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McCain gets aggressive on Web

'Ambush ads' beat Obama campaign to Internet punch

By Emily Steel and Suzanne Vranica, The Wall Street Journal

Published September 1, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Although many think Democrat Barack Obama, right, is running a more tech-wise campaign than Republican John McCain, left, McCain is outsmarting Obama when it comes to some Internet marketing. The two appear here at a forum in California in August.

Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Although many think Democrat Barack Obama, right, is running a more tech-wise campaign than Republican John McCain, left, McCain is outsmarting Obama when it comes to some Internet marketing. The two appear here at a forum in California in August.

By buying the search term "Joe Biden," the McCain campaign was able to "ambush" viewers.

Photo by Google And Johnmccain.Com

By buying the search term "Joe Biden," the McCain campaign was able to "ambush" viewers.

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So-called ambush ads are typically reserved for Web-savvy marketers such as General Motors and AT&T. The newest believer: a 72-year-old presidential candidate.

Sen. Barack Obama appears to many people to be running a far more tech-wise campaign than his opponent, with his use of text messages to announce his vice-presidential candidate and the creation of his own vibrant social network, My.BarackObama.com.

But Sen. John McCain is in some ways outsmarting Obama when it comes to Internet marketing. One example: As of last week, a Google search for "Joe Biden" or even just "Biden" resulted in a prominently displayed ad labeled "Joe Biden on Obama" that links to McCain's site. There, a video begins playing that shows Biden criticizing 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.

McCain was able to pull off that sleight of hand because he outbid his opponent for the search term "Joe Biden." As a result, McCain's ad takes the top spot alongside search results, while Obama's ad appears lower in the results.

McCain's team has been the aggressor in other ways. 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 McCain's plan.

Meanwhile, the Obama camp largely has yet to advertise around these terms, missing a key opportunity, experts say, to communicate his message to undecided voters.

"The big downfall is that Obama's not reaching the undecided voters," said Janel Landis, senior director of search development and strategy at SendTec, a search-marketing firm that has been tracking the candidates' techniques since June. "He's not bidding on issues or his competitor's name." The Obama campaign says it continually works to optimize its search marketing to maximize effectiveness. "Thanks to our millions of online supporters who frequently visit our Web site and other social-networking sites, unlike other campaigns, BarackObama.com already has extremely high organic search engine rankings, which helps us limit the number of terms where we need to use paid advertising to have a presence," Nick Shapiro, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said in an e-mail.

The Democratic presidential nominee is, in many ways, using the Web to powerful effect. He has raised much more money through the Internet than McCain and has recruited many more volunteers via that medium. Marketing executives say Obama has been successful at building his name and campaign through social media like Facebook and YouTube.

But McCain gets bragging rights for his push to try to reach voters on specific issues, particularly through search advertising, says Joshua Stylman, managing partner at Reprise Media. The McCain campaign's search-advertising campaign is vastly bigger than its opponent's.

Obama, meanwhile, has chosen to focus online ad spending around display ads. The Obama campaign had 416.7 million image-based ad impressions, compared with McCain's 16.5 million.

Comments

  • September 1, 2008

    8:38 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    hlutze writes:

    Dear Rocky Mtn. News -

    As an internet marketing professional with ten years of search engine marketing experience and a trainer for Yahoo! Search Marketing for 2.5 years, I believe it to be very dangerous to have an article about SEM competitor terms bidding strategy without stating the cons to doing this tactic as business owners. It's easy to wave numbers, no source stated, like "The Obama campaign had 416.7 million image-based ad impressions, compared with McCain's16.5". Image ads are actually part of the "content network" and does not apply to the screen shot you displayed which in actuality is "Sponsored Search". Content is on other third party web sites and NOT Google the search engine and search partners. Is this data incongruent with the graph shown in the article and the topic you are referring to?
    "Image-based Ad Impressions" are ONLY part of content and Google does not display any 'images' as part of their search results.

    Here are the REAL Google AdWords keyword based search volume for "one keyword" in July.

    Google Search Volume Neck n' Neck in Google and Google Search Partners (not content) Searches in July

    keyword: olitics
    1,830,000 Searches in July
    Keyword: Barack Obama
    550,000 Searches in July
    Keyword: Hillary Clinton
    673,000 Search in July
    Keyword: John McCain
    450,000 Searches in July
    Keyword: Governor Sara Palin
    40,500 Searches in July

    Another amazing point not mentioned in the article, is that this tactic of bidding on competitor names is a bit of a risky venture. There are many law suits filed each year, including one of my clients, who fairly bid on a competitor term, no inflammatory or negative ad text appeared. Just fair "pick me instead" or "compare us" ad text. They are still being sued for taking away potential clients from their marketing. This practice is endorsed by Google and is acceptable based on it's "best practices" guidelines. So when bidding on competitor terms you must weigh your risk as a company and NEVER use "keyword insertion" in your ad text. This is when you insert their name into the top line of your ad text. You are asking for trouble every time.

    Sorry to rank, but as a SEM professional, there is so much misunderstanding about SEM and how to properly leverage this powerful marketing medium. Be careful, and choose keywords carefully.