Candidates Are Making Use of Google Ads

I have noticed that candidates are making use of Google Adwords to reach voters. As owner of the RGV Life blog, I check in once in a while to make sure posts are rendering correctly. I also manage another hyperlocal site at http://www.missiontexas.net. Both sites have been displaying ads for the gubernatorial candidates Rick Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Bill White, and Farouk Shami. This is to be expected, they have big budgets and smart people running their campaigns.

I had not expected to see ads for local candidates. Somehow, they have not caught on that buying ads through Google is very inexpensive and can be highly targeted. So, if you are a local candidate, Google Ads is the way to go rather than buying expensive banner ads.

The benefits of using Google Ads is that you only have one vendor, Google. You buy your ads and let them run on all the websites you target. You can target by key words and by geography.

So, let's take the Oscar Garza, Jr, campaign, which is the only local campaign I've seen using Google ads, so far. They can target those ads to come out only on websites in Hidalgo County. This means that newspaper sites, blogs, and community pages running Google ads. By doing this, a candidate is not just limited to their home page to reach voters. Their message gets broadcast automatically to many websites.

Using Google ads for your political campaign is the equivalent of putting up signs in people's yards.

I only hope that other candidates catch on. Hats off to the Garza campaign's web geek for raising the bar.

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