How to Launch a Political Digital Marketing Campaign

So you finally landed that job working on the digital marketing for the political campaign of an amazing Republican candidate. But on your first day—before you’ve even finished your first cup of coffee—the candidate calls and asks you to launch a digital marketing campaign.

Panic starts to set in. You’re a politico. You’ve never been involved in the digital marketing efforts for a political campaign before!

Relax.

Arena has launched hundreds of digital campaigns for Republican campaigns and conservative PACs over the last decade.

This post demystifies the digital process that will help you get started with your political campaign website and the political verification required for your paid digital media campaign.

Political Campaign Websites

Before your candidate announces, you should have the campaign website ready to go live. On day one, you’ll need a platform to communicate the candidate’s position on issues and an online home for your digital fundraising efforts.

Once you’ve chosen a Republican consulting firm or ad agency as your digital marketing partner, you’ll need to provide them with the following:

Registered domain for website

This is usually one of the first tasks a potential candidate tackles when considering running for office. You’ll want to make sure you lock that domain down early. Open an account with GoDaddy or HostGator to search and register a domain name.

For political campaigns, consider purchasing variations of the desired domain to ensure an opponent can’t acquire a domain name that can be used to damage your candidate’s reputation.

Once you have your official campaign domain name registered, you’ll need to provide account access to your digital marketing partner. This is usually as simple as adding a non-admin technical user and their contact information to the account where you registered the domain.

Approved candidate photos

Photos from a smartphone will work, but your best bet is to find a professional photographer and get some quality shots. Always remember the quality of your website images, logo and copy writing will translate to the quality of the candidate.

Either way, your digital marketing partner should review and color-correct the photos to ensure the best presentation possible.

Make sure to include images with family, images of community leaders and images from events. Landscape (horizontal) images are typically best for websites.

Campaign logo

If you have a professionally designed campaign logo already, include that with the package of information you send to your digital marketing partner. If not, the logo can be included as part of the website design project.

If your logo was designed by a friend, consider allowing your digital marketing partner to have their designers clean it up.

Establish social media accounts on all the popular social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and X. Branding is important, so you’ll want your digital marketing partner to set up your social banners to make sure they match up with your website and other marketing collateral.

Banking information for digital fundraising

You’ll likely need to set up an account with a digital fundraising platform like Winred or Anedot. Your banking info will ultimately be linked so that online donations from your website are deposited in the correct account.

Approved candidate bio text

Provide a long and short version of the bio. Some candidates will want a dedicated About page and, in that case, a long version is appropriate. If the website is a one-page site, a shorter version might come in handy.

Official disclaimer for the campaign organization

This will be displayed on the website and on all paid media.

Email address for website form submissions

Campaigns should avoid using personal accounts or accounts of specific staff members. If needed, ask your digital marketing partner to have their development team create general email boxes (e.g., info@domainname) that can be used by the website content management system (CMS) to notify your staff when submissions are made.

Basic contact information to list on website

Provide a physical address, phone numbers and the desired email address.

Political Verification

The following information is required for the political verification required for your campaign to run election ads on platforms like Google and Facebook.

Registered domain name

This is the same domain name as described above in the website information section.

FEC ID or State Board of Elections ID

This number is used for computer indexing. Don’t confuse this with taxpayer identification numbers required by the IRS or the state tax commission.

EIN + documents issued by the IRS or state tax authorities

Examples of issued documents include: CP575, 147C, CP299, 988, 937, 1050 and 5822. As an alternative, you can provide a Certificate of Business Incorporation issued by the state where you conduct business.

Physical address of the campaign organization

This might be the address listed on the incorporation documents, but it cannot be a post office box.

Phone number

This must be a valid, answerable phone number publicly associated with the campaign organization (cannot direct to voicemail).

Email address

This email address must match your organization’s website domain. So if your web domain is www.abc.com, the email would need to be name@abc.com.

Same as described above in the website information section.

Now you’re ready to launch your digital marketing campaign

As the number one Republican voter contact agency in America, Arena has the experience, know-how and resources to help you launch the digital marketing for your political campaign. Our political strategists, web developers, graphic designers, media buyers and reporting analysts make the process easy for you and your campaign team.

How to Launch Digital Marketing for Your Political Campaign