Run Your Own Paid Media, Day 3

by: Chris Bowers

Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 19:30


The third day of my personal paid media campaign continues with changes and expansion.

First, after two consecutive days where I didn't receive a single impression on my revised Palin ad, I paused the campaign. I will try it again later, but I am sure that the problem is with how I am setting up the ad, not that no one in the entire state of Pennsylvania is searching for Sarah Palin online.

Second, I created a new McCain ad, in order to compare it's performance to my first McCain ad. As I promised earlier today, here is the new ad:


Ad reports and comparisons in the extended entry.
Chris Bowers :: Run Your Own Paid Media, Day 3
After only a couple of hours, the second ad has already shown real results:



The two images are to be read as a single table, but it was too wide to put it into a single image. The first three rows show the results for the first McCain ad:


And the second three rows show the result for the new ad I produced only about three hours ago. Google ads gives you two general locations for your ad placement: on search engines (the "Search" row), and on websites that run Google ads (the "Content" row). As you can see, I turned off the content network portion of both ad buys, because with my restricted budget I only wanted to target people searching for information on McCain, not people casually surfing the web.

In the second image, the "clicks" column refers to the number of people who clicked on the ad.   The "impressions" column is the number of times that someone viewed the ad (or, at least the number of times it appeared on a website someone was viewing). "CTR" refers to the "click thru rate," which is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. "Avg. CPC" refers to how much each ad click cost me, and the final column speaks for itself.

So far, the second ad "McCain is out of touch," is actually outperforming the first ad. Although the above pic does not show it, in an updated report I just received, after only three hours the ad has 9 click-thrus and 1,050 impressions. That is a higher rate than the first ad, which has 23 search engine clicks on 3,262 search engine impressions in about 48 hours. While three hours is not a thorough test, maybe the "out of touch" attack is slightly better than the "McCain equals Bush" attack. That would be good to know.

How are your ad buys going? Let everyone know in the comments. Also, if you want to support this project, but don't want to run any ad buys yourself, you can contribute to the project here. Over the next week, I will be continuing, and actually greatly expanding, the personal paid media campaign. Your insights, your participation, and your support are invaluable to that end.

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Run Your Own Paid Media, Day 3 | 16 comments
I really like this approach of using two ads for comparison (0.00 / 0)
although I wonder how effective the ads really are.  

Too bad you can't focus group this process to see who the ads appeal to.

To be honest, I think the McCain=Bush line has never been very effective as McCain's public image is too unBush that his real record is ignored by casual observers.  I think the whole argument is ignored by the masses.

The "out of touch" approach is tantalizing and, I think, more enticing to casual observers as it draws you in and there is an inherent acceptance due to McCain's age.  Also, his very "Maverick"-ness makes him an outlier to most people (that's what a maverick is, after all, a nonconformist), and it allows for intriguing approaches to open a dialog.  

Keep up the good work!

Quantitiave data beats qualitative data (0.00 / 0)
Your comment that "too bad you can't focus group this process to see who the ads appeal to," fails to recognize that quantitative data, which is what Chris is getting from his Google ads, is infinitely better--in terms of projectionable, statistically valid and actionable information--than qualitative data, which is what you get from focus groups.
[ Parent ]
How do you think McCain-More Wars would do? (4.00 / 1)
with a link to his comment that there will be other wars.
My Results (4.00 / 3)
I started running ads today.  I tried to run three, but only the first one ever ran, for some reason.  However, it's probably the best one, anyway, so not terrible.

I chose to run only in Ohio.

The three ads:

McCain Is Out Of Touch
McCain admits he's "divorced from
day-to-day challenges" of Americans
dyn.politico.com

McCain Thinks You're Dumb
He won't debate the real issues and
thinks you're too stupid to notice
nytimes.com

John McCain is a Liar
Claims Palin requested no earmarks;
Requested $200mil this year alone
thinkprogress.org

Only the "McCain Is Out Of Touch" ad ran.  It received 675 impressions and 12 clicks, running on searches only, not the content network.  CTR was 1.77%, which seems pretty good.  It was actually running around 3% early on.  Of course, that might mean that running even longer would further reduce the rate.  Who knows?  I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Total cost was $4.83.  I put a $5/day limit, and can only do that for a couple days.  I'm looking for a job right now, so I'm not exactly rolling in the money.

I really like the phrasing of my "Out of Touch" ad.  I'm not sure what I think of my other two ads, and obviously have no idea how effective they would be since they aren't being run.  I also don't know why Google's not running those.  Hopefully I'll have time to give an update tomorrow.

Forgot To Mention (0.00 / 0)
Avg. CPC was $.40.  Started at about $.58 and went down throughout the day.  I set my top CPC at $.75.
[ Parent ]
Also Forgot Keyword Info (0.00 / 0)
Ran these on the keywords:

john mccain
mccain
mccain out of touch
john mccain economy
mccain economy

Only hits were on "john mccain," "mccain," and a single impression (no click) on "mccain out of touch."  (Not really sure if that's a good keyword anyway.)

Results for "john mccain" and "mccain":

"john mccain" - 3 Clicks - 207 Impressions - 1.44% CTR - $0.49 Avg. CPC - $1.46 Cost - 1.8 Avg. Position

"mccain" - 9 Clicks - 467 Impressions - 1.92% CTR - $0.37 Avg. CPC - $3.37 Cost - 2.8 Avg. Position

[ Parent ]
Thanks for the info (0.00 / 0)
And thanks for the inspiration, Chris, this is a very cool project.

I'm glad you mentioned the cap... I may try this out myself, if only as an experiment. Maybe I could get a few friends to pitch in?  

"Don't hate the media, become the media" -Jello Biafra

[ Parent ]
Good to know (0.00 / 0)
My "liar" ad didn't work either.

I probably need a different attack for a new anti-Palin ad.

[ Parent ]
Re: "Only the 'McCain Is Out Of Touch' ad ran." (0.00 / 0)
Did you remember to set your ads to rotate? Google's default is to favor the ad that initially gets the most click-throughs  out of the gate, so to get a true random test, you have to go into your settings, scroll down to "schedule" and click on "rotate."  
[ Parent ]
The day America was born again (0.00 / 0)
Looking for your ad I came across this article. Justin Webb is the BBC correspondent in US.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t...

Why not link to a YouTube Video (0.00 / 0)
here

or here

or here

Any of these links would be great. Linking to the videos would get you more bang for your buck.


JOHN MCCAIN LIKES TO SAY HE PUTS WAR AND COUNTRY FIRST, BUT... (0.00 / 0)
sorry about the all caps, but this is typed as a script for Obama to record.

JOHN MCCAIN LIKES TO SAY HE PUTS WAR AND COUNTRY FIRST, BUT HERE ARE A FEW OTHER FIRSTS FOR JOHN MCCAIN:

ON THE ECONOMY JOHN MCCAIN PUTS CHINA FIRST, INDIA FIRST, MEXICO FIRST, AND COLUMBIA FIRST, WITH TRADE POLICIES THAT SHIP AMERICAN JOBS OVERSEAS BY EXPANDING ON UNCONDITIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS.

ON TAXES HE PUTS THE WEALTHY FIRST WITH A PLAN THAT GIVES A BREAK OF ALMOST ONE MILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR TO TAXPAYERS MAKING OVER THREE MILLION DOLLARS WHEN COMPARED WITH THE OBAMA PLAN WHICH GIVES TAX BREAKS TO ALL AMERICANS MAKING LESS THAN TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX THOUSAND.*

ON HEALTHCARE, HE PUTS INSURANCE COMPANIES FIRST BY MAKING IT HARDER ON WORKING AMERICANS TO AFFORD INSURANCE WHILE DOING NOTHING TO HELP THE UNINSURED.

ON ENERGY, HE PUTS THE OIL COMPANIES FIRST BY PUSHING CORPORATE TAX BREAKS THAT GIVE OIL COMPANIES AN ADDITIONAL FOUR BILLION DOLLARS.

ON SOCIAL SECURITY, HE PUTS WALLSTREET FIRST BY PUSHING TO PRIVATIZE SOCIAL SECURITY AND REMOVE THE SAFETY NET THAT ALOWS WORKING AMERICANS TO RETIRE

ON REFORM, HE PUTS LOBBYISTS FIRST WITH SEVEN LOBBYISTS ON HIS PERSONAL CAMPAIGN PAYROLL

SO WHEN JOHN MCCAIN SAYS THAT HE PUTS WAR AND COUNTRY FIRST, YOU CAN BELIEVE HALF OF THAT

SHIFT TO OBAMA CROWDS AND SMILING

OBAMA GIVES US PLANS THAT OFFER REAL CHANGE TO THE FAILED POLICIES OF THE PAST.  PLANS THAT OFFER AN ECONOMY THAT PUTS WORKING AMERICANS FIRST, HEALTHCARE THAT PUTS CHILDREN FIRST, AND FOREIGN POLICY THAT PUTS AMERICA FIRST.  

MAKE A CHOICE THIS YEAR THAT YOUR CHILDREN WILL NOT REGRET, VOTE OBAMA.

I'm Bruce and I approve this message.

While Bruce is not running for office, I think this would be a great scenario to put on film.

Palin target-able keywords (4.00 / 1)
From http://www.keyworddiscovery.co...

sarah palin   722
michael palin 541
palin        360
ana palin       126

Started Running McCain & Taxes in Florida (0.00 / 0)
Here's my ad which I'm running in Florida:

McCain's Tax Increase
How much more will you pay?
New McCain Health Insurance Tax
CBSNews.com

Just started running it, so no impressions/click-thru numbers yet.

day 1+ 2 of ads (0.00 / 0)
McCain is 95% Bush
Dressing a record with lipstick
doesn't smudge the facts.
www.factcheck.org
65.2% 16 11,043 0.14% $6.02

McCain - Bush's Yes-Man
John McCain voted with George
Bush 95% of the time in Congress.
www.factcheck.org
32.6% 4 5,519 0.07% $1.54

I added this second ad yesterday "McCain - Bush's Yes-Man", inspired by the Lakoff article.  My CTR seems pretty low, so I've made two new ads that are running today.  They are a lot more aggressive, so we'll see how it goes.  I also removed the "Content" placement because it was eating up my precious $3 a day.

Cool Exercise (0.00 / 0)
i'm very much enjoying this series. the follow up is very instructive since right now I don't have the time to experiment with this sort of thing. but I'm looking forward to doing so.

I'm wondering about the effectiveness of the titles and you think of as your target audience. I would think your target audience would be independents/swing voters. in consideration of that I wonder, would it be more effective to have ad titles and text that are neutral about McCain (like "McCain's Economic Background") but that then take the reader to a page which exposes his flaws?

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare

Run Your Own Paid Media, Day 3 | 16 comments
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