AdGooroo Get the Edge in Search Marketing

Free 10 Day Trial Client Login

Searching for the Next President: the Internet’s impact on McCain vs. Obama

Searching for the Next President: the Internet’s impact on McCain vs. Obama
September 25, 2008

Download PDF (41 pages)

Many digital marketers operate in highly competitive industries, but few industries come close to approaching the level of competition present in the 2008 Presidential Election. At AdGooroo, we’ve found that as the stakes get higher, so does the quality of search campaigns. So what better arena could there be for us to study in order to stretch our marketing muscles?

First, the major points: More than five times the amount of traffic is being driven each month to Obama-related sites than to websites focusing on the McCain campaign.

Based on internet chatter, one might be led to believe that most of this traffic is the result of grassroots activity. It’s not. Nearly 93% of Obama-related web traffic is going directly to the Obama site (Only 73% of McCain traffic is generated on an McCain-owned website).

And despite the fact that there are 3.5x more pro-Obama websites than pro-McCain websites, McCain is receiving 11% more traffic from grassroots websites (surprise!).

From a search marketing standpoint, both campaigns are roughly equal in the level of sophistication of their paid search programs. The McCain campaign seems to have the advantage in terms of keyword selection, but the Obama campaign seems to be more responsive at targeting topical keywords (such as “lipstick” and “Paulson”).

However, Obama’s campaign has a clear advantage in terms of natural search rankings. While McCain’s website ranks on the first page of Google search results for 67 keywords, Obama ranks of the first page for a whopping 117 keywords.

Finally, we also surveyed ads currently being run by both campaigns. Again, another surprise was waiting for us: in the month of September, Obama ran 17 negative search engine ads, while McCain ran only 3.

Continued in full report...

Charts:
1. Partisan Domains by Candidate
2. Breakout of Partisan Domains by Position
3. Monthly Traffic to Partisan Domains
4. Monthly Traffic to Partisan Domains (excluding campaign-owned websites)

Download PDF (41 pages) (free registration required)

• Username:
• Password:
•