Why the 2012 Presidential Race Will Be Defined By Data

[Commentary] Within the digital-marketing community, we're focused on what this election cycle portends for the future of online political advertising.

Presidential elections have served as important catalysts and benchmarks in the slow but steady adoption of digital marketing tactics by political campaigns. The 2004 election represented a breakthrough, as the Dean campaign used emerging social networking tools and communities to generate a potent new stream of donations and to organize and engage supporters. In the 2008 cycle, the Obama campaign took this process to the next level, with a well-tuned digital marketing machine, blending search and display, social and email -- and blew the roof off with record-breaking levels of donations and digital engagement, not to mention a residual digital community the President's political organization continues to mine. So where will the 2012 presidential race fit within this trajectory? The 2010 midterm elections provided us some good clues. Overall, digital spending on political ads continued to grow at a steady pace. Political campaigns adapted quickly to the rapidly growing supply of pre-roll video inventory, into which they could deploy existing video assets. We also saw the immediate impact of the Citizens United ruling, as 527s and others ramped up their digital investments.

Will 2012 mark a turning point when political campaigns realize that digital advertising offers them even more efficient and impactful marketing channels, and at much lower cost per impact, than their more traditional channels? Not in the sense that campaigns will invest less in their traditional go-to channels, as confirmed by the heavy TV spending we've already seen in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. But we do believe 2012 will reflect another significant step forward in shifting the share of ad spending towards digital -- and that savvy campaigns, party groups, 527s and other political spenders who make use of all of the available digital tools, data, channels and tactics will reap the benefit of their foresight through superior advertising outcomes and more victories Nov. 6, 2012.