Obama 2012: Lessons from a data-driven campaign

You probably thought we had it easy…

But victory was never assured Big-spending groups called Super-PACs

were largely supporting Romney

The progressive base was less enthusiastic than in 2008

Obama was usually ahead in the polls, but the advantage was narrow and volatile

It wasn’t 2008 (which O won by 7.3%)

So how did we win?

Massive numbers of field offices 786 Obama field offices vs. 284 Romney

offices In Ohio:

Field offices are where hundreds of paid staffers organized tens of thousands of volunteers to mobilize millions of votersSource: TheMonkeyCage.Org

Obama Romney

So how did we win?

Sophisticated technology and targeting Giant data & micro-targeting operation Fully integrated databases Smarter new methods of targeting TV ads New technology for social sharing, polling

place lookup, phone banking, volunteer mobilization, vote tracking, election day rapid response

Thousands of staffers in Chicago HQ and the battleground states

All of that costs money

In 2008, Obama campaign raised $750 million Not enough to beat Romney 2012 & Super-

PACs

But fundraising was more difficult in 2012 President less available for fundraising events In early campaign, we saw average online

donation was half of what it had been in 2008 People were giving less, and less often

We had to be smarter, and more tenacious

Obama 2012 Digital Department

Digital department was very focused on data, using evidence to drive decisions

We had a culture of testing Constantly looking for ways to improve Humility was required Creativity was encouraged Lots of staff to create content, run

experiments, analyze results, develop new technology

What impact can testing have?

version Subject line donors moneyv1s1 Hey 263 $17,646v1s2 Two things: 268 $18,830v1s3 Your turn 276 $22,380v2s1 Hey 300 $17,644v2s2 My opponent 246 $13,795v2s3 You decide 222 $27,185v3s1 Hey 370 $29,976v3s2 Last night 307 $16,945v3s3 Stand with me today 381 $25,881v4s1 Hey 444 $25,643v4s2 This is my last campaign 369 $24,759v4s3 [NAME] 514 $34,308v5s1 Hey 353 $22,190

v5s2There won't be many more of these deadlines 273 $22,405

v5s3 What you saw this week 263 $21,014v6s1 Hey 363 $25,689v6s2 Let's win. 237 $17,154v6s3 Midnight deadline 352 $23,244

ACTU

AL ($

3.7m

)

IF S

ENDIN

G AVG

IF S

ENDIN

G WORST

$0

$2

$4

Full send (in millions)

$2.2 million additional revenue from sending best draft vs. worst, or $1.5 million additional from sending best vs. average

Test sends

Testing = constant improvement Little improvements add up

Improving 1% here and 2% there isn’t a lot at first, but over time it adds up

Testing = data-driven decisions We don’t have all the answers

Conventional wisdom is often wrong Gut instinct is often wrong

On the Obama campaign we had this thing called the Email Derby… Even the experts can’t reliably predict the

most effective messages Listen to your audience!

Experiments: Email Volume

More email = more donations People say they get too much email But our experiment showed that sending a

higher volume of fundraising emails led to more donations, without dire consequences

Implementing a “more email” policy probably led to $20-30 million in additional revenue for the campaign

Experiments: Ugly vs. pretty At first we tried making emails prettier, with

slick-looking buttons and nice formatting That failed, so we asked: what about ugly

instead?

Ugly yellow highlighting got us better results But at some point it lost its novelty and stopped

working – always important to re-test!

Experiments: Personalization Adding “drop-in sentences” that reference

people’s past behavior can increase conversion rates

Example: asking recent donors for more money

The added sentence doubled the donation rate Confirmed in several similar experiments

…it's going to take a lot more of us to match them.

You stepped up recently to help out -- thank you. We all need to dig a little deeper if we're going to win, so I'm asking you to pitch in again. Will you donate $25 or more today?

…it's going to take a lot more of us to match them.

Will you donate $25 or more today?

Technologies: Saved Payment Info

Campaign introduced “Quick Donate” system, allowing donors the option of saving their credit card info for easier donating later

Allowed one-click donations within email

Obama 2012: Digital Department

Raised over half a billion dollars online

Recruited tens of thousands of volunteers

Publicized thousands of events and rallies

Did I mention raising half a billion dollars? Conservatively, testing resulted in about

$100-200 million in additional revenue

Digital Department Basics

Grew from a small team in spring 2011 to a department of 200+ in 2012 Outbound (email, social, mobile, blog) Ads Front-End Development Design Video Project management Digital Analytics

Digital Analytics

Goal was to help all the other teams do better Design & implement experiments Analyze & report results Provide data sets

Three overlapping skill groups within team: Database management (SQL, Python) Data analysis (Stata, R, SPSS) Web analytics (Google Analytics,

Optimizely)

Testing requires content

Content creators Need more of these than you think

Obama team had 18 email writers, 4 social media writers, many designers and ad producers

More people = more ideas

Front-end developers Create new pages, improve user

experience, etc

Conclusions

Data-driven campaigning helped Obama win

Big groups of smart people can accomplish a lot!

But you don’t have to have a staff of hundreds to have a good testing program Train existing staffers, hire more when you can Foster a culture of testing: every piece of

communication is an opportunity to test something Even a small list can be split in two – do what you

can