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Learn. Test. Optimize.

Issue #301 | June 3, 2022 

Advertising

Bringing More Transparency to Social Issue, Electoral and Political Ads
Facebook.com
"Coming in July, our publicly available Ad Library will also include a summary of targeting information for social issue, electoral or political ads run after launch. This update will include data on the total number of social issue, electoral and political ads a Page ran using each type of targeting (such as location, demographics and interests) and the percentage of social issue, electoral and political ad spend used to target those options. We’ll also include whether a Page used Custom Audiences and/or lookalike audiences. For example, the Ad Library could show that over the last 30 days, a Page ran 2,000 ads about social issues, elections or politics, and that 40% of their spend on these ads was targeted to “people who live in Pennsylvania” or 'people who are interested in politics.'"

Campaigns

Salas comes clean on 11-year age gap on dating apps: ‘I made a mistake’
SJVSun.com
"Tuesday morning, The Sun exclusively revealed screenshots taken from a female Bumble and Tinder user apparently showing Asm. Rudy Salas (D–Bakersfield) reporting his age as 11 years younger than it truly is."

Political virtual events aren’t going anywhere
Campaigner.Substack.com
"That said, there have been some amazing use cases where virtual events are not necessarily fundraising-based. Before Bernie Sanders, Hovercast was working with Tom Steyer’s campaign, which wasn’t as focused on money. He connected the on-screen graphics during his event to his CRM, so they were gamifying email signups with a thermometer, which was really cool."

Email

How can we fix bias in email spam filtering? Look to the Post Office.
Protocol.com
"To address the challenge of political bias in email filtering, we need to create a new type of authentication that identifies messages from political candidates and parties to email inbox providers. This will ensure that subscribers see the messages they are signing up for and that political communications are not treated the same way as commercial messages."

What actually happened: Apple Mail Privacy Protection
MRSS.com
"To add to the confusion, different email tools are handling this change in different ways. Some (including our friends at EveryAction and ActionKit) are using the data about when, where, and how the tracking pixel has been downloaded to separate out different types of opens, so you can see two metrics for “human open rate” and “combined open rate.” Others haven’t, so you’re still seeing “open rate” — but now it means “combined open rate.'"

Fundraising

10 Years of Decoding What Works in Online Fundraising
NextAfter.com
"So today, I want to show you 15 experiments (or a/b tests) that the NextAfter staff has found to be meaningful over the past 10 years of testing. Some of them led to big increases in results. Others may have led to a decrease, but they also led to important learnings about donor motivations."

Is it getting harder to fundraise on Facebook?
BlueState.co
"With reduced targeting abilities and greater advertising competition, the cost to reach audiences and gain their interest is climbing — not insignificantly. It’s no secret that Facebook CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) are on the rise. The average CPM across all industries was 25% higher in 2021 with cost per acquisition rising alongside that."

Security

4 Free Digital Cybersecurity Tools That Also Help Your Campaign
BestPracticeDigital.com
"Thanks to a unique allowance made possible by the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), federal candidates are eligible to receive free digital security software and services through Defending Digital Campaigns (DDC). While these tools will make your campaign more secure, they also provide additional benefits that improve the quality of your digital campaign."

Social Media

Measuring the impact of candidates’ tweets on their electoral results
TandFOnline.com
"Findings suggest that among other factors (e.g. previous parliamentary experience), Twitter visibility has a significant positive effect on candidates’ electoral performance, especially when the candidates are already recognizable by the public."

Technology

Announcing The Good Catch: A Security Bug Bounty Program
HigherGroundLabs.com
"This time, we are expanding the program and are currently actively recruiting engineers and security researchers to join the 2022 bug bounty program. Help us assess tools and report vulnerabilities to earn ‘bounties’. (Participants are paid out for every new, validated vulnerability they discover and report.) This is a great opportunity to help keep our political tech ecosystem as secure as possible, and earn some extra cash in the process!"

The Pandemic and the Rise of Corporate Social Responsibility Are Fueling Competition in Advocacy Tech
CampaignsAndElections.com
"At the same time that the pandemic has pushed advocacy clients toward technology use, there’s also been a growing concern for large companies around corporate social responsibility and a new approach to what’s called ESG (environmental, social, and governance)."
Got a link you think should be included? Just email me: eric@learntestoptimize.com

Learn Test Optimize is a project of the Center for Campaign Innovation, a nonprofit research and training center guiding conservatives through the digital transformation of politics.
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