WSJ Proves Again That McCain Has The Best Search in Politics Ever!

I loved reading in today's WSJ how McCain Seems To Have Obama Beat in One Arena - that arena as you already know readers is in search marketing.  I'm snickering as I read the article again especially these points:

• So-called ambush ads are typically reserved for Web-savvy marketers such as General Motors and AT&T. The newest believer: a 71-year-old presidential candidate.
• But Sen. John McCain is in some ways outsmarting Sen. Obama when it comes to Internet marketing. One example: As of Wednesday, a Google search for "Joe Biden" or even just "Biden" resulted in a prominently displayed ad labeled "Joe Biden on Obama" that links to Sen. McCain's site.
• There, a video begins playing that shows Sen. Biden criticizing Sen. Obama during the Democratic primaries. The move mimics the "ambush" strategy that advertisers often employ: buying a competitor's term so that an ad for the buyer's own product appears when a consumer searches for the other brand.
• As a result, Sen. McCain's ad takes the top spot alongside search results, while Mr. Obama's ad appears lower in the results.
• Sen. McCain's team has been the aggressor in other ways, too. In recent days, it has bought search ads tied to key terms such as "U.S. economy" and "housing crisis," which take visitors to Web sites outlining Sen. McCain's plan on those issues.
• In July, the McCain campaign had 15.1 million sponsored link impressions -- the number of times that an ad is downloaded onto a computer screen -- compared with the 1.2 million for the Obama campaign, according to Nielsen Online

Now while I like to point out how savvy I've been on this, today in a moment of humility is not all about me.  Connell Donatelli with the McCain eCampaign team works really well together.  I received briefing papers, the video ads, quickly built landing pages that track through, and a little freedom to build out the search campaign.  It was live within hours Saturday morning while my munchkins were watching Saturday morning cartoons. 

These ads were some of our best ones and I snickered when I realized how good the whole thing came together - now The Wall Street Journal backed it up with good quotes and research.  The only thing they got wrong was the "in recent days" comment because we've been aggressive for months; someone like the WSJ finally decided to stop believing the Obama internet hype and look around a bit.

Anyway, I can't go into any more detail,  but it was fun to read that article this morning while having breakfast...Oh one final note that my wife just pointed out - is it a coincidence that the WSJ mentioned that ambush ads are typically reserved for Web-savvy marketers such as AT&T, when the main person running the search campaigns (me) is a 10 year AT&T veteran?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Comments

[JDog]

Kudos Eric. That's the way to stay on top of the game.