Written by Steve Savastano | Senior Director, Data & Insights
Advocacy organizations don’t have the luxury of building toward a single goal like the General Election. When it’s essential to be constantly ready to launch campaigns at a moment’s notice, making data-driven decisions is key to guiding strategy and making sound investments.
Data has cemented its role at the center of campaign deployment and planning. In many cases, organizations have mastered their own use of traditional data assets like third-party data and custom audiences. These resources are critical to delivering your winning message to the right people across all online and offline platforms in the most efficient manner.
However, one of the greatest advantages of data-driven outreach is that it also generates data that advocacy organizations can use to drive future planning and strategy. Capturing actionable insights from digital campaigns and outreach is key to solidifying your brand and establishing long-term power beyond a single policy battle or initiative. The data created by your campaigns may be more important than the data used to orchestrate them, especially when your organization must be flexible and reactive to the ever-changing legislative landscape.
What data should you be looking to capture at the end of your campaigns? The ideal answer is all of it, but with the dynamic nature of this arena, that’s not always possible. So there are a few points to keep in mind as you build out your advocacy operation:
First-Party Data: this is the data that your organization is collecting directly from your audiences or advocates and could include petition signatures, event registrations, legislator contacts, or other opt-ins.
Engagement Data: this is much harder to collect, but the benefits could be immense. This data includes online actions like video views, website visits, and clicks. Embedding tracking pixels or capturing new leads could unlock a wealth of behavioral insights to benefit your future strategy.
Geographic Data: very simply, where are the audience members and advocates that are engaging with your content? Knowing what states and political geographies your audiences reside in could greatly influence creative and outreach strategies in the future.
Collecting this data can allow for in-depth analysis to power constant audience engagement and lay the groundwork for even more effective campaigns in the future. Studies show that consumers prefer a customized advertising experience. Strong data infrastructure can enable the reports and analysis necessary to create that experience for your constituents or members. Measuring the impact of your campaign can be a huge boost to not only your targeting and deployment strategies in the future, but even your content and creative programs.
Reach out to learn more!
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