An environmental group with 1.4 million supporters. An advocacy group fighting a $4 trillion national deficit. What do they have in common?

In 2010, both the Sierra Club and Defeat the Debt used Google AdWords to get their message to American voters in a powerful and cost-effective way.

The Sierra Club“The Sierra Club is America’s oldest grassroots environmental organization,” says Jim Bradbury, the group’s Online Communications Manager. “For the 2010 elections, we wanted to make sure voters understood that the results of the election could profoundly affect our future—and knew the environmental track records of their candidates.”

The nonpartisan group created a 2010 Voter Guide online, targeting the 12 states from Nevada to New Hampshire where it thought it could have the greatest impact. An interactive map let voters drill down to compare the environmental records of candidates for key House and Senate races, and learn which candidates the Sierra Club had endorsed.

Defeat the DebtDefeat the Debt’s goal was simple, says spokesperson J. Justin Wilson: “To educate ordinary Americans about the immense size of the debt and the consequences we face if we don’t take action to reduce it.”

“Gallup estimates that 40% of Americans see the national debt as an ‘extremely serious threat’ to their well-being,” says Wilson. “Those people were not our target audience. Defeat the Debt’s goal is to put the federal debt into terms that the other 60% of Americans can understand.” Its goal was to drive that audience to its web site, defeatthedebt.com, where they could learn more about the issue.

Getting It DoneThe Sierra Club wanted to engage a highly targeted segment of environmental voters, while Defeat the Debt wanted to create broader electoral awareness of one issue. Both groups relied on some key AdWords features.

• Targeted Reach and Focus. “We cast a wide net with hundreds of keywords like ‘conservation’ and ‘hiking,’ designed to reach people who care about environmental issues but don’t always show up to vote,” says Bradbury of the Sierra Club. “But we used geotargeting to narrow those ads to just the 12 states where we could have the most impact. AdWords let us respond virtually in real time to allocate more resources to the states where we saw we were getting the most value for our budget.”

• Flexibility. “We used search, contextual display, and in-stream ads,” says J. Justin Wilson of Defeat the Debt. “We paid close attention to our web analytics and worked with our Google account strategists to maximize effectiveness within our target demographic. The in-stream ads proved to be a standout success by all measures.”

Leading Online with Issue Advocacy

Case Study | Sierra Club & Defeat the Debt

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• “Blendability” with Other Media. Online ads were part of a larger media strategy for both groups. The Sierra Club “used everything from direct mail and phone banking to volunteer canvassing,” says Bradbury. Defeat the Debt used TV and radio ads plus some untraditional tools, like the 15 threadbare “Uncle Sams” the group sent out to panhandle for a trillion dollars on the streets of New York and Washington. “Online advertising’s measurable ROI makes it an essential part of any campaign,” says Wilson. “Our digital strategy made up roughly 40% of our overall budget.”

Getting ResultsHow did it work?

“Since our primary goal is to educate, our greatest measure of success is the amount of time spent on our site by visitors sent there by online advertising,” says Wilson. “When we see people staying on our site for many minutes and many pages, we know we’ve had an impact. Many Americans are now clamoring for action, and that makes us feel good about the spotlight we’ve shone on the issue. To that extent, our 2010 campaign was a success.”

The Sierra Club’s impact was even more measurable, as candidates supported by the group pulled out tight races. Most notably, in California’s Congressional District 11, Jerry McNerney squeezed past David Harmer by a count of 88,890 to 88,262—a handful of 638 votes out of the 177,000 cast between them. With those results, it’s safe to say that the Sierra Club had an impact.

Looking AheadWhat thoughts would these advocacy groups share with others?

Says Wilson, “Google has a dedicated political team that understands the challenges of political and issue advocacy advertising that’s really boosted our ability to incorporate digital marketing into our larger campaigns. Make sure you get to know Google’s political team and ask for their help.”

“We’ll continue to use AdWords to attract members and donors,” says Bradbury, “and I’m sure we’ll use it for political outreach again as we did in 2010.”

About Google AdWordsGoogle AdWords™ is a performance-based advertising program that enables businesses large and small to advertise on Google and its network of partner web sites. Hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide use AdWords for text, image, and video ads priced on a cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-impression (CPM) basis. Built on an auction-based system, AdWords is a highly quantifiable and cost-effective way to reach potential customers.

For more information, visit: www.google.com/adwords