Its Thursday the 22nd and the European and County Council Elections are tomorrow and I have not seen one paid ad for a candidate on Google or Facebook. The telegraph poles of the country are covered in posters, Vote No. 1 for him and her but nothing on-line.
Yes I have seen organic posting on Facebook but I would be willing to stake a few Euro that the reach for them is quite
limited. If it is important to you that your messages reaches as wide an audience as possible then relying on organic reach on Facebook is a mistake.
I have to assume the purpose of the all those posters is branding. Just get the name out as much as possible and hopefully it will stick. When we are casting our votes we will remember the name on the posters and we will give them a turn.
Election posters are tailor made to be turned into banner ads for Google Pay Per Click Marketing or Facebook Advertising.
On Facebook you can target users who live in certain areas. You can even refine you campaign so under 18’s do not see it. I was amazed how specific we could be in the targeting. I was able to specify small rural areas in Facebook. You can target people with Ads right to their mobile phones.
On Google you have great options via the Display Network to get your banners out there , the targeting was not as refined, I have to target the whole county and could not specify smaller areas as I could in Facebook. The upside with Google was the different banner types I could use.
I have been running a campaign for a standing politician, county councillor , not from my area. With the new make up of County Councils the competition is high. The required quota has nearly doubled from last time. Literally every vote counts.
Over the past week we have managed the following
On Facebook we have reached 14,000 people in our target area with Ads of various kinds. Most of these people have seen our ads multiple times. This generated 200 clicks to his Facebook page. Total Costs of about €35.
On Google our Display Network Campaign generated 165,911 impressions and over 300 clicks to his Facebook page. Total costs a staggering €50
How many posters would you get for €85, not many I would guess.
What we have done here is quite simple, we could have done so much more given time. I will let you know if my man gets elected.