The shout quickly became notorious — and worth millions.
Last year, when U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson yelled “you lie!” during President Barack Obama’s speech on health care, even Wilson’s fellow Republicans scolded him. The episode went down as one of the lowest political points of 2008.
But Wilson’s outburst sent him soaring financially. Using Google ads, his campaign amassed more than $2 million in less than three weeks.
Now, as Illinois’ candidates vie for their own victories, they have flooded the Prairie State with ads on the world’s most popular search engine.
“It’s a really cheap and effective way to reach people who are looking for information,” says Lara Sanders, director of online organizing for Democratic Senate hopeful David Hoffman. “It costs so much to run television ads, but for a couple of cents a click, you can run a Google ad.”
The high-tech, bargain-basement advertising strategy has gained traction as voters flock to the Internet to learn more about candidates. Attracted by Google’s worldwide reach, campaigns have been expanding their use of AdWords to reach voters.
Eric Frenchman, who directed online advertising for John McCain’s 2008 Republican presidential campaign, says he began using Google ads in their infancy — and that he’s not surprised their use has exploded in the political sphere.
“Google ads give any advertiser, not just political, the ability to act like a large advertiser,” Frenchman says. “It creates a level playing field.”
Frenchman, chief Internet strategist at political-consulting firm Connell Donnatelli, says old advertising media, such as television, are still important in campaigns. But ads on Google allow campaigns to pinpoint voters rather than blast them.
“It’s not always the biggest spender wins,” Frenchman says. “It’s the most relevant spender wins.”
Political strategists can use a variety of methods to advertise with Google’s AdWords program — either directly on the search engine or on Web sites in its content network.
They place their ads by choosing keywords similar to those their target audience would use in a search query. The ads land on related searches, and Google rewards advertisers who are most relevant by displaying the most frequently clicked ads more often and more prominently.
The ads themselves can include text and images, and they often link to pages that invite visitors to sign up for campaign e-mail lists or donate.
Wilson’s staff employed a variety of keywords to reach voters who were searching for him or related topics, such as the phrase “you lie.” The combination of keywords allowed him to solicit donations from people across the country.
The tactics reflect aggressive growth in the use of Google for political advertising, says company spokesman Galen Panger.
“There are tons of these guys,” he says. “Tons of politicians are using AdWords and using our advertising platforms to get their messages out.”
While some political consultants have been using Google ads for years, Panger says Obama’s presidential run marked a new high for AdWords.
He says the momentum from 2008 continued through last year, when candidates in a closely watched Virginia governor’s race used Google ads to spin a major story their way.
During the race, The Washington Post revealed that Republican nominee Bob McDonnell had advocated controversial policies in his graduate thesis, calling working women “detrimental” to families.
Panger says both McDonnell and Democratic opponent Creigh Deeds used Google ads to great effect.
McDonnell, now governor, tried to limit his negative exposure, placing Google ads that linked to his endorsements from women. Deeds bought ads that highlighted the Post story, placing them within searches related to McDonnell.
“The campaigns use it as a key tool to redirect stories and capture the momentum and energy for anything that might happen in the news,” Panger says.
He says Google has responded to the surge in demand for ads by expanding its support staff for political media buyers. While he says political ads are a minor part of overall revenue for Google, he says the growing political staff has acquired “outsized” influence in the company.
Michael Organ played a major role in popularizing political Google ads, serving as the Obama campaign’s director of Internet advertising during the presidential primaries. He now consults on new media at Chicago-based AKPD Message and Media, founded by senior presidential advisor David Axelrod.
Organ says the campaign began exploring the ads as part of a larger effort to experiment with online advertising. The Google ads returned results that were measurable and cost effective for a variety of goals, he says.
“We track more than click-throughs,” Organ says. “We track response rates. So if we ask people to sign a petition or join our e-mail list, we know the number of people who clicked, how many people signed up and how much that cost us. We have a sense of our cost per person.”
Google ads have filtered into campaigns within Obama’s home state, as elections here heat up ahead of the February primary elections.
Among the many Illinois campaigns that have used Google ads, perhaps the most persistent advertiser has been Alexi Giannoulias, the state’s treasurer and a Democratic candidate the U.S. Senate.
Giannoulias Campaign Manager Tom Bowen, who worked on Obama’s U.S. Senate race, says his team is refining content beyond the ads themselves, to personalize messages for different audiences.
For example, people in Illinois looking up “Alexi Giannoulias” on Google would see an ad that takes them to a different page on his site than those who are clicking on a Google ad about him from inside a liberal blog network.
The goal, Bowen says, is to tailor messages to individual voters’ preferences — and still reach every potential supporter.
“You sort of jump in the shoes of the person on the other end of the computer,” he says. “If they’re in Illinois and they’re looking for politics, we want them to find us.”