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MITCH MCCONNELL’S REELECTION FOR KENTUCKY U.S. SENATOR

CASE STUDY:

USING DIGITAL TO GET OUT THE VOTE

Harris Media, the digital firm that represented Mitch McConnell’s 2014 Senate reelection campaign, knows mobile matters more than ever when it comes to reaching voters. So when it came to the final, critical days of the campaign, Harris Media worked with Google to employ a sophisticated Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) search and display strategy, complete with custom banner ads used to target voters in Kentucky on relevant mobile apps. The banners, integrated with Google’s Civic Engagement API, allowed voters to enter their home address and instantly receive their nearest polling location, all with a single click.

Capitalizing on user searchesThe best list-building, fundraising, and persuasion campaigns don’t mean anything if supporters don’t show up on Election Day to actually vote for your candidate. In advance of their trip to the poll, voters want to quickly know the candidates and issues on the ballot and how to cast their ballot. This cycle, there were even more than 1,000 voters who searched “where the f***’ is my polling location?”

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Realizing that voting queries increase 6X on Election Day from the prior day, McConnell ensured that potential voters searching for relevant keywords were directed to a page where they could verify their polling location. For example, this ad...

Easy-to-find polling informationBeyond leveraging search ads, the McConnell campaign also used display ad units to help Kentuckians find their polling location. By finding relevant placements on the Google Display Network and mobile apps placements via AdMob, the campaign was able to heighten the level of awareness of the upcoming vote for users who weren’t even searching about the campaign.

The ad units received 5,000 interactions over a three-day period. McConnell won reelection by 15 points, well ahead of public polling that showed the race to be much tighter.

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