PPC Gets Political
I’m sure I’m not the only marketer, seo or otherwise out there talking about the 2008 presidential election. But I can’t let this discovery pass without saying something. Besides I need crap to blog about.
While perusing the various YouTube videos on the various political candidates I ran across this:
(sorry its IE 7)
Taking a closer look at the very lonely Google Ad.
Well I was quite surprised and simultaneously pleased that Mike Huckabee’s campaign had the smarts to bid on Mitt Romney’s name. I also like the tagline “searching for a conservative?” Great work Huckabee PPC campaign.
This little discovery sent me to Google to look up who was buying what keywords.
A search for “Mitt Romney” on Google brought up the same Huckabee ad. Mitt appears to be opting out of pay per click this election.
A search for “Mike Huckabee” on Google produced a sponsored link for Huckabee with a tagline that reads “Faith. Family. Freedom. Conservatives are choosing Huckabee”.
No one feels “John McCain” is worth ad spend apparently. There were 0 ads on a Google query. However John’s campaign is buying “Hillary Clinton”
Another interesting thing to note is that Norm Coleman – the REPUBLICAN senator from Minnesota is buying on “Hillary Clinton”. I wonder what his staff is hoping to achieve with that one.
“Rudi Giuliani” produced a very funny paid placement:
I personally would think the Rudi Giuliani camp would want to bury that one. Also noticeably absent were ads for any other candidates.
I wonder how much effect the Huckabee paid placements had in Iowa and will have in New Hampshire. I think its a smart use of funds. Even if the users don’t click through there is that subtle jab that Romney isn’t the conservative those conservatives are looking for.
