News

Chris Wilson Joins Newsmax to Discuss the Winners and Losers of the Iowa Caucuses — Aired 02/07/2020

A Bipartisan Analysis of Last Night’s Debate on Twitter and Google Search — Published 01/15/2020

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Chris Wilson Joins Newsmax to Discuss the Iowa Caucuses — Aired 01/13/2020

Chief Strategy Officer Michael Cohen, Ph.D. joins 1210AM The Man to Discuss the 2020 Presidential Election and the Impeachment Process

Positive Thoughts re Google Policy Change

“Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.” — Roy Bennett

While unfortunate, Google’s announcement that they will excessively limit political advertising should not disrupt how political digital operates in any meaningful way. The objective has always been to find a target audience whenever and wherever they are — programmatic buying coupled with device ID targeting allows us to achieve this.

At WPA Intelligence we have never relied exclusively on Google’s ad inventory in order to ensure we are reaching our target audiences. Google does not have the monopoly of digital inventory, and certainly is no longer the best platform nor does it provide the best viewability — putting ad budget on google just because it’s google is like putting your eggs in one basket, you must diversify, especially to expand your reach and frequency.

Our Director of Digital Strategy, Hilary Resta, works with many different demand-side platforms simultaneously in order to maximize our ability reach audiences where their eyeballs are — any campaign must be platform agnostic. Google has always represented just a small piece of what we included in our targeting plans, since one can reach targets more efficiently through other DSP’s.

In fact, with the emergence of Connected TV (CTV) and Over-The-Top (OTT), and an ever expanding network pre-roll inventory, coupled with industry demand for better viewability of ads, it has been more efficient to reach targets through non-google platforms for some time.

Furthermore, Google has never been particularly “friendly” to the use of first party data for targeting (which is what we provide and work from). They’ve always maintained their affinity audiences were just as good as first party data — while other DSPs have put resources behind improving matching capabilities for first party data from firms like WPAi and others.

For example on the Abbott for Governor 2018 campaign (which was likely the largest digital effort of any campaign last cycle), we certainly weren’t going to trust Google targeting over our own, which meant we seldom used Google as part of our media plan for persuasion and mobilization efforts.

Therefore, moving forward all campaigns (political, advocacy and even corporate) must be more creative about digital buys, not just accepting affinity targets or lazily throwing the largest portion of a digital budget on Google.

With more options than ever for video advertising, with expansive and diverse set of networks for both addressable digital video and OTT relying on just one ad network and DSP — Google or, for that matter, anything else — is inefficient for reach and ad budget.

For example, the average completion rate for CTV ads has remained steady at 95% for the past three consecutive quarters — almost 9 times out of 10, ads are played in their entirety. We know videos are the most compelling form of advertisement, and having high completion rates means greater impact.

Employing a cross-channel video advertising strategy helps us find the best placements to reach target audiences across all relevant forms of video: traditional TV, addressable linear, streaming (e.g., OTT and CTV), and online video.

No one platform has the placement or inventory across all these video forms, highlighting the need for a holistic approach digital advertising.

As video viewership becomes increasingly fractured, CTV and OTT are bridging the gap between digital and linear TV. Allowing for more data-driven targeting to efficiently reach audiences on every screen while also extending your linear footprint.

2019 has seen tremendous growth in digital video stealing percentages of banner and search ad revenue. Digital video now makes up 16.4% of total internet advertising revenue, up from 14.2% 2018.

A data-driven strategy for digital advertising allows for effective targeting, unique messaging, and efficient budget allocation — critical for success.

The more a voter believes your candidate cares about the issues she cares about the more likely she is to engage, and ultimately vote for you.

Viewership fragmentation and an individuals expectation of content make it clear that digital must be a significant and growing aspect of all outreach and marketing efforts.

As a provider of first party data, the constant innovation happening in digital provides us with a plethora of new avenues for engaging with our target audiences’ ever-changing viewing habits.

The reality is that media habits and technology are changing so fast that no one knows what works today or more importantly what will work tomorrow. And Google’s policy change may end up being a blessing in disguise.

Dunham and Company 2020 Ministry Summit: Bridging the Gap

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The Trump Effect — Published 01/07/2020

The 2016 election was a powerful reminder of the power of leading figures to fundamentally reshape public opinion. Once Donald Trump became the Republican Party’s standard bearer, partisans on both sides polarized around that new reality on issues from trade to opinions of Russia. Seeing this powerful effect in the wild, we decided to apply social science to harness it for our clients.


We conducted a 6,200-person survey experiment, asking a control group if they supported a congressional bill called the “Government Efficiency Act,” opposed it, or did not know enough to form an opinion. This was chosen because it is ideologically neutral, and no one could possibly have a real opinion about this bill because it doesn’t exist. We made it up for purposes of this study. The treatment group received the same question, instead with the added information that President Trump supported it.

This way, the only thing driving real opinion change on the issue was the endorsement. This information moved 67% to have an opinion, up from 19%.

We then modeled the responses from the treatment and control groups, providing scores for every registered voter in the country. We found that compared to the control group, the information that President Trump supported this fictional bill moved Republicans a net 25 points toward support. Conversely, Trump’s support moved Democrats 20 points in opposition.

These models are available to help primary candidates who have been endorsed by the president best leverage it, those who do not have his endorsement (or are running against a Trump endorsed candidate) have the best chance of victory. Furthermore, these data help advocacy groups navigate the effects of presidential support or opposition and companies that may be mentioned in a Trump tweet or speech best deal with the impact.

The Trump models themselves are ready-made to help primary and general election candidates and advocacy organizations understand and target around the most influential and largest share of voice in American politics. We built a widely applicable model with scientific rigor. If President Trump has weighed in on a candidate, company or issue, for or against, a model like this is a must to leverage or evade it.

President Trump may be the most powerful example, but he is far from the only entity whose support or opposition is invoked to drive people to or from a particular candidate or opinion.

Other high-profile politicians are routinely invoked in political messaging. Much political and advocacy messaging and decision-making rests on people’s inclinations to side with business or labor, with industry or environmentalists, etc. Organizations such as the NRA and Planned Parenthood are routinely invoked in both political and policy debates.

So not only does this model have clear and innovative applications directly, but it is a proof of concept for a broader technique we will deploy in a wide variety of political, corporate and advocacy contexts. This method, based on a controlled experiment, models the causal effect of hearing a politician or organization supports a position. This technique can be used by candidates or advocacy groups to judiciously use outside endorsements or hold opponents’ responsible for theirs, and by advocacy groups to know who would benefit from hearing of their support or opposition (or for whom it should be downplayed or withheld).

To follow Matthew Knee on Twitter, click here.

Chris Wilson Joins Kennedy on Fox Business to Discuss Andrew Yang’s Comments about the Democrat Primary Process — Aired 12/30/2019

Chris Wilson Joins Kennedy on Fox Business to Discuss Recent Polls and the Democrat Primary Candidates — Aired 12/12/2019

Chris Wilson Speaks with the Austin American Statesman About New CNN Poll and how Nominating a Far Left Candidate Will Impact Democrats in States like Texas — Published 12/11/19

Biden holds 20-point lead in Texas, poll says
By Nicole Cobler
Austin American Statesman, Published 12/11/2019

But Chris Wilson, a national Republican pollster who worked for the Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Gov. Greg Abbott campaigns in 2016, said the CNN poll shows that Texas Democrats will struggle “if they cave to the far left of their party” and nominate a candidate such as Warren or Sanders.

“That would foreclose basically any chance of putting states like Texas in play and, as we’ve seen in other recent polls, put them way behind in key states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania,” Wilson said.

Read the full article here.