Social Media Measurement & Management presentation addressing the increased use of digital marketing strategies in digital political campaign advertising.

1. POLITICAL ADVERTISING ON
SOCIAL MEDIA:
A DIGITAL MARKETING PERSPECTIVE
Presented by Larissa Churchill
Social Media Measurement & Management
Fall 2019
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2. OVERVIEW OF
PAPER
Introduction
Purpose Statement & Rationale
History & Context: The Case of Donald Trump
Academic & Industry Literature
Data
Conclusions

3. INTRODUCTION
Political advertising is prevalent on social media & played a
large role in 2016 election.
Facebook will not take down ads with false information or
claims.
Our approach is grounded in Facebook’s fundamental belief in
free expression, respect for the democratic process, and the
belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political
speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there
is” (Stewart, 2019, para. 4).

4. PURPOSE
STATEMENT
The purpose of this research is to explore
how political campaigns have used digital
marketing concepts and tools to
strategically target political advertisements
on social media and the link that this
behavior has to increasing concerns about
data privacy online.

5. CONTEXT: THE
CASE OF
DONALD TRUMP
Used for targeting ads to “lookalike voters” who may support
Trump & for micro-targeting Facebook “dark posts” at specific
groups to suppress votes.
Called “Project Alamo” and contained information on 220 million
people in the United States.
During the 2016 election, Trump’s campaign began compiling a
database for digital political marketing. Data came from the RNC,
Cambridge Analytica, and Brad Parscale’s efforts.

6. “Project Alamo”
would be used to
conduct what
Winston (2018) calls
“the most successful
digital voter
suppression
operation in
American history”
(para. 3).
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7. LITERATURE REVIEW
• Much of the academic literature is
focused on the ethical issues that new
digital political advertising strategies
pose & failures of the 2016 election.
• Industry research is focused on practical
considerations and recommendations
for engaging in political advertising in
the digital world.
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8. DATA
• Union Metrics search of
“political advertising”
the day after Jack
Dorsey announced end
to political ads on
Twitter.
• High level of
engagement
demonstrates
relevance.

9. CONCLUSIONS
Political
campaigns
will
continue to
use social
media and
targeted
advertising
to reach
As of
November
14, digital
ad spending
for the 2020
presidential
campaign
had already
reached
Future digital
advertising will be
focused on data-
driven marketing,
voter targeting,
programmatic ads,
and increased use
of ads on
streaming
services.
Increased focus on
legislation
surrounding the
use of social
media user data
may prove to be
only way to
address ethical
issues.