How We Used Data to Win the Presidential Election by Dan Siroker
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This is the keynote presentation I gave at the Online Marketing Summit in San Diego on February 24, 2010.
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How We Used Data to Win the Presidential Election by Dan Siroker
- 1. How We Used Data to Win the Presidential Election Dan Siroker Email me: Follow me: dan@optimizely.com @dsiroker
- 8. Barack Obama
- 10. Barack Obama David Plouffe Correspondence Field Policy Operations ... Communications New Media Paid Media Finance
- 11. Barack Obama David Plouffe Correspondence Field Policy Operations ... Communications New Media Paid Media Finance Marketing Email Blog Analytics Design Video Organizing
- 14. Results
- 15. Popular Vote Electoral Vote Other (1%) 1,865,617 McCain 173 McCain (46%) Obama (53%) 59,934,814 69,456,897 Obama 365 Source: Federal Election Commission
- 16. McCain Obama 3 100 150 2.4 80 120 1.8 60 90 Millions 1.2 40 60 0.6 20 30 0 0 0 Facebook Friends YouTube Video Views Unique Website Visitors Source: Facebook,YouTube, and Google Trends
- 17. Unique Website Visitors Source: Google Trends
- 18. Money Raised PRIMARY GENERAL OBAMA JANUARY JANUARY JANUARY ‘07 ‘08 CLINTON McCAIN ‘09 A EL N N EC O TI U N O C N EM D AY EN T Source: Stephen Geer
- 19. Money Raised McCain $201 million Obama $656 million Note: Does not include federal funds Source: Federal Election Commission
- 20. Money Raised Obama (Offline) McCain $156 million $201 million Obama (Online) $500 million Note: Does not include federal funds Source: Washington Post and Federal Election Commission
- 21. Lessons Learned
- 25. Lesson #1: Define success .
- 26. Lesson #1: Define quantifiable success metrics.
- 28. click thru rate Website sign up rate Email signup $ per recipient Raise money
- 29. click thru # of clicks rate = # of impressions Website sign up # of signups rate = # of pageviews Email signup $ per $ amount raised recipient = # of recipients Raise money
- 30. click thru # of clicks rate = # of impressions Website sign up # of signups rate = # of pageviews Email signup $ per $ amount raised recipient = # of recipients Raise money
- 31. Lesson #1: Define quantifiable success metrics.
- 33. Media Button
- 34. Splash page experiment Variations: Button: Media: 1. Sign Up 1. Get Involved Image 2. Learn More 2. Family Image 3. Join Us Now 3. Change Image 4. Sign Up Now 4. Barack’s Video 5. Springfield Video 6. Sam’s Video
- 37. Button: “Join Us Now”
- 38. Button: “Sign Up Now”
- 39. Splash page experiment Variations: Button: Media: 1. Sign Up 1. Get Involved Image 2. Learn More 2. Family Image 3. Join Us Now 3. Change Image 4. Sign Up Now 4. Barack’s Video 5. Springfield Video 6. Sam’s Video
- 41. Media: “Family”
- 42. Media: “Change”
- 46. Splash page experiment Variations: Button: Media: 1. Sign Up 1. Get Involved Image 2. Learn More 2. Family Image 3. Join Us Now 3. Change Image 4. Sign Up Now 4. Barack’s Video 5. Springfield Video 6. Sam’s Video
- 47. Splash page experiment Variations: Button: Media: 1. Sign Up 1. Get Involved Image 2. Learn More 2. Family Image 3. Join Us Now 3. Change Image 4. Sign Up Now 4. Barack’s Video 5. Springfield Video 6. Sam’s Video
- 48. Splash page experiment Variations: Button: Media: 1. Sign Up 1. Get Involved Image 2. Learn More 2. Family Image 3. Join Us Now 3. Change Image 4. Sign Up Now 4. Barack’s Video 5. Springfield Video 6. Sam’s Video
- 49. Splash page experiment results
- 50. Splash page experiment results
- 51. Splash page experiment results
- 52. Splash page experiment results Email Volunteers Amount Raised Subscriptions Original: 7,120,000 712,000 $143,000,000 +40.6% +2,880,000 +288,000 +$57,000,000 New: 10,000,000 1,000,000 $200,000,000
- 53. Splash page experiment results Email Volunteers Amount Raised Subscriptions Original: 7,120,000 712,000 $143,000,000 +40.6% +2,880,000 +288,000 +$57,000,000 New: 10,000,000 1,000,000 $200,000,000
- 54. Splash page experiment results Email Volunteers Amount Raised Subscriptions Original: 7,120,000 712,000 $143,000,000 +40.6% +2,880,000 +288,000 +$57,000,000 New: 10,000,000 1,000,000 $200,000,000
- 56. Lesson #3: Divide and conquer.
- 58. Donation button experiment results Never Signed Up, Previously Variations Signed Up Never Donated Donated 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% +2.3% +27.8% +16.3% -27.8% N/A N/A +15.2% -24.6% +11.9% +8.5% +2.9% +18.4%
- 59. Lesson #3: Divide and conquer.
- 60. Lesson #4: Take advantage of circumstances.
- 61. Courtesy: Bradley Portnoy Taken: August 27th, 2008 9:42PM
- 64. Lesson #4: Take advantage of circumstances.
- 66. Timeline 1/17 evening: Approached by Clinton Foundation 1/18 evening: Experiment #1 (8 variations) 1/19 morning: Experiment #2 (8 variations) 1/19 evening: Experiment #3 (7 variations) 1/20 morning: Experiment #4 (2 variations)
- 68. #2: One column with image
- 69. #3: Two columns with image
- 70. #4: “Support Haiti” button
- 71. #5 Hide “verified by” icon
- 72. #6 Increase label font size
- 73. #7 Hide title & phone number fields
- 75. Results Variation $ per pageview Improvement Original $51.30 0.00% One column with image $50.63 -1.31% Two columns with image $55.42 +8.03% “Support Haiti” button $59.38 +15.75% Hide “verified by” icon $48.50 -5.44% Increase label font size $52.50 +2.35% Hide title & phone fields $56.92 +10.97% Pre-select $250 N/A N/A
- 76. Impact Total improvement: +10.2% Total additional raised (1/20 - 2/23): $1,022,571
- 77. Demo
- 79. Lessons Learned 1. Define quantifiable success metrics. 2. Question assumptions. 3. Divide and conquer. 4. Take advantage of circumstances. 5. Start today.
- 80. Email me: Follow me: dan@optimizely.com @dsiroker
Editor's Notes
- Barack Obama came and spoke here at Google back in November 2007 and I was lucky enough to be attendance when he spoke. I want to share a few clips from that talk to help explain why I didn’t to quit my job here at Google and go work for the campaign.
- His last words are why I quit Went to Chicago and slept on the floor of the one person I knew in Chicago.
- Before I get into what we did at the campaign and the lessons we learned, let me give some context and explain how the campaign worked. Disclaimer: lots of other parts of the campaign used data, I’m going to focus on New Media
- Before I get into what we did at the campaign and the lessons we learned, let me give some context and explain how the campaign worked. Disclaimer: lots of other parts of the campaign used data, I’m going to focus on New Media
- Before I get into what we did at the campaign and the lessons we learned, let me give some context and explain how the campaign worked. Disclaimer: lots of other parts of the campaign used data, I’m going to focus on New Media
- Before I get into what we did at the campaign and the lessons we learned, let me give some context and explain how the campaign worked. Disclaimer: lots of other parts of the campaign used data, I’m going to focus on New Media
- I lead a team of six engineers and analysts. Not all are pictures here. All of the great things I’m going to talk about today were because of their hard work and determination.
- I’m going to first share some of the results from the campaign then explain how we achieved those results and the share the lessons learned along the way.
- Probably familiar with this
- Maybe weren’t aware of this: 913 total years of YouTube watching. 1382 years on our website. Total translate to over 2 millennia of time spent living and breathing Obama More than twice as many unique visitors came to barackobama.com than voted for John McCain
- All of this success would not have been possible without fundraising.
- Online includes some money raised in traditional fundraisers as well
- Now I’d like to share the top 5 lessons my team learned during the campaign. This is not a to do list of how to win an election, but rather a methodology to make data-driven decisions.
- This is how we defined success.
- The most important part of defining success is to...
- defining quantifiable success metrics to measure that success.
- Let me show you what that means with our last experiment
- Let me show you what that means with our last experiment
- Let me show you what that means with our last experiment
- Let me show you what that means with our last experiment Lot of firms focus on the first and last parts of this funnel
- So that’s lesson #1, now lesson #2
- Translates to over 4 million of the 13 million email subscribers we ended up with
- Translates to over 4 million of the 13 million email subscribers we ended up with
- So that’s lesson #2, now lesson #3
- This lesson is in and of itself a generalization but it also happens to be true.
- Here is another concrete example of the benefits of segmenting users into separate buckets and not over-generalizing.
- Campaign-value percent improvement: Net value per impression (after fulfillment cost) + subsequent value Had we picked one it would have been sub-optimal $3 million dollar improvement we would not have had otherwise
- This is true in many cases. Just because the last experiment worked doesn’t mean we have to show the splash page every time. Don’t show the splash page for repeat visits Email split tests based on previous highest contribution. So that’s lesson #3: never over-generalize.
- Bill Clinton speech You can rarely create special moments, you can only take advantage of them when they are given to you.
- September 2nd at Republican National Convention
- Made over 10 million dollars in less than 24 hours.