Scoop: Inside the Trump campaign’s big hedge on Facebook
The Trump campaign has invested most of its advertising budget to
date on Facebook, testing thousands of versions of ads per day to
maximize its spending.
But behind the scenes, a source familiar with the campaign tells Axios, the thinking has shifted: “As everyone can see, we still have strong spending on Facebook, but the percentage of our total media budget [on Facebook] is shrinking.”
The big picture: Since the last election, it’s become obvious that all campaigns are at risk of the changing algorithms and policies at Facebook, or on any platform. People familiar with the Trump
campaign described its thinking in detail to Axios.
The campaign is testing fewer messages on Facebook than it did for much of 2016.
The bottom line: Although Trump’s Facebook operation gets a lot of attention, a source familiar with the campaign told Axios, “We are more diversified than ever before. And far more than 2016.”
But behind the scenes, a source familiar with the campaign tells Axios, the thinking has shifted: “As everyone can see, we still have strong spending on Facebook, but the percentage of our total media budget [on Facebook] is shrinking.”
The big picture: Since the last election, it’s become obvious that all campaigns are at risk of the changing algorithms and policies at Facebook, or on any platform. People familiar with the Trump
campaign described its thinking in detail to Axios.
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Last fall, the campaign urged Facebook to keep the same tools for political advertisers that they make available to companies.
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“Facebook wants to take important tools away from us for 2020. Tools that help us reach more great Americans & lift voices the media & big tech choose to ignore! They want to raise prices to put more of your hard earned small dollar donations into their pockets,” the campaign tweeted in November.
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Facebook ultimately decided not to change its policies around microtargeting.
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The Trump campaign began buying ads on conservative podcasts last spring, including shows hosted by staunch Trump allies Charlie Kirk and Laura Ingraham. The goal is to get Trump supporters more engaged in the months before Election Day.
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“When you are quick, have speed, and money to spend, you need more levers — more places to pivot,” says one source familiar with the campaign. “Better expanding outside of Facebook allows that.”
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“We’re trying out dozens of places where we can communicate with voters,” the source added. “Wherever that comes in an efficient way, we’ll spend more money on that.”
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Facebook ads took up roughly 72% of the campaign’s ad budget in April 2019, and more than 50% for most of the year, per Advertising Analytics. As of mid-February, however, Facebook spending was just 14% of the ad budget.
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The notable exception was during the impeachment trial in January, when the Trump campaign blitzed Facebook with ads to capitalize on donor outrage and support.
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From January 19 to date, Trump for President and Trump’s Make America Great Again Committee have spent about $26 million on Facebook ads out of $58 million on all media spending, per Advertising Analytics.
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In 2016, at peak, the Trump campaign used 40,000–50,000 ad variations per day, sometimes even testing more than 100,000 different versions of ads. The ad makers test thousands of small changes for things like font size and color to see what gets the most clicks.
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The campaign now uses about half as many variations than at the same point in the 2016 cycle, sources say. The campaign expects to ramp up its testing in the summer.
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The campaign has libraries of memes, short video clips and photos that are relevant to a host of news topics. If the news cycle turns to “the Deep State,” immigration or terrorism, the campaign has content ready to go.
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“We have just terabytes of stuff of what we do for any situation,” said a source familiar with the campaign. “We are still producing multiple videos a day, and multiple images a day. I mean we have libraries and libraries and libraries of content.”
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Right now, the Trump campaign uses Facebook ads to drive sign-ups for its email and text alerts — forms of outreach that don’t get more expensive with time.
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The campaign has several million people on its text list and tens of millions of people on its email list, according to two sources familiar with the lists.
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Sometimes, the most successful ad variations are surprising.
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A 2016 example: The campaign tested ads with a train that said “Join the TRUMP TRAIN.” One variant included flames around the text at the end, and it performed best. The experiment worked so well that they doubled down on it, even selling “Trump Train” stickers.
The bottom line: Although Trump’s Facebook operation gets a lot of attention, a source familiar with the campaign told Axios, “We are more diversified than ever before. And far more than 2016.”
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