. If this search engine optimization aspect of this campaign was conducted two months before the election instead of four days before an election, a couple of hundred excellent voter contacts would have been a few thousand excellent voter contacts.
Second, as demonstrated by Bob Latta's non-existent search engine optimization campaign, many campaigns still are not bothering to protect themselves in this area. I find this baffling, since it is cheap, easy and several thousand lengthy, effective voter contacts are at stake (plus tens of thousands shorter, more off-hand voter contacts). Whenever I read someone questioning my ethics for engaging in this sort of activism, the first thing that pops into my head is how cheap and easy it would be for the targeted campaigns to stop me. I fail to see how I have an ethical responsibility to allow campaigns to suffer no consequences for ignoring an entire area of voter outreach. Maybe next it will be considered unethical to knock on doors or stand outside of precincts if your opponent doesn't have a field campaign.
Third, both the progressive blogosphere and Google Adwords rock. Even before the search engine part of the campaign was engaged, progressive blogs already dominated the top ten search results for Bob Latta. Also when it came time to purchase adwords, it was possible to draw an area corresponding to the OH-05, and only run the ads in that area. How awesome are both of those things?
As far as tomorrow's election goes, I still expect a narrow win by Latta, probably by about 3-5%. Robin Weirauch still has a chance, but if she doesn't pull it out, consider that, without exception, every single Democrat from a district this red or more so is a Bush Dog. So, they are better than the Republicans who might hold those seats, but they tend to be too conservative even for the New Democratic caucus in the House. There are other things that perhaps just as positive as actually winning, however. For one, consider that the NRCC has been forced to dump about 15% of its cash on hand to defend a district that Bush won by about 20 points back in 2004. This will stretch Republicans thin in the many purple and blue districts they have to defend next year. Also, it shows that MA-05 was a fluke based mainly on the quality of the local candidates, thus helping to diffuse negative media narratives on Democratic electoral chances next year. Both are very helpful, even if victory eludes us in this instance.
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