Rand Paul Launches Snapchat Ads

[jct74]

Rand Paul Launches Snapchat Ads

Zeke J Miller
July 24, 2015

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was one of the first 2016 presidential contenders to embrace Snapchat, and now he’s becoming one of the first to advertise on the platform.

Paul’s campaign is placing three ads on the social network this weekend as part of a broader digital campaign soliciting ideas for how the libertarian lawmaker can destroy the tax code. The 10-second video spots are cut from a longer video released earlier this week featuring Paul fire, using fire, a woodchipper and a chainsaw to tear up piles of papers, all set to an electric guitar rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner.”

...

The ads are targeted at all users in the four early voting states, Iowa, Nevada, South Carolina and New Hampshire, and his campaign hopes they will appeal to the platform’s younger-skewing demographic.

...

Harris would not reveal the dollar-amount behind the buy, adding, “The campaign will continue to spend more after we see the ROI. This is new and exciting territory.”

read more:
http://time.com/3972129/rand-paul-snapchat-ads/

 

[alucard13mm]

Seems to me rand is spending a bit of money for the young and hipster demographics. Demographics that has a poor voting attendence.

 

[timosman]

Does spending money on Snapchat mean the candidate is compromised or is it just a sign of a bad influence from somebody in his closest circle ?

 

[limequat]

Does spending money on Snapchat mean the candidate is compromised or is it just a sign of a bad influence from somebody in his closest circle ?

Rand snagged a high profile tech advisor. I suspect this is his work.
He may not win a lot of millennial voters, but he may generate some buzz.

 

[carlton]

Seems to me rand is spending a bit of money for the young and hipster demographics. Demographics that has a poor voting attendence.

We need the young hipsters for Iowa and NH.

 

[Uriah]

Seems to me rand is spending a bit of money for the young and hipster demographics. Demographics that has a poor voting attendence.

In proportion, young voters are a small demographic but if you lock in their support early it's unlikely they will shift towards another candidate. The Iowa caucus will be held in February when out of state students will be back in school after winter break. The last two presidential caucuses occurred before students were back on campus. They will play a larger roll and *could* be a deciding demographic in a tight race.

 

[timosman]

WTF ?

https://www.snapchat.com/ads/political-guidelines

Political advertising must not be misleading or deceptive. Nor may it violate Snapchat's Terms of Use, Community Guidelines, and Advertising Guidelines. That means, among other things:

• No content that harasses, intimidates, threatens, or ridicules.
• No content that impersonates any person or entity or otherwise misrepresents your affiliation with a person or entity.
• No content that violates the publicity, privacy, copyright, or other intellectual property rights of a third party.
• No content that features graphic violence.
• No content that features firearms, recreational drugs, nudity, obscenity, or anything else that violates our Advertising Guidelines.

See the documents linked above for further details.

We encourage political advertisers to be positive. But we don't categorically ban “attack” ads; expressing disagreement with or campaigning against a candidate or party is generally permissible if it meets our other guidelines. That said, political ads must not include attacks relating to a candidate's personal life.

Snapchat's rights

Snapchat will review political ads on a case-by-case basis.

We reserve the right to reject in our sole discretion, or request modifications to, ads that we believe violate the standards listed above or that are otherwise inappropriate. Our discretion will never be exercised with the intent to favor or disfavor any candidate or political party.

We also reserve the right to require substantiation of an advertiser's factual claims.

 

[fcreature]

Does spending money on Snapchat mean the candidate is compromised or is it just a sign of a bad influence from somebody in his closest circle ?

How do you know it is a bad move? Have you done any testing on this ad platform? Have you split tested any campaigns and measured their ROI?

This is what Rand's team needs to be doing. Internet Marketing is all about testing different platforms, targeting, demographics, etc. You track all possible data points for the duration of the ad buy and then measure the return on investment afterwards. Tweak accordingly, rinse & repeat. Scale up as much as you possibly can once you have found an ROI winner. These tests can be done very inexpensively and the potential is vast.

I guarantee this entire campaign is a lead gen. The goal is to capture emails. Vincent Harris certainly knows the monetary value of an email address and how much he should be spending on average to obtain one. It is clear as day if you look at how this ad was made. The end of the video gives you three options to engage the ad viewer. This engagement will help encourage them to provide their email address afterwards. This is very fine work his IM team is doing.

Also, many of the major online advertising platforms don't allow firearms related material. It's pretty standard in the industry.

 

[RabbitMan]

I guarantee this entire campaign is a lead gen. The goal is to capture emails.

By campaign, do you mean ad campaign?

 

[nikcers]

This ad has been my favorite, getting shown everywhere where the news doesn't normally even want to report on tax plans because they don't sell. I think he should do a whole sequence of viral ads and maybe even a mobile game. I also wish he would do something charitable for veterans. He needs to be the candidate that fights for the undead.

 

[timosman]

How do you know it is a bad move? Have you done any testing on this ad platform? Have you split tested any campaigns and measured their ROI?

The Snapchat demographic does not vote. Split testing is not that reliable. You can discover non existing dependencies as correlation does not equal causation. I know marketing folks like to ignore these inconvenient facts.

This is very fine work his IM team is doing.

Aha.

Also, many of the major online advertising platforms don't allow firearms related material. It's pretty standard in the industry.

Aha.

You cannot make a judgement on how well the campaign is doing based on it's email marketing material. As a full time internet marketer of 10 years, I'm quite certain that they're executing this properly.

Yawn.

 

[CPUd]

By campaign, do you mean ad campaign?

Yeah, a lot of advertisers lost their ass when facebook ads first launched, because they were thinking in traditional terms (direct sales) while CPA had already been maturing 4 or 5 years. People on facebook don't buy things from ads, at least not in 2005. Zip and email submits were hot though; I know people who were spending $25K a day on facebook ads to make $30K.

 

[eleganz]

In proportion, young voters are a small demographic but if you lock in their support early it's unlikely they will shift towards another candidate. The Iowa caucus will be held in February when out of state students will be back in school after winter break. The last two presidential caucuses occurred before students were back on campus. They will play a larger roll and *could* be a deciding demographic in a tight race.

Totally agree with you here, Rand doesn't want every single youth vote but he wants to be the cool candidate and once you're the cool candidate, they get all the young people.

 

[fcreature]

By campaign, do you mean ad campaign?

Sorry, yes.

Yeah, a lot of advertisers lost their ass when facebook ads first launched, because they were thinking in traditional terms (direct sales) while CPA had already been maturing 4 or 5 years. People on facebook don't buy things from ads, at least not in 2005. Zip and email submits were hot though; I know people who were spending $25K a day on facebook ads to make $30K.

That isn't necessarily true. I was spending 20k/day and making 40k/day directly selling two products on Facebook at one point, and I know a handful of other people who were doing just as well, if not better. But for the most part, I would agree. Social media is usually pretty good for generating leads and capturing data from users. It's a good way to get people into your sales funnel. The same principle applies with politics.

The Snapchat demographic does not vote. Split testing is not that reliable. You can discover non existing dependencies as correlation does not equal causation. I know marketing folks like to ignore these inconvenient facts.

Many things wrong with this statement. First, I would like to point out that while a primary/caucus vote certainly would be the desired action it is not the only action someone can take to provide a return on investment. For instance, if a lead that was captured by this campaign donates more than they spent on obtaining that lead, it is a winner. I can think of a handful of other actions besides voting which would make it worthwhile as well.

We are all aware that correlation != causation. You have no argument there. But when you isolate variables and only split test changes one by one you are statistically increasing the likelihood of it being so. When you test that hypothesis over the course of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of ad engagements, you can be pretty damn sure that you are correct. The millions of dollars I've spent over my career and the billions of dollars spent each year in this industry would certainly prove you wrong. Your opinion on the subject changes nothing.

I would like to remind you again that it is not the goal of this marketing campaign to directly generate an ROI. The goal is to capture an email or other data. This is the entry point of the sales funnel. The campaign has months to nurture those leads afterwards. If it works great. If it doesn't, oh well. That is why they are purchasing a TEST buy.

Need further proof? Just look to Obama's campaign in 2008. Perfect case study.

 

[timosman]

Many things wrong with this statement. First, I would like to point out that while a primary/caucus vote certainly would be the desired action it is not the only action someone can take to provide a return on investment. For instance, if a lead that was captured by this campaign donates more than they spent on obtaining that lead, it is a winner. I can think of a handful of other actions besides voting which would make it worthwhile as well.

What are the other actions ? Please tell us. Are you able to see any negatives of a marketing campaign ? Misrepresentation could be a problem. If Rand's campaign is perceived as targeting mostly youngsters the older voting blocks may be turned off. Net loss.

We are all aware that correlation != causation. You have no argument there. But when you isolate variables and only split test changes one by one you are statistically increasing the likelihood of it being so. When you test that hypothesis over the course of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of ad engagements, you can be pretty damn sure that you are correct.

You seem to believe in variable isolation down to a single variable. This is a pipe dream.

The millions of dollars I've spent over my career and the billions of dollars spent each year in this industry would certainly prove you wrong. Your opinion on the subject changes nothing.

How about the ROI from those millions that you spent ? Can you even measure it ? ;-) The billions spent by the industry, with almost no accountability, creates a circle-jerk where everybody is vying for a piece of action and will say almost anything to get it.

I would like to remind you again that it is not the goal of this marketing campaign to directly generate an ROI. The goal is to capture an email or other data. This is the entry point of the sales funnel. The campaign has months to nurture those leads afterwards. If it works great. If it doesn't, oh well. That is why they are purchasing a TEST buy.

Email addresses can be purchased. Cheaper and less intrusive.

Need further proof? Just look to Obama's campaign in 2008. Perfect case study.

What about Obama 2012 ? Why did not they improve on their experience from 2008 if, as you say, it was so important ? Is there a marketing campaign you did not like ?

 

[Lord Xar]

Young demographic is good, but I think he should focus on the elderly and independents....

 

[Lord Xar]

Young demographic is good, but I think he should focus on the elderly and independents....


I think Obama's situation is different - he had the backing ALL the sycophant media outlets pushing his agenda... He got all the celebrities on board with and his race politics.. plus, there was a HUGE swath of white voters who have white guilt. Obama is different - you can't use a manufactored & hugely marketed entity and say that is possible for an outsider in the race...

 

[Wilf]

Young demographic is good, but I think he should focus on the elderly and independents....


I think Obama's situation is different - he had the backing ALL the sycophant media outlets pushing his agenda... He got all the celebrities on board with and his race politics.. plus, there was a HUGE swath of white voters who have white guilt. Obama is different - you can't use a manufactored & hugely marketed entity and say that is possible for an outsider in the race...

If you think that white guilt was the reason why Obama won 2008 then Jessie Jackson would have been president in 1988.

 

[CPUd]

That isn't necessarily true. I was spending 20k/day and making 40k/day directly selling two products on Facebook at one point, and I know a handful of other people who were doing just as well, if not better. But for the most part, I would agree. Social media is usually pretty good for generating leads and capturing data from users. It's a good way to get people into your sales funnel. The same principle applies with politics.

Was it diet?

 

[Spikender]

If you think that white guilt was the reason why Obama won 2008 then Jessie Jackson would have been president in 1988.

Not true, white guilt wasn't at the all-time highs it is today.