• Campaigns and issue advocacy efforts exist for one reason: to maximize their candidates/issues odds of success

• They achieve this objective by pulling one of two levers:

- Turnout: Turning out those who would support your candidate/issue

- Persuasion: influencing those who will turn out to support your candidate/issue

• They attempt to pull these levers by paying for voter contacts across a range of mediums, from robo-calls to volunteer phone bank phone calls to television ads

• The way voter contacts are deployed is subjective:

- Voter Contact Copy: Be it mail designs, TV ads, or phone scripts, typically, creative, is decided by “experienced hands” sitting around a table or getting on a phone call, and debating until a consensus is reached

Problem: Just because a group of experienced individuals thinks it will work does not mean it always will

- Medium selection: the mediums a campaign or advocacy issue chooses to communicate through are often influenced by the “experienced hands” on a campaign, who typically own a company selling voter communications via one medium

Problem: Perverse incentives often guide recommendations

- Medium mix: The % of spend going to each medium of voter contact is decided again by these experienced hands

Problem: Perverse incentives often guide large % of spend to the the “experienced hands” who have closest relationship with candidate or key decision maker

• How do we select voter contact objectively while maximizing the candidate/issue’s chance of success?

• When you have lots of voter contact options, and little more than subjective (and potentially self-interested) opinions to guide decisions, you need objective measurement to get the best return on investment.

• It is true that measuring political voter contacts isn’t easy, but 0ptimus has developed deep experience in measuring the effectiveness of voter contact across all contact mediums

- 0ptimus staff has conducted over 500+ voter contact measurements, from robo calls to TV ads.

• As it turns out, any voter contact can be tested… yes we said any. You can know if a given piece of voter contact is going to work, and at what cost per vote, prior to deploying large quantities of resources.

• Why you should care: if you invest in objective measurement you can credibly do what campaigns/advocacy efforts are supposed to do: maximize the candidate or issue’s odds of success at the ballot box

Maximize return on investment

Maximize return on donor dollar

Maximize patient outcomes

Owners guess what is good/not for their business

Donors give to causes based on

emotion and pitches

Witch-doctors rub random salves in

wounds

Accounting

Tracking against key outcome metrics (e.g. benefit/$)

Randomized controlled

experimentation

Exponential increase decade-over-decade of global output

Efficient use of donor dollars: each $ spent does more

good

“Western” medicine,

antibiotics, field of nutrition, expanded

lifespans

Field Goal The fix OutcomeThe flawed way

Field Goal The fix Outcome

Maximize return on investment

Maximize return on donor dollar

Maximize patient outcomes

Owners guess what is good/not for their business

Donors give to causes based on

emotion and pitches

Witch-doctors rub random salves in

wounds

Accounting

Tracking against key outcome metrics (e.g. benefit/$)

Randomized controlled

experimentation

Exponential increase decade-over-decade of global output

Efficient use of donor dollars: each $ spent does more

good

“Western” medicine,

antibiotics, field of nutrition, expanded

lifespans

->Let’s walk through measurement in medicine…

The flawed way

• “Medicine” has existed for a very long time, likely starting

with tribal holy-men doing enthusiastic dances to appease

the gods, evolving to Medieval doctors drawing on notions of

poisons that needed to be extracted, to what we recognize

today as modern western medicine

• In the past, doctors would try treatments they thought could

cure patients. If the patient lived, they associated the

medicine with the outcome, if the patient died, they

determined the treatment to be ineffective.

-The problem: these observations were anecdotal, and

did not “control” for other factors around the patient

E.G. what if treatment was truly ineffective, and

patient recovered for reasons other than the

treatment?

E.G. what if treatment was truly effective, but while

effectively stopping the bleeding, it could not cure the

infection caused by the wound?

• This had some adverse consequences….

-Patients likely suffering from viruses or infections were treated with bloodletting, the purposeful draining of blood in times of sickness by cuts or leeches. Modern medicine has reveled this to be counterproductive, despite it being the common advice of the “experienced hands” of the time

-To knock patients out before painful medieval surgery, a potion called “Dwale” was often given. It would indeed often knock patients out. Unfortunately, its ingredients also caused deaths that were likely associated with the surgery (instead of the potion!). The “experienced hands” thus kept administering the potion- after all, it did knock the patient out.

-People suffering from seizures, migraines, or medical disorders had holes drilled in their head in the practice known as “Trepanation”. Modern medicine has revealed this to be counterproductive, despite the opinion of many “experienced hands” of the time.

-In recent history (1900s) people suffering from Ashtma were given “medical cigarettes” or the fumes of combustive powders to inhale. Modern medicine has, you guessed it, reveled this to be extremely harmful, despite the opinion of the “experienced hands” of the time.

->When your doctor has an idea for a “treatment” he tests it with an experiment. Let’s say he believes Aspirin can prevent or reduce the harmful effects of massive heart attacks in at-risk patients…

Test Population

->The first thing a doctor does is find a large group (say a couple thousand) of “at-risk patients for heart attacks”

Test Population

Control + treatment groups

->He then randomly splits the group into two groups, and checks to ensure the groups are balanced for pre-existing factors that could effect the outcome of the test. For example: age, sex, ethnicity, prior heart issues, proximity of patient to pollution sources, etc.

Test Population

Control + treatment groups

Treatment and control issued

->One group is given the medicine the doctor wants to test, another is given a sugar pill

Test Population

Control + treatment groups

Treatment and control issued

Results measured15% heart attack deaths

->At the end of the study period, the doctor examines health outcomes. If he sees an effect, he knows it to be that of the medicine, because he controlled for all outside factors

10% heart attack deaths

Test Population

Control + treatment groups

Treatment and control issued

Results measured

0No contact

30% voted 35% voted15% heart

attack deaths10% heart

attack deaths

• Øptimus client: Incumbent, very well-known candidate in state-wide TX primary contest

• Campaign is considering using tele-town halls to communicate with voters

-Pro:

A personal form of contact, promotes feel of interaction with candidate

A longer impression than a TV ad, or a mail piece read

-Con:

Somewhat expensive

Takes a lot of candidate/staff time to pull off

• Question: do tele-town halls persuade voters to vote for the candidate? What is the cost per vote of utilizing this technique? If one town-hall touch is good, are multiple town-hall touches better?

50k Texas Republican primary voters (verified by the vote file), once an individual at targeted household spent 1 min in a town hall, not called for subsequent town halls (each target voter could enter into a town hall once)

50k Republican primary voters, left untouched, no call attempts made

50k Texas Republican primary voters (verified by the vote file), targeted for contact via town hall. Each targeted voter is dialed and given an opportunity to join a town hall on three separate nights over a 1.5 week time period (thus a targeted voter could enter a town hall up to three times)

• Each 60 min tele-town hall featured candidate for statewide office

- Intro by comms director (1 min)

-Q&A interaction between candidate for remainder of call (remainder of time)

• Verified identity of targeted voter (“Hi is this Jane?”)

• Asked verified voter (not their spouses, kids, etc) who they planned to vote for in the upcoming statewide TX election

-Offered names of all candidates, in randomized order

• Aggregated results…

10.0

20.0

30.0%

Control

19.3%

TownhallsTreatment #1

(re-dialed regardless

of past participation)

22.8%

TownhallsTreatment #2(only re-dialed if did not

enter previous townhall)

22.6%

Group EffectTest

Population size

Voter minds moved

Cost for treatment

Cost per vote

3.5%

3.3%

50kvoters

50kvoters

1,750

1,650

$20.1k

$20.1k

$11.48per vote

$12.18per vote

• Campaigns and issue advocacy efforts exist for one reason: to maximize their candidates/issues odds of success

• Measurement allows decision makers to rationally achieve that objective

Each form of voter contact can be measured for efficacy (out of 100 voters, X will move after being touched by this form of voter contact), and then efficiency (and each moved voter will cost us $Y.YY)

When multiple forms of voter contact are measured to establish their efficacy and efficiency, design makers can objectively choose between voter contact options

• No two campaigns are alike (don’t think that the takeaway here is to go do tele-town halls!), a piece of creative that works for Candidate A likely will not work for Candidate B; a tactic that works on the PR campaign for Defense Firm Q likely will not work for Agricultural Firm R.

• Every credible business must invest in measurement (accounting), every credible medical researcher must invest in measurement (experimental trials), and every credible candidacy/advocacy effort must invest in measurement (voter contact testing)

Optimus is a consultancy that uses data-driven analysis to drive superior results for our political,

issue advocacy, and non-profit clients

• Experience across campaigns ranging from city council to President

• Experience working with issue advocacy and non-profit clients, small ($500k) to large ($50M+)

• Partners have backgrounds prior to 0ptimus based in the real world: from infantry leadership to top-tier management consulting

• Wide range of services based on using data, measurement and analysis to drive processes that generate higher ROI for the donor dollar

• 15-man staff with backgrounds ranging from prior AMD executive to PhD in behavioral psychology

• True “consulting” model: analytical teams that travel to client sites (as needed) to perform work shoulder-to-shoulder with clients

- Experience in House, Senate, Gubernatorial, and Presidential races building custom tailored data solutions & analytics to needs of campaign

- Finance degree, American

- Free time: Xbox, gourmet pancake making

- Prior analytical experience ranging from state-wide & issue advocacy campaigns to fortune 500 case work at Bain & Company

- Engineering degree, University of Texas at Austin

- Free time: Texas Longhorns, Dallas Cowboys, Rye

( Yea, Republicans can be smart with data too….)

- Our services:

End-to-end bespoke data infrastructure for campaigns and data-driven ROI-oriented talent

Small-to-large scale quantitative analysis (controlled tests, A/B tests, ROI analysis, benchmarking)

In-campaign testing/experimentation support (know if you are getting bang for your buck)

Vote modeling and opinion shift monitoring

Scenario based analytics

- Real expertise:

Experience across small (ballot initiative) to large (presidential & targeted senate seat) data-driven campaigns for candidates and 501c organizations

Experience integrating campaign data systems across political, field, comms, finance, and digital

Over 500+ randomized control experiments run in field in live campaigns ( turnout + persuasion )

Supported and double checked by Ph.Ds (our work hits academic quality) and other smarties when needed

Oh, and we are also experts at Buckhunter, Ninja Turtles Arcade, and many more high-tech cutting edge platforms… so bring it.

- 16 years working in campaigns from State Legislature to President

- Founder of RNC's Field School and contributor curriculum's for multiple candidate/campaign schools

- Marine Corps veteran

- Free time: obsessive sports parent/coach to 3 boys