Trump has run 58k more ad variations on Facebook than all major Democrats combined

Since 2016, Trump’s team has relentlessly A/B tested different aspects of their ads – varying image, copy, ask, and targeting – to find the most engaging and best-performing messages. As a proxy for a commitment to message testing, one can look at the number of ad variations a campaign is running. From May 2018 through January 2020, the Trump campaign created 58,000 (25%) more individual ads than all the Democratic front-runners combined. The Trump campaign then incorporates those winning digital messages into other mediums, including speeches, email, and television. Fervently focused on embracing digital advertising for message testing, rather than just like an ATM where one goes for campaign funding, the Trump campaign has worked at a totally different scale than any Democratic candidate (although it’s worth noting that Bloomberg is catching up, but only very recently).

While Democrats focus on fundraising, Trump builds a voter data collection machine

By examining the language used in each ad, we can see the outcomes the campaigns are optimizing for with their ad campaigns. On average almost 40% of Democratic ads ask for a donation, with Bernie and Mayor Pete hitting close to 60%, while only 25% of Trump campaign ads make direct fundraising asks. The lower ratio of direct fundraising asks reveals a clear strategy to trade up-front fundraising asks for data collection – obtaining emails, phone numbers, and issue preferences to be used in the future.

Some of the Trump campaign's most popular calls-to-action (i.e. asks) are:



Trump enlists supporters to join private communication channels free from scrutiny

After collecting and refining its supporter profiles, the campaign is then able to communicate with supporters privately and perpetually for fundraising, persuasion, or volunteer recruitment.

The Trump campaign is leveraging cost-effective message testing and a long-term focus on the general election into building a foundation of voter relationships that will be increasingly difficult for any Democratic campaign to beat. Can Democrats match this effort? That depends on the timeline to pick a nominee, the digital mindset embraced by its leadership, and the Party – but Trump has a big head start. And the implication is that if there is a lack of these practices at the Presidential level, it is happening all the way down the ballot more often than not.

Bloomberg far outstrips the Democratic field in spend and ads created while Biden and Klobuchar lag



If you’re asking yourself who’s doing digital well on the Democratic side, there is no perfect way to judge from the outside. But one interesting proxy for level of sophistication is looking at the number of ads compared to overall ad spend. Over the last 90 days, as the primary and his campaign heated up, Mike Bloomberg not only has ramped to enormous spending levels but also a high number of individual ads, likely reflecting a belief in more robust testing. Buttigieg and Warren also show promising levels given spend, while the Biden and Klobuchar campaigns lag.

Six of the top 30 spenders are part of a constellation of conservative sites that bolster official messages

In addition to the official campaign arms, super PACs and national campaign committees, a network of far-right sites, including profit vendors like “I’ll go ahead and keep my guns, Thanks” or “Conservative Gear” spent $18.5M on advertising that pushes Trump’s image and brand emblazoned on t-shirts and coffee mugs and pro-gun imagery. They contribute extra earned media with every item sold.

Learning from the lessons of 2019 is not just about the Presidential candidates. In the last two years, we’ve worked with 90 campaigns to execute their digital media programs: here are some of the key lessons we learned.