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Monday, September 12, 2011

Online ad deal for GOP digital ad platform CampaignGrid

CampaignGrid, Jeff Dittus' and Rich Masterson's Fort Washington, PA-based online voter-database and target-advertising firm, says it's inked a deal with Scott Ferber's and Thomas McMahon's TidalTV Internet ad-and-targeting service, of Baltimore, to target online political ads to individual Internet users, bypassing traditional TV.

CampaignGrid has become a GOP phenomenon, working in more than 100 races in 2010 and 2008, by helping GOP hopefuls like US Rep Jim Gerlach, R-Pa., and would-be Sen. Sharon Angle, in Nevada, identify Web users whose voting records and Internet traffic patterns show they may be receptive to their client-candidates, then post favorable ads and links on the Web pages the voters visit. 

Together as a one-stop find-em, hook-em service, TidalTV and CampaignGrid hope they'll be able to grab a bigger piece of the estimated record $4.5 billion plus that will be spent next year as Republicans try to wrest the Presidency and the Senate from Democrats at a time when voters are beleagured by both parties. 

The program will use CampaignGrid's proprietary "National Online Voter File" which claims to register the Web locations and preferences of more than 187 million registered voters, chief executive Jeff Dittus told me, to "eliminate waste in advertising."

How? "When you buy ads on NBC10, a candidate in, say, Jim Gerlach's PA District 6 is paying for an audience of 6 million people. With us, you can reach just those of the 130,000 voters in the district who are Republicans and who have volunteered in past campaigns," Dittus told me. 

CampaignGrid, which currently employs 20 fulltime, is moving from its 1,000 sq ft office in a onetime firehouse to a 6,000 sq ft suite nearby (they have a satellite office in DC). ""We're expanding as fast as we can," Dittus told me.

Recent campaigns include defending Republican state Senators in Wisconsin from Democratic- and labor-union-led recall efforts, but Dittus says the firm is busiest with "some of the (Republican Presidential) primary candidates," he won't say which.

No Democrats? "We are working on ways to be bipartisan," without alienating the firm's past client base, Dittus said.
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About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joe has been a member of Bloomberg LP’s New York Finance Team, wrote the book “Comcasted,” taught writing at St. Joseph’s University, and studied economics and history at Penn. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com
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