From USA Today: WASHINGTON Sen. Ted Cruz, the first major Republican candidate to declare his White House candidacy, raised $2 million during the first three days of his presidential campaign as his team deployed a mix of complex social-media strategy and behavioral analytics to reach and sway potential donors.
Hours before his announcement speech Monday in Lynchburg, Va., Cruz tweeted the news that he was running for president. That day, he had 5.7 million interactions on Facebook. So far, nearly two-thirds of his fundraising haul has flowed in through the Internet, aided behind the scenes by a team of data scientists who closely monitor social media and digital traffic to determine whos reading their messages, whos sharing them and whos clicking through to his website and taking action.
The communication is two-way. Relying on marketing techniques common in the world of commerce, Cruzs team has tailored its web advertising to reach seven different psychographic clusters groups of people with similar attitudes, personalities and interests. It has crafted 17 different advertising messages to reach those potential donors.
For instance, pro-gun traditionalists saw online banner ads with a grandfather and grandson heading out to hunt, while another targeted people concerned about personal safety with an image of a home break-in. Another talked about bringing
faith in God back to America to attract religious conservatives. They all directed people to visit www.tedcruz.org.
Our entire culture here is to build engagement, said Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe. If a potential supporter first visited the Cruz website via her tablet Tuesday evening during the Texas senators interview with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, the campaign will direct future online ads to that voters device during the evening hours.
In all, Cruz hopes to raise $40 million to $50 million by March 2016.