Anyone who has ever searched for anything on the internet is likely familiar with Google Search ads, the ads that show up at the top of your Google results page. These campaigns are launched through the Google Ads interface. Campaigns use a list of keywords (like “how to vote”) to target your ads to people searching for those terms or similar ones. Google Search ads are a low lift to create as they are only composed of text.
Some Expertise Required
Communications & Digital Staff, Ad Agencies
Any organization or campaign that wants to drive public education on a specific candidate or issue and reach an audience who is already indicating some level of interest.
Google’s political ad policy covers ads about federal elections, state-level elections, federal or state level political parties, or state-level ballot measure, initiative, or propositions. Google’s political ad policy does not extend to news content or ads for products or services, including promotional political merchandise like t-shirts.
In order to run political ads, Google requires that advertisers go through a simple verification process by filling out a form on their site, and they use that information to add a “paid for by” disclaimer onto an ad. The verification process takes 3-5 days.
Additionally, Google restricts the ways that political advertisers can target their ad campaigns. For more, see the targeting section.
Google also reserves and has exercised the right to restrict ads around certain topics they deem controversial. Previous examples of this include messaging around COVID-19 early in the pandemic and messaging around abortion rights after Roe v. Wade was overturned. In both instances, any restrictions were relatively short-lived.
All political ads and ad spending is publicly available in Google’s Transparency Report.
Acquisition, but better for list building than fundraising for candidates without high name ID
Awareness
Mobilization
Text Ads
Typical pricing model: CPC
$1-5 CPC
Expect these CPCs to vary widely considering how many people might also be targeting the same keywords and how many people may be searching for your keywords.
Geotargeting
Contextual targeting
Demographic targeting (though this often isn’t advisable)
The Digital Ads Playbook is produced by ACRONYM+ and powered by Arena.
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