When Amy McGrath decided to take on Mitch McConnell, few expected it to be easy. And no one expected McGrath to statistically tie McConnell in polls leading up to the election.
DBT was honored to partner in developing and executing McGrath’s digital advertising program. But what’s most noteworthy about the digital program is how the campaign did it.
McGrath made the decision early on to invest in persuasion ads that launched an unheard-of 16 months before Election Day. Unlike the majority of candidates, McGrath thought more long-term and made significant strategic investments to define the race early and persuade voters all across the state on the issues that matter.
DBT worked with the campaign to build the digital advertising program atop three strategic pillars:
$17M
Raised in off-year
67%
Ads & email sourced fundraising
1%
race in poll leading up to election
This evened out Mitch McConnell’s huge financial head start, and gave McGrath a vast grassroots donor base. With DBT as partners, the McGrath campaign’s smart approach to digital advertising helped yield the strongest Senate campaign launch in history and an eventual record-setting $17 million raised in 2019, with digital responsible for bringing in two-thirds of the total campaign haul.