Blog P.I.

Yesterday I managed to get a whole post out of the observation that most, but not all, of the top tier candidates are buying up their own names on Google AdWords. In this post, I’ll try to get some mileage out of reporting something more interesting:

The candidates who are bidding for their own names on Google’s advertising program are also bidding on their opponents’ names.

To take one example, when you search for Mitt Romney on Google, one of the ads you’ll see in the AdWords column along the right-hand side will be for John McCain. So I ran searches for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, and then I compared the results. If the image below hurts your eyes to read, right-click on the image and open a larger version into another browser tab. Here’s what I found, in the order listed:

When you run these searches, slightly different ads come up each time. It’s probably in Google’s interest to mix it up some, not to mention a number of advertisers may be bidding the same amount on some of these phrases. Therefore, the image above is only meant to give a general idea of what ads will appear. For example, since I Photoshopped that together last night, I’ve now seen a Giuliani ad appear in a Romney search. It isn’t reflected above, but it has been factored into this post.

Okay, but who all bought who? Here’s whose name/keyword was bought by whom — keyword, then campaigns:

If you’d rather see who bought whose name as a keyword, try this on for size — campaign, then keywords:

You can probably do all the same armchair analysis here that I can. Obama’s camp believes he can win over Hillary Clinton people (supporters, or those interested enough to Google her name), Romney’s team hopes to win over McCain people, McCain aims to pull support from both his GOP rivals, and the Giuliani squad is on a comparative buying spree, to the point of wooing some Hillary supporters. For some reason, nobody is bidding on either Edwards or Obama.

Meanwhile, in a post seemingly anticipating this one, Oregon Dem consultant Kari Chisholm observed:

The point of a Google ad isn’t to find people who know they’re looking for you — they should be able to find you just fine. It’s to find people who are looking for something else; and your candidate is the answer to their question. This will work even better for the second-tier candidates who aren’t getting much media attention.

I didn’t find any second-tier candidates bidding on the top-tier names, but he’s right: They should be. I also didn’t venture any further than the top six candidates as generally agreed upon by looking at polls, fundraising and what how the Washington Post/New York Times axis treats the various contenders. Another mini-study such as this might turn up some interesting results for other candidates, and other phrases that on which campaigns have bid.

Additionally, election campaigns are not the only customers bidding for higher-placed ads on Google AdWords — they are joined by various for- and not for-profit enterprises, who seek to associate their products and programs with the candidates listed. Here’s what I found, based on the screen caps taken on Saturday night:

• YouTube — that is, Google — bought everybody. They also bid the most. Hmmm.
• The Pew Forum, not (yet) owned by Google, was the only other website/organization to bid, and bid high on the words.
• The Center for American Progress’ Campus Progress bought Obama, and Obama only.
• Something called Ascend Alliance — which appears to be a student exchange program without the students — has bought Romney, but no one else.
• The do-gooders do seem to like Romney: the One campaign claims “Romney wears ONE band.” The ONE blog provides evidence, although it could simply be that he held one in his hand.
• Human Events bought Giuliani and more curiously, Obama as well.
• Cringe-inducing pro-voting groups have attached themselves to Edwards (generationengage.org), Rudy (declareyourself.org) and Romney (megadittoes).
• Moviefone and Tickets-for-Events.com are both betting that people mistake John Edwards for John Edward of “Crossing Over” fame (or “fame”).
• Hillary, Obama, Edwards and Romney all have obviously for-profit concerns bidding on their words — selling buttons and T-shirts, mostly — perhaps saying less about how well they think those candidates will sell than about how the others will not. The market has spoken — and Republicans aren’t moving units so well these days.
• Hillary, Obama and Romney are all popular enough as keywords that a link at the bottom of their columns will take you to more ads, if you wish.
• Trouble for Romney: one of the websites bidding on his name is ConservativesAgainstRomney.com. Lucky for Giuliani, sister site ConservativesAgainstRudy.com does not appear to be bidding on his name.
• On the other hand, the Conservative Book Club appears to have bid on Romney and Romney only, so he should be reassured that not all conservatives are against him.

Anything I missed? Let me know in the comments.

Update: Credit where it’s due: Jeff Jarvis had this idea last week, although we went about it in different ways. Meanwhile, Kate Kaye at the ClickZ News Blog decided to see which candidates had bid on certain issue-related keywords:

iraq war, troop surge, social security, poverty, global warming, climate change, new hampshire, homeland security, terrorism, immigration, us attorneys, alberto gonzales, iran, iran nuclear, nuclear weapons, china trade, trade deficit, wmd, afghanistan, pelosi syria, british sailors, retirement, gay rights, women rights, feminism, labor rights, minimum wage, living wage, abortion, pro life, roe v wade, draft, military draft

So who bought those key words? Apparently none of them.