The Campaign Workshop Blog

Unlike TV or radio, digital IE spending doesn’t come with an easy competitive report to help you track who is spending what and where. It’s a bummer, I know. That said, in their efforts to stave off regulation, oversight, and additional congressional inquiries (or maybe I’m too cynical and it’s actually out of the kindness of their democracy-loving hearts), many of the large platforms have started to provide real-time databases for political advertising. To find out what an IE is spending, it will certainly help to know the name of the committee (especially if you’re working in a cluttered independent expenditure field), but there’s a fair amount of flexibility in the search terms, so you should be able to find what you’re looking for using related keywords (think: the candidate’s name).

All campaigns, including independent expenditures, should spend time creating a written strategy statement during the beginning of the campaign planning process. The strategy statement should clearly lay out a path to victory (or how to achieve the campaign’s goals) and act as the campaign’s north star. Keep the strategy statement in mind when making major campaign decisions involving its people, time and money. Every effort the independent expenditure is making should fit in with the strategy statement.

If you’re running political ads for your independent expenditure campaign, you already have to make extra sure that everything you’re doing and saying is legal. All of your content will likely need to be reviewed by lawyers, especially if it could be controversial. But one area that’s relatively new to this kind of review is making sure your digital ad accounts and/or pages have been verified to run political ads in the US.

Just like all campaigns, a good ballot measure campaign will include a strong digital presence on both organic and paid media. One big differentiator for ballot measure campaigns is that you’ll likely need to focus on persuasion more heavily than with other campaigns.

We’ve discussed in past blogs that a large part of executing a #winning political campaign is doing your background research, and ballot measure polling is the best way to find out if you can win and how you can win.

Testimonials can work wonders for your ballot measure campaign—especially if you’re dealing with an issue that’s abstract or polarizing.

So you’ve decided you’re running for office. What are your first steps? Maybe calling friends and family to let them know the news? Starting to ask for donations for your campaign? Hiring a campaign manager? It’s possible you haven’t yet thought about some key digital items that will make your big announcement a big success.

Your political campaign Twitter account is a free and easy way to engage with supporters online. As a candidate, you’re going to get a lot of advice on how you should run your campaign and engage with voters. Some of this advice will be solicited, some of it, not so much. But one of the top political campaign tips we give candidates is making sure they embrace social media, namely Twitter. 

While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to crafting a winning campaign strategy, there are a couple rules of thumb when it comes to building a budget with communications tactics that will set you up for election night elation (and of course, some broad fundamentals to keep in mind for running to win). Let’s dig into the thought process that will drive you toward the tactics that are right for you.

Eight years ago, we started The Campaign Workshop blog to share our knowledge with an online community of advocates, nonprofits, labor unions, staffers, campaign operatives, political candidates, and progressive groups and organizations. Today, we have over 1,000 blog subscribers and 20,000 monthly unique page views to our website, which has far exceeded our expectations.

When should I start building my coalition? In short, yesterday. but to find your way coalition mapping will help.

There are so many different types of ads that it can feel overwhelming to choose which ones to use for your digital advocacy campaign. You can certainly use all of them, but there are some that are likely better suited to your campaign than others, depending on your goals.

It’s been 2 turbulent years since the Trump administration took office and people continue to voice their frustration by carrying protest signs at marches. Grassroots movements are popping up everywhere. Individuals influencing action is what will move our nation forward. Even a scrawled cardboard sign can make an impact.